Veto, scemeto, says Jacob Frey
Word comes that the Minneapolis City Council has overridden Mayor Jacob Frey’s veto of its resolution calling for a cease-fire in Palestine and a cessation of military aid to Israel.
Good. I’m glad they stuck to their guns. Barely, but they did it.
Not to be outdone, the mayor put in his own two cents:
Last week, Frey vetoed a City Council resolution calling for a cease-fire in the conflict, as well as an end to U.S. military support for Israel. Frey said he could support a basic statement supporting a cease-fire and the creation of an independent Palestinian state, but he called the wording approved by the council “one-sided,” saying it “uplifts the history of Palestinians and all but erases that of Israeli Jews.”
Let’s pause right here and say that calls for a two-state solution are a a cynical and craven effort to pretend to care about Palestinians. Where would you put a Palestinian state, Jake? The settler colonialists from places like Brooklyn and Cleveland have gobbled up most of the West Bank. You know, Jake, those people who gather on West Bank hills, blow the shofar, and sacrifice goats? They’re committing acts of violence against Palestinian West Bankers every day, and have since at least 1967.
These people aren’t going anywhere. There would be a civil war in Israel if anybody tried to dispossess them. Not that the Israeli government really wants to. And Gaza lies in ruin.
So, again: where, Jake?
The United States owns this situation, of course. I mean, we paid for it.
Did I say that Frey’s remarks were cynical and craven? I guess I did, but it’s worth repeating.
Israel has NEVER put a real Palestinian state, with sovereignty, resources, or capacity for defense on the table. At most, it wants a student council Palestine, a Bantustan, under the continuing thumb of Israel. Palestinians think that’s insulting; so do I.
Frey whines about not uplifting Israeli history. You are lucky, Jake. Israeli history is full of terrorism by the Stern Gang, and one of its members, Menachem Begin, a future Prime Minister of Israel, whose acts include blowing up the King David Hotel in Jerusalem and the British soldiers in it, leading to the abandonment of the British Protectorate of Palestine instituted after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire after the First World War. The state of Israel was born out of terrorism.
Jacob Frey is, or was until recently, a member of the board of directors of the Jewish Community Relations Council, an outfit that I have written about before, and will certainly write about in the future. It is the principal defender of Israel in the upper Midwest.
I thirst for a chance to sit down in a public forum and discuss Palestine with Jacob Frey. We could do it at Drinking Liberally.
What do you say, Mayor Frey? I know you know where the 331 Club is.
Addendum
Back in January, when a resolution was first proposed on the subject of Palestine, the Star Tribune editorial board drew itself up to its full height and huffed, “Stay in your lane Minneapolis City Council!” The actual title of the editorial was, “A city council in the wrong place.”
Which is pretty funny. The editorial board believes it is always in the right place and is free to tell others when they are not, to be a self-appointed lane monitor. At least the council members were elected.
In my observation, a hectoring “stay in your lane” means, “I don’t like you opinion.” I am sure that’s true here. In a stunning moment of self-unawareness, the editorial board said this:
It’s not hard to see why the council might want to weigh in. Such actions by lower governments have sometimes been building blocks of support for broad international goals of humanity — for instance, ending apartheid in South Africa.
That sounds like a reason to pass a cease-fire resolution, no?
To analogize to politics a little, the platform of the DFL — precinct caucuses coming up — is built by caucus attendees offering resolutions at their caucus; resolutions with support move up to district, and finally the state convention. Bottom up, just as the editorial board observes. (I think the Republicans just do what Donald Trump wants them to do, but that’s another story.)
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