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Dear Santa Ana City Council, <br />I write today to share my concerns about the Santa Ana Resolution in Solidarity with the Palestinian <br />People in Support of a Ceasefire to be considered at the December 5, 2023, meeting. <br />The resolution includes inflammatory rhetoric that is divisive and one-sided. It makes a false equivalency <br />between babies taken by terrorists as hostages to prisoners convicted of violent crimes who are not <br />hostages by any definition. It uses inaccurate terms like ethnic cleansing, genocide, and apartheid which <br />are all too often used to justify bigotry towards the Jewish people. <br />Two things can be true: Our hearts break at the loss of innocent life in both Israel and Gaza, and the <br />worsening humanitarian crisis unfolding in Gaza. At the same time, we can hold Hamas accountable for <br />deliberately putting innocent Palestinians in harm's way in pursuit of their nefarious goals. <br />The proposed ceasefire resolution distorts the facts and does not include a forceful condemnation of <br />Hamas or its terrorist attack on Israel on October 7. It weaponizes the phrase "Never Again" and <br />references the Holocaust in a way that is insulting to the 6 million Jews and countless others who were <br />systematically murdered by the Nazi regime. And most insulting is that the resolution "vows to combat <br />antisemitism" while it actually promotes and amplifies it. <br />Additionally, there already is an ongoing ceasefire which has been negotiated in a hostage / prisoner <br />exchange between the two combatants. What is the purpose of a City resolution calling for a ceasefire if <br />there already is one? <br />I urge you to reject the resolution. <br />Sincerely, <br />John Pearson <br />