On a day the Birmingham City Council honored Jewish American History Month, dozens of anti-Israel protesters used the meeting’s public comment forum to demand a so-called cease-fire resolution for the Israel-Hamas conflict.
Among the speakers during Monday’s meeting was a man who identified himself as Morgan Larson.
In addition to petitioning for the cease-fire petition, Larson directly addressed his representative, Birmingham City Councilwoman Crystal Smitherman, a black woman who represents Birmingham’s predominantly minority District 6.
Larson argued the plight of the modern-day Palestinians was akin to that of the 20th-century Civil Rights Movement-era Birmingham.
“[D]uring the Civil Rights Movement, Birmingham was a battlefield,” he said. “There are still people living in your district, Crystal, that remember bombs being thrown through windows, houses destroyed, and families being split apart. The Birmingham Police brutalized adults and children alike for demanding a better life outside of Jim Crow.”
“And today, the colonizer state of Israel is murdering children alongside with their parents, aunts and uncles as we speak. They are bombing homes, mosques and churches as we speak, Crystal. Israel is committing a genocide against the Palestinian people with the full backing of a Democrat in the White House, and that is no secret. What we’re coming to ask today is, will Birmingham also be complicit in this genocide?”
He said inaction on a resolution would make her “no better than Bull Connor,” referring to Birmingham’s former Democrat Commissioner of Public Safety, who used heavy-handed tactics on civil rights protesters.
“If you choose inaction, Councilor Smitherman, if you pretend this issue irrelevant to Birmingham, that makes you no better than the cops who used firehoses and attack dogs on children. It makes you no better than Bull Connor. Even if you refuse to watch as genocide unfolds, your children, grandchildren, nieces, and nephews will not. They will ask you what you did for the Palestinian people.”
“Are you prepared to tell them that activists came to you with a cease-fire resolution, and you voted against it?” Larson added. “Are you too cowardly to oppose an unfolding genocide? I look forward to your ‘yes’ vote on the cease-fire resolution or, alternatively, your letter of resignation before November.”
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor
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