SAN FRANCISCO– Amid a tough re-election fight, Mayor London Breed has declined to veto a non-binding resolution from San Francisco supervisors calling for an extended ceasefire in Gaza, a move she blames fueling tensions in the city.
The first-term Democrat posted her decision online Friday, accusing the board of focusing on a foreign policy in which members have no legal authority or expertise. She said the debate over the resolution has made the city “angrier, more divided and less safe.”
“Their practice was never about bringing people together,” Breed wrote in a statement. “It was about choosing a side.”
A divided administration approved the resolution earlier this month, which condemned both Hamas and the Israeli government and urged the Biden administration to push for the release of all hostages and the provision of humanitarian assistance. Ceasefire advocates in the crowd erupted in cheers and chants of “Free Palestine.”
Breed previously criticized the supervisors, saying, “The process at the board has only fueled division and hurt.”
San Francisco joined dozens of other U.S. cities in passing a resolution that has no legal weight but reflects pressure on local governments to speak out on the war between Israel and Hamas, now in its fourth month after a deadly attack by Hamas militants on October 7.
Breed says she usually refrains from commenting on non-binding board decisions, but in this case she made an exception. Her decision came ahead of the March 5 primary, in which she tells voters she is making progress in the fight against homelessness, public drug use and property crime in a city that has seen a wave of unwanted publicity over vacant downtown offices and stratospheric house prices.
The response to the ongoing Israeli military action in Gaza is shaking campaigns from the White House to city halls. A poll by The Associated Press and the NORC Center for Public Affairs Research in early November found that 40% of the American public thought Israel’s response in Gaza had gone too far.
Breed lamented the suffering in Gaza and the loss of life on both sides. But she chastised activists who scoffed when a man spoke of family members killed in the Hamas attack, and she wrote that a Jewish City worker was surrounded by protesters in a restroom.
Breed wrote that ‘abject anti-Semitism’ had apparently become acceptable to some activists.
“The anti-Semitism in our city is real and dangerous,” she wrote, adding that a veto of the resolution would likely lead to more divisive hearings and “fuel even more anti-Semitic acts.”
Breed said she has spoken to countless Jewish residents “who told me they don’t feel safe in their own city. … They fear increasing acts of vandalism and intimidation.”
Supervisor Dean Preston, who introduced the ceasefire resolution, told the San Francisco Chronicle he was glad the mayor did not veto the resolution, which is now final.
Lara Kiswani, executive director of the Arab Resource and Organizing Center, an organization that has planned protests calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, told the newspaper that Breed’s statement contained “dangerous, racist, threadbare anti-Arab tropes.” amplified who seem to ignore our community completely.”