County Commission calls for cease-fire, return of hostages in Gaza

May 4—Santa Fe County recently joined more than 100 local governments across the U.S. calling for a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war.

"This isn't the world that most people want to live in, and I think we can do better," Commissioner Camilla Bustamante, co-sponsor of the resolution, said in an interview. "Everyone, when given the chance, should stand up for better solutions than violence."

Commissioner Anna Hansen, a co-sponsor, said the resolution does not "take sides" but that "it is important to take a stand and say we believe in peace, we believe in negotiations, we believe in dialogue."

Commission Chairman Hank Hughes joined the two to pass the resolution. Commissioners Anna Hamilton and Justin Greene both abstained from the vote, citing different concerns.

The resolution, which commissioners passed Tuesday, urges state and federal lawmakers and the Biden administration to advance a permanent cease-fire and humanitarian aid in Gaza as well as demanding the release of all hostages taken by Hamas and "all people unjustly held in the region." It also condemns antisemitism and Islamophobia.

The resolution says "all human life is precious," calls Hamas's Oct. 7 attack on Israel an "act of terror" and recognizes "the right to self-determination and peaceful, safe futures for both Palestinian and Israeli people."

It also cites a November news release from the United Nations Human Rights Office that "raised the alarm about the risk of genocide in Gaza" and cited "profound concern "about the support of certain governments for Israel's strategy of warfare against the besieged population of Gaza.

"We unequivocally condemn the targeting and killing of Palestinian and Israeli civilians, which would constitute a violation of international law," the resolution says.

Santa Fe city councilors are expected to vote on a similar resolution — which Hansen described as "a little bit more strongly worded" — on Wednesday. Pro-Palestinian activists have regularly called on city councilors to back a cease-fire in public comment, but none has come before the County Commission, including on Tuesday.

Bustamante and Hansen, however, both said they have received calls and emails from constituents affected by the suffering in Israel and the Gaza Strip.

"What has driven me to be an elected official is to make sure that people are allowed to have their expressions heard on a governmental level because that is where things get changed," Hansen said.

Greene said he had only heard from constituents who thought it "inappropriate" for the County Commission to weigh in on the conflict and said Santa Fe County's resolution will have no effect.

"It doesn't mean that I am for the militarism. In fact, I am not," Greene said. "But to ask us to deliver this out there is going to be perceived as sticking our head into something that we shouldn't be in. ... I'm very disappointed that you're posturing this way."

Part of the resolution "is written somewhat forcefully pointing fingers at Israel," he added.

"I disagree with that," Hansen replied.

Hamilton said she fully supports calls for peace in the Middle East but worried passing a cease-fire resolution will fuel "some misguided activism" in the broader movement for a cease-fire.

Pro-Palestinian activism "is in part really well-motivated and in part really poorly motivated," she said. "The activism is a combination of '[From the] river to the sea' as well as 'You shouldn't be bombing Palestinians because of what Hamas did,' so it's a mix, and no matter how well written this is, one of my concerns is that it will be taken as support of that kind of activism which includes death to Americans as well as death to Israelis because of the extremists.

"It has nothing to do with being ... for military responses to something that should be negotiated and should be done in a way that preserves life, but the fact is" the movement has antisemitic overtones, she added.

Hughes echoed worry Jewish people "feel threatened by this, even though it is not worded that way," and voted in favor of the resolution "with concerns that I don't want anyone to feel that this is anything except for asking the people in the Middle East to get along and live together in peace."

Asked for comment on the county's action, Alonet Zarum Zandan — a Santa Fean who, after Oct. 7, co-founded the Jewish Community Relations Coalition of New Mexico, which represents 25 Jewish organizations in the state — provided a letter the coalition sent Santa Fe city councilors Wednesday that forcefully rejected the city's cease-fire resolution.

"Throughout the country, these essentially performative local government ceasefire resolutions relating to a war thousands of miles away, have been a magnet for hate and division," the letter said. "These resolutions ignore that a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas was in place on October 6th and that this ceasefire was unilaterally violated by Hamas."

The county's resolution is similarly harmful, Zandan said in an interview.

"There's huge differences here. You've got a planned massacre of Israelis and Jews, right, being equated with Israel having the right to defend itself," she said.

Commissioners "need to do their work for the people of the county," she continued. "Honestly, it blows my mind that people think this is what Santa Fe County should be doing."

The Santa Fe Ad Hoc Committee on Palestine, which did not respond to a request for comment Friday, previously called on city leaders to strengthen their proposed cease-fire resolution. The committee urged demands for "an end to weapons shipments to Israel, an immediate refunding of [the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East], an end to the siege of Gaza, and an end to and punishment for [Israeli army]-abetted settler violence on the West Bank."

Santa Fe County's cease-fire resolution did not include such demands.