Chicago Has Spoken — Should We Care?      

Last week, Chicago’s city council passed a “cease-fire” resolution, calling for Israel to indefinitely pause its military campaign against Gaza, even as Hamas continues to shell Israeli towns and hold 136 hostages. The day the vote was held, I was sitting in the council chambers, watching one of the most heated votes ever in my nine years of involvement in city politics. When the ultimate tally was called in favor of the resolution, those in favor celebrated, while those opposed felt a crushing sense of disappointment.

Now, as a legal matter, the City of Chicago’s jurisdiction extends only as far as the city’s municipal limits and certainly doesn’t bind a foreign military in a country on a different continent. So why, in fact, does the Chicago resolution matter? What, if any, significance does it have?

I’ve been surprised at the number of times I’ve been asked this question. The question itself is not surprising; it’s a valid one and deserves a good answer. I’ve only been surprised at the level of interest and engagement shown by people who usually don’t pay much attention to geopolitical matters. But once I thought about it, I realized that the answers to why the resolution matters and why so many people care about it are one and the same.

Support of Israel was once overwhelmingly strong on both sides of the political aisle. That support has unfortunately eroded among some elected Democrats who identify as progressives. (It has also weakened among some Republicans, especially among those of an isolationist bent.) One of the goals of the resolution’s proponents was to move the Democratic Party away from reflexive pro-Israel sentiments, and they arguably accomplished that. The passage of a measure perceived as anti-Israel normalizes the demonization of the Jewish State, which is certainly not a good thing. But that is not the most troubling aspect of what happened with this resolution.