Assemblyman Muratsuchi On Israel Trip: "...To Go To The War Front To Witness For Myself"
As California Native Americans Chant In Legislative Chambers, Muratsuchi Answers Questions On His Trip To Israel; Anti-Ceasefire Letter Signed by 51 Elected Reps Uncovered; Your Questions Answered
Image above: part of the ornately tiled floor at California’s State Capitol
This is probably going to be the shortest article yet from “Marin County Confidential” — just two items, one related to Southern California and the other to the San Francisco Bay Area. The first is a brief video I recorded on August 5, 2024 of Torrance Assemblyman Al Muratsuchi in the hallway of the State Capitol responding to my questions about his 2024 trip to Israel. (This was recorded the day before California educators and activists convened to lobby legislative offices against four toxic bills that targeted free speech and ethnic studies.)
The second item is an anti-ceasefire letter I uncovered in a recent CPRA to the City of Larkspur. The anti-ceasefire letter was signed by 51 Bay Area elected officials and appears not to have been made available to the general public. Nearly one-quarter of the 51 elected representatives who signed that letter represent districts in Marin County. All signed in defiance of the reality that the majority of Americans have supported a ceasefire since last winter. To my knowledge, none of the electeds have removed their names from the letter.
I.
Muratsuchi Responds To Questions About February 2024 Israel Junket:
At the point when I turned on my camera to record my questions for Assemblyman Al Muratsuchi (District 66, encompassing Torrance, Redondo Beach, and Manhattan Beach), I had already spoken at some length with Muratsuchi’s and Connolly’s staff about the lack of disclosure regarding their shared 2024 February trip to Israel. Neither office could point to any public statement that either Assemblymember had released about the trip.
In fact, none of the legislators on that all-expenses-paid February 2024 junket to Israel, which occurred mid-genocide, will have to disclose the trip or who paid for it to the Fair Political Practices Commission until April 2025. But some have made minor disclosures through social media, while a few, such as State Senator Scott Wiener, have been public about their participation on the trip.
In the afternoon, as I headed for the exit of the Capitol building, feeling that my train ticket had been for naught, I saw Assemblyman Muratsuchi enter the building, and thought I should at least try to get some answers on the record. I recorded mostly for fact-checking purposes and openly held my camera pointed at the floor of the public space. In this way, Muratsuchi could see the recording without feeling too imposed upon by having the camera in his face.
While the video shields Muratsuchi’s facial expressions, it does show a glimpse of the luxuriousness of the Capitol – in this case, the immaculate, costly rug that muffles the sound of so many expensive, hard-soled shoes on the beautiful wooden stairs. And oh, that intricate tile work once you reach the second floor ballustrade! (As a Broadway producer incredulously enthused to a dying Roy Scheider in the finale of “All That Jazz”: “This must have cost a fortune!”)
But you don’t have to listen too closely to notice that, as Muratsuchi and I climb the stairs and approach the legislative chambers, the chanting of California Native Americans from within the chambers grows louder. They were there to perform for the legislators as part of the announcement of “California Native American Day”. Given the history, it was an eerie audio overlay as I questioned Muratsuchi about the ethics of traveling to Israel during a genocide:
The US government’s role in the genocide of Native Americans, even (and especially) in California, is still not covered at any length in California’s public schools, despite an entire year being devoted specifically to California history. This is one of many problems that ethnic studies teachers are trying to reconcile, much to the consternation of the San Francisco Jewish Community Relations Council and other lobbying groups, as covered previously.
Note: Assemblyman Muratsuchi presents an elegant face where others are often cloddish. He was unruffled by a middle-aged nobody such as myself peppering him with questions. But while Muratsuchi’s responses are teflon-smooth compared to those of JCRC/BANJO members, they are nonetheless deceptive. I note the following in his statements:
1. Muratsuchi did disclose his trip on social media, but apparently did not disclose who paid for it.
2. Muratsuchi made no disclosure on his official governmental website.
3. Muratsuchi made a statement to “at least one Jewish publication” but apparently not to any general news publication.
4. Muratsuchi replied to my question about who paid for the trip by stating “I thought that was public information.” But Muratsuchi cannot be unaware that his 2024 trip will not be public information until he discloses it on his Form 700 for 2024, which is not required to be filed until April 2025.
5. Muratsuchi stated that his trip was paid for by the Jewish Federation (by which I think he meant the Jewish Federation Los Angeles, which is strongly pro-Israel) and by “a Bay Area group” which was apparently the SF JCRC, also strongly pro-Israel and shamelessly anti-Palestinian.)
6. In response to my questions about the “appropriateness” of traveling to Israel at a time when Israel is credibly accused of a plausible case of genocide at the International Court of Justice, Muratsuchi responded that “I thought it was appropriate and important for me to go to the war front to witness for myself, you know, as close as possible. We went to the Gaza border, we were not able to go into Gaza.” But how are you going to visit the "war front", if you are not actually going into Gaza, where over 150 journalists and other reporters have already been killed by Israel?
7. When asked about the 186,000 Palestinian civilian casualties estimated in a recent letter in The Lancet, Muratsuchi responded, “Well, I’m not here to argue about the numbers of people that are dying in that – clearly it’s a tragedy.”
8. When I pointed out that it is “a tragedy we can control”, Muratsuchi seemed to concede that reality, by saying, “Yeah.”
9. When I pointed out that it was less a tragedy and more an issue of our own country’s complicity in war crimes, Muratsuchi said, “Okay, all right. Thank you,” and walked away.
In other words, it’s okay to say it’s a “tragedy”, but the conversation must end if we recognize that the US is complicit in ongoing war crimes.
All that said, I was grateful that Muratsuchi provided some vague answers, although it should be noted that legislators’ offices are exempt from California public records act requests.
II.
A Late 2023 Anti-Ceasefire Letter Signed by 51 Bay Area Elected Officials:
As you may have noticed, last week there was a Democratic Convention in Chicago and, despite many requests, the DNC refused to allow a single Palestinian speaker to address the convention, even amid a plausible case of genocide against Palestinians enacted with our tax dollars. (And this even as the Arab American vote could make or break the election for the Democratic Harris-Walz ticket.)
But as I have been at pains to relate over many months, this anti-Palestinian and anti-Muslim bias is suffused through all the local correspondence in Bay Area government. Another case amongst far too many:
A CPRA request I made to the City of Larkspur turned up a blurry November 9, 2023 email from current Larkspur Mayor Scot Candell, urging his fellow councilmembers to sign a letter identifiable only through a link. A followup request I made to the Larkspur City Clerk for the linked letter revealed the following anti-ceasefire letter signed by 51 Bay Area elected officials. The letter is deceptively titled, “Commitment to Supporting Local Communities in the Face of Foreign Conflict.”
The remainder of the letter is provided in screenshots at the end of this article. But note the great irony in the letter’s "opposing divisive and inflammatory joint statements or government resolutions.” In fact, there was never anything divisive about ceasefire resolutions, given that the majority of the American people have supported a ceasefire since last winter, very early into Israel's genocidal assault on Gaza.
Rather, the divisiveness and the inflammatory conduct was generated entirely by the Israel lobby and alleged “nonprofits” such as the SF JCRC, with its insistence on pushing back on that rare event when Americans actually came together very early in a conflict to say, effectively, “no, thank you, we prefer peace.”
Perhaps that is why the anti-ceasefire letter was not shared with the general public. It was apparently a behind-the-scenes effort, and may have remained so, absent my CPRA.
But this particular anti-ceasefire letter has proven to be a trove of information, providing names that, with a few simple searches, link to a surfeit of bad and/or bullying conduct: from a trust fund baby’s fight against making a Palestinian refugee camp a sister city to a Bay Area municipality; to beatdowns on public school teachers who dared to criticize the US-Israel relationship; to mutually beneficial relationships between JCRC officials and local law enforcement.
The origin of this letter, and additional details about the composition of those who signed, and how many of them took the JCRC-sponsored trips to Israel will be the subject of a future article. (In some ways, the letter is equally interesting if you consider who did not sign it.)
But at this moment, I note two aspects of the letter that are simple to break down.
Ratios:
Out of 51 Bay Area elected signatories, at least 12 are from Marin County, a whopping 23.5%. And four of the 12 are from San Rafael alone.
Of the 15 “community leaders” who signed, at least five appear to be from Marin County.
Meanwhile, elected officials from “radical” Berkeley make up at least 17.6% of the elected official signatories on the anti-ceasefire letter. Tiny El Cerrito coughed up four elected reps’ signatures, or roughly 8%.
The Signature Of A Singular Physician:
At first glance it appears that only one physician signed onto that anti-ceasefire letter originally circulated in November – amid what was already a massive bombing by Israel of Palestinian civilians trapped in Gaza. The name of that physician is David Taylor, a former UCSF faculty member now in private practice in Marin County. Dr. Taylor is also currently the Board President of the Muir Beach Community Services District, which at one point may have been a simple affair but is currently seated by some unusually powerful players.
I reached out to Dr. Taylor to ask him about how his signature on an anti- ceasefire letter accords with his presumed Hippocratic Oath, which may have been standard for University of Rochester medical school graduates of his era. (Dr. Taylor has a medical degree from the University of Rochester and was trained as a psychiatrist at Columbia.)
I admit that I find it confusing that someone so learned, particularly about aspects of psychology, would be unable to recognize that Israel would be incapable of restraining itself in its retaliation upon Palestinian civilians, particularly if you had any understanding of the last 100 years of history. Meanwhile, perfectly stupid people like myself recognized what was going to happen immediately. Go figure.
But there is far more gleaned from the names on that particular anti-ceasefire letter. And that, as well as any response from the good doctor, will be covered in future articles.
III.
A P.S. on Paid Subscriptions
Many thanks to all those who have attempted to pay for a subscription to my free Substack. Unfortunately, Substack requires my account to use the payment service Stripe, which has still not approved my account. Substack can do nothing to expedite that. If you are frustrated by not being able to pay for this service, please accept my apologies.
But the most important thing is that the information I retrieve and analyze is shared as widely as possible.
If you wish to compensate me for my labor, the most important thing you can do at this time is to share my articles. As always, I am very grateful that there are still people in this world who care about issues of transparency and accountability, whether that’s in terms of our own local politics — or foreign policy, because as we are sadly finding out, they are not disconnected.
©️2024 Eva Chrysanthe
Note: an earlier version of this article published on August 25 incorrectly identified Jennifer Wolfe as a “community leader” signatory to the anti-ceasefire letter. Jennifer Wolfe’s signature is not on the anti-ceasefire letter. The article was updated and corrected on August 26, 2024.
Remainder of the Bay Area Elected Representatives’ Anti-Ceasefire Letter:
