"I urge Fairfax not to take a stand that's contrary to the United States government."

1. Fairfax Council Bends to JCRC against the wishes of its constituents; 2. Peter Byrne's Huffman Close-Up; 3. Fourth Inmate Death in Marin County Jail; 4. People v. Margoliash Update

Last Wednesday night, Fairfax Mayor Coler was tired and impatient, and who could blame her? There had been five Fairfax Town Council meetings in May – four of which were "special meetings". There were recalls against several council members over rent stabilization, and lawsuits over the housing element — with some of the more litigious residents having the gall to complain about the town's mounting legal bills.

As if that were not enough, there was the matter of local demand for a ceasefire resolution to be placed on the agenda. Reportedly, the majority of the small town, known for its hippie vibe (and as the longtime haunt of "Lazlo Letters" author Don Novello, aka Father Guido Sarducci), was in support of a ceasefire resolution. But this had been delayed for months, by rumor under some pressure from the local branch of the ADL, headed by former Assemblyman Marc Levine. More obvious was pressure from the SF JCRC (San Francisco Jewish Community Relations Council) and its sub-group BANJO (Bay Area Network of Jewish Officials), another pro-Israel group with cash to spend – something local peace activists lack.

"You've Seen The Emails":

Perhaps that pressure explains the unusual late-night move that Mayor Coler and Council Member Bruce Ackerman chose to pull, with no public dissent from the Town Attorney or Town Manager. Although the matter of the ceasefire resolution (since reduced to a "peace proclamation") was expected to be agendized for the following week's meeting, Ackerman was allowed to muscle the matter (with no notice and after most listeners had assumed the meeting was largely over) into a last-minute "Future Agenda Items". Ackerman used this time to declare that public opinion had somehow become less favorable toward a ceasefire resolution. Without providing any details, he told the Council in a portentous tone, "you've seen the emails." But had we?

And then came public comment, which, per multiple residents who attend and monitor FTC meetings, had never been provided for the "future agendas" item in the history of FTC meetings. This public comment was dominated by some familiar, if not properly identified, speakers linked to SF JCRC. This included Tiburon ex-mayor Holli Thier, whose media consulting firm touts her JCRC Board position. (Last November, Thier had gone on local TV news to hyperventilate that Richmond Mayor Eduardo Martinez was "the most antisemitic mayor ever" because he and his council had successfully passed the nation's first ceasefire resolution. Undeterred, the Richmond City Council voted on May 2 to divest from all stocks and mutual funds that include companies with ties to Israel.)

At least two of the JCRC-linked speakers were permitted by the Mayor and Council to denigrate and fear-monger about "Islamism" – capably demonstrating that the Council's "United Against Hate" resolution was always tacitly designed to exclude protection for Muslims. The JCRC-linked speakers claimed that any ceasefire resolution would somehow be a threat to the safety of Jewish people. But that claim is belied by the fact that some of the most active ceasefire proponents in the US are Jewish, including Medea Benjamin of Code Pink; David Klion and Peter Beinart of Jewish Currents; and Masha Gessen of The New Yorker Magazine. They are among many Jewish writers and activists who have raised concerns about antisemitism stemming from Israel's ongoing war crimes, and cautioned against conflating Judaism with Israel.

Progressive Town Council Forgets To Clue in Progressive Activists:

In the days after the Fairfax meeting, pro-ceasefire activists reported they’d been blindsided because they had not been given advance notice of Ackerman’s stealth item. But it was clear that the anti-ceasefire, pro-Israel JCRC team had been given notice.

"Unusual" was the restrained term that former Mayor Frank Egger used to describe Ackerman's late insertion of the issue.

An attorney who watched the recordings commented that the Council had violated the Brown Act, and noted apparently deceptive intent indicated by Ackerman's comment after the anti-ceasefire speakers had been allowed to dominate. Ackerman had publicly stated: "it would be much more difficult if it were agendized and if we had a room full of people with all that range of opinions on it..."

Ceasefire Now Marin petition organizer Joe McGarry analyzed it as "a calculated choice to use the 'future agendas' title rather than calling it what is was" in order to hide it from ceasefire proponents – while privately communicating the opportunity to speak to the anti-ceasefire group.

"Ackerman would adhere to their request to make a surprise attempt to dissuade the subcommittee from moving foward," McGarry said. In his view, it amounted to a coordinated effort between Ackerman, Coler, and the Town Manager "to ambush the other three council members and the public."

Even for those unfamiliar with Fairfax procedures, something seemed “off” during the meeting, with the JCRC-linked speakers trying to insert their anti-ceasefire comments earlier (during consent items.) This exasperated Coler, who apparently wasn't keen on having them speak that early – possibly because the early attempts threatened to give the game away.

Council Meetings Don't Happen In A Vacuum:

For context, this unusual Council move occurred days after Israel dropped multiple 2,000-lb “bunker-buster” bombs and other US-made munitions on a tent encampment of sleeping Palestinian refugees in Rafah. It occurred a week after the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. And it occurred the day after Israel's 972 Magazine, together with The Guardian newspaper, released an exposé showing that Israel's Mossad had waged a nine-year-long program of spying and threats against the ICC in an effort to evade prosecution.

On the same day as the Fairfax Town Council meeting, it was reported that Meta/Facebook had to remove hundreds of fake pro-Israel accounts linked to STOIC, a "political marketing and business intelligence firm" based in Israel. The accounts posed as "Jewish students, African Americans and 'concerned citizens'," and they were used to praise the IDF's murderous actions, and criticize both the pro-Palestinian college protest movement, and UNRWA. These accounts were also active on X and YouTube, although they do not appear to have been removed from those sites. Some of the sentiments expressed by the pro-Israel, AI-generated bot accounts were remarkably in sync with statements made by the ADL and JCRC, which also matched the comments from the pro-Israel crowd that spoke at Fairfax Town Council on Wednesday night.

The Honorable Vocal Fry:

The comments of the first speaker, Gina DeAngelis, an attorney and administrative law judge for California's Public Utilities Commission, were typical of the group. Despite her legal background, DeAngelis made absolutely zero reference to the ICC arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant. Instead, DeAngelis opened with "I spend all my disposable income at Good Earth, so I hope you can consider me an honorary resident." Sure, why not? But DeAngelis' subsequent statements were less reasonable; she claimed that ceasefire resolutions or anything resembling ceasefire resolutions "can bring violence to people, it can bring harassment, it can bring, um, people like me are scared to have mezuzah's on their front door."

But there is no indication that any of that is true. Claims by the ADL that antisemitic hate crimes have dramatically spiked are undercut by the ADL's insistence that anyone merely wearing a keffiyeh, holding a Palestinian flag, or saying "from the river to the sea" could be engaged in an anti-semitic act.

In reality, actual physical attacks on Arabs, Muslims, and Palestinians in the US have significantly increased since October 7, as have retaliatory firings of workers who express any support for the plight of Palestinian civilians. These anti-Arab and anti-Muslim attacks follow the last two decades of US law enforcement agencies targeting Arab and Muslim Americans, detaining them without rights, and, in clearly documented cases, torturing and killing them. It is inconceivable that an administrative law judge in the employ of the State of California is somehow unaware of that.

But DeAngelis' subsequent statement, replete with vocal fry, was even more concerning.

"At this point in time, I think we can all agree that the President of our country, the Joint Chiefs of Staff? Austin? Of the military? Our Secretary of State? Blinken? All strongly support what Israel is doing and doesn't support a ceasefire resolution, I mean, that kind of concept. We're in a horrible situation and we're dealing with a terrorist organization that's governing a group of people."

We're in a horrible situation and we're dealing with a terrorist organization that's governing a group of people: It was unclear which side Judge DeAngelis was referring to in this statement. Did she mean Hamas? Or did she mean the state of Israel, which had recklessly killed Israeli hostages in its assaults, and had only just days before had bombed sleeping Palestinian civilians taking refuge in mere tents? A bunker-buster bombing that had created the very thing that Israel falsely accused Palestinians of: Babies burned alive and babies decapitated.

DeAngelis continued: "We, we can't, I urge Fairfax not to take a stand that's contrary to the United States government."

But, why not? Individual local governments take issue with US policy frequently, it is an essential part of our admittedly tattered democratic process. How does a judge, even a mere administrative law judge at the dysfunctional CPUC, not understand that? How does a judge fail to include at least an acknowledgement that a significant legal body, the International Criminal Court, had been forced to issue arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant, and that it was the US that was defying a court recognized by almost every civilized nation in the world except the US and Israel?

Apparently the only actual Fairfax resident in Wednesday's anti-ceasefire speaker group was Cindy Ross, who had, in 2006, written a dismissive article for Jweekly (a publication that had shared funding sources with Israeli spying operation Canary Mission) about local Palestinian activists. During Wednesday night's meeting, Ross claimed that Islam wants to "deconstruct" Israel as part of a larger attack on "the West." This was an extraordinary claim given that the most vicious military attacks of the last two decades were launched by “the West” against Muslim and Arab countries.

Fairfax Is "United Against Hate" Unless You're Muslim:

There were only two who pushed back on the anti-ceasefire commenters. And out of the entire public comment period, only one commenter was cut off by the mayor, a young Jewish woman who lives in Fairfax and who expressed disdain for what she called the Zionist project. Two takeaways from the video recording seem noteworthy: 1. the young anti-zionist Jewish resident was cut off immediately after she had correctly stated that, in the onslaught of Israel’s bombing, "the hostages are being massacred by Netanyahu, too"; and 2. it is clear from the video that the call to cut her off comes not from Ackerman or Coler, but from the "progressive" Cutrano and Blash, who were visibly angered and started gesticulating for Coler to cut the caller off.

Similarly, neither Blash nor Cutrano nor anyone else on Fairfax Town Council had objected when an anti-ceasefire commenter claimed that "the murder of Jews is an Islamist purpose" or when Cindy Ross had claimed that Islam's desire to "deconstruct Israel" posed a larger threat to "the West." (It would have been simple enough for any “progressive” council member to add the context that the worst slaughter of Jewish people, the Holocaust, had, in fact, been enacted by "the West", and not by any Arab or Muslim people.)

So while it is fair to suggest the possibility that Blash, Hellman and Cutrano were blindsided by Coler and Ackerman's actions, the troubling reality is that they did absolutely nothing to contest it during the actual meeting, nor did they challenge any of the Islamophobic statements by the pro-Israel commenters.

Fairfax Nixes Ceasefire Resolution, Proposes Word Salad:

The agenda for the next meeting, June 5, does not include the "ceasefire resolution" requested by so many residents. It does contain a meandering, soggy-eyed "proclamation for peace" penned by Hellman and Cutrano.

I understand the desire of local activists to declare victory and move forward onto more urgent actions on behalf of Palestinians in Gaza. What is a ceasefire resolution compared to a demand for divestment? What is a series of letters compared to peacefully occupying a building? It is a broader range of actions that activists are now considering and engaging in, in part because their local, state, and federal representatives have been so resistant to mere ceasefire resolutions.

But I admit I was still shocked by the sheer cowardice of the Fairfax "proclamation". To read it in comparison to the muscular statement in defense of Palestinians produced by the multi-racial city council in Richmond, California over six months ago (when the Palestinian civilian death toll was a fraction of what it is now), is sobering. That is not to say, "why bother demanding such things?" but rather to caution against entrenching the current double standard wielded against Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims by endorsing a "proclamation" that tries to both-sides a genocide, especially when it is done after the ICC warrants had been issued.

Cutrano and Hellman’s proposed proclamation:

1. refers to "ongoing conflict" but refuses to acknowledge the ICJ case currently being heard against Israel; the ICC arrest warrants; or the words "war crime" or "famine conditions";

2. refers to "conflict that has killed tens of thousands, displaced millions of civilians and children" but politely sidesteps the matter of "who were the tens of thousands killed? And by whom?"

3. identifies Hamas as an Islamist militant movement that contributes to "ongoing instability and conflict in the region", but declines to note that Hamas is a relatively recent development and that it is actually Israel and the US that have, for decades, contributed to massive instability and conflict in "the region";

4. refuses to acknowledge Israel's serial bombing of hospitals, universities, refugee camps in Gaza;

5. refers to "hostages" but refuses to acknowledge the thousands of Palestinian hostages that Israel has held for decades in its abusive prisons, many being juveniles held without charges, and many sexually and physically abused;

6. refuses to acknowledge the extreme depravity recorded, flaunted, and publicly shared to social media by IDF soldiers themselves – not just a record of war crimes, but a self-celebration war crimes;

7. refuses to acknowledge that the US itself, through its provision of military aid, military equipment, and munitions is deeply complicit in the genocide of Palestinians;

8. refuses to identify that the US itself is in open defiance of the ICC arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant (and will be hosting Netanyahu in Congress this week)

...and so on.

On nearly every point, the proposed proclamation is grotesque. It's like a statement that says: "We express sympathy for the Vietnamese peasants massacred and raped at My Lai and, by golly, equally bad for the US soldiers who followed Army instructions to massacre and rape them." Remember the pointless "land acknowledgement" that Fairfax starts every meeting with? This is basically the same thing, but with a whole new gallery of victims.

Timing Is Everything, or, at least, A Lot Of Things

In late October 2023, multi-racial Richmond City Council passed an actual ceasefire resolution, specifically pledging solidarity with Gaza. In January, the City of Hayward took it a step further, and divested $1.6 milion from companies with ties to Israel (Hayward is majority non-white, and both its mayor and mayor pro tem are Latino.) In March, the City Council of Fremont, which is majority Asian American, issued a succinct six-paragraph letter that diplomatically shames neither side but is notable for its timing and its language. It refers to "the Palestine region" and, long before the head of the UN World Food Program got around to declaring Northern Gaza to be in "full-blown famine", the Fremont letter stated clearly:

"We have a humanitarian obligation as people, to speak out against actions that endanger those who are innocent, and above all, we must call for the safety of children by ensuring adequate supplies of food and water."

Note the use of the collective: “we". And the imperative: “must call". That was on March 20, 2024. It's June and Fairfax Town Council has only now placed a "peace proclamation" on the agenda for Wednesday. I would have thought that an all-white town council in wealthy Marin would have had more latitude to move on this issue, and faster, than workingclass, multi-racial councils in the Bay Area. The fact that Fairfax declined to do so raiaes some obvious questions about racial bias, even on a “progressive” council.

2. Everything You Needed to Know About Jared Huffman, But Were Afraid To Ask:

Investigative reporter Peter Byrne just wrote a banger of an article on Congressman Jared Huffman, published in Counterpunch, it is worth a year's worth of articles in the Pacific Sun. Print it out, read it, put it in your pocket and read it to your friends at the bar or the beach.

3. Fourth inmate death in less than a year at the Marin County Jail occurred in May. It took the Pacific Sun until 2024 to report on the County's recent spate of jail deaths. But neither the Pacific Sun nor the Marin Independent Journal have touched the underlying abusive conditions within the jail, nor identified how members of the County's shoddy "AB 1185 Sheriff Civilian Oversight Working Group" whitewashed jail conditions. Nor has either publication investigated the correlation between the inception of the County’s “involuntary psych med program" and the uptick in jail deaths. These issues have been addressed in detail on this substack and I am grateful for your ongoing interest in these difficult subjects, and for your input.

4. Latest Margoliash Hearing: David J. Margoliash, who allegedly attacked the Islamic Center of North Marin on the first night of Ramadan 2024, appeared for a May 31, 2024 hearing regarding mental health diversion. This, too, is a developing story, and I will be adding articles to the substack about the prosecution; about the Schwarzenegger-appointed Judge Kelly Simmons; and about the larger environment of race and privilege currently playing out in Marin County Superior Court. There are many moving parts — I appreciate your inquiries about the case and your patience as I continue to gather information.

©️2024 Eva Chrysanthe