More than 70 people poured into the forum chambers at last night’s A.S. Council meeting to address a resolution that calls for a ceasefire to the violence in Gaza. Due to the large number of individuals present at the meeting, it took nearly an hour for speakers to share their thoughts.
The council began its meeting with an announcement for Alpha Chi Omega’s annual philanthropy event, Mr. Alpha Chi, to which the council reacted with relieved chuckles around the room. This announcement was followed by comment after comment from people present at the meeting solely to discuss the drafted resolution.
‘The whole point of this resolution is to condemn violence, to condemn the loss of life,’ Sixth College freshman Omar Khan said.’ ‘We’re not asking you to take a stand on one side or another. We’re asking you to stand with the victims.’
‘To all of those that tell you that you don’t have the right to vote on this resolution, this is about UC-wide condemnation of violence,’ former senator Rishi Ghosh said.’ ‘You guys need to stand up for human rights and say that we as students unilaterally disagree with this kind of violence.’
Aaron Horning of Hillel pointed out the uncomfortable reality that the part of the room designated for members of the public was generally divided between those who stand for Palestine and those standing for Israel.
All-Campus Senator Chris Westling motioned for the council to proceed to the New Business section of the agenda so that the council could discuss the drafted Gaza resolution. A.S. Speaker Jordan Taylor nixed this motion and the council subsequently proceeded to squander the next 20 minutes deciding whether it could overturn Taylor’s decision.
Amid the debate, which included a lengthy and repetitive voting process, Taylor had to depart for the Triton Engineering Student Council meeting and was temporarily replaced by Revelle College Senator Katie Hall.
The final decision from the council was that the resolution would not be added to New Business at this week’s meeting, no special committee would be formed and that the constituents would re-submit the resolution to the council by Sunday.
‘I want to apologize for council being tied up in bureaucratic consults while people are dying,’ Westling said with obvious frustration to the members of the public that had patiently stayed through the lengthy discussion.
‘I just wanted to say that I’m disappointed, especially when we voted to not allow members of public onto the speakers’ list,’ Physical Sciences Senator Daniel Nguyen said in a similar tone.
The rest of the meeting went smoothly once councilmembers decided that the issue of the resolution would be tackled the following week. The council unified over the topic of the A.S. activity fee referendum election, which has been going on all week.
‘I was looking at the numbers and they’re not dismally low, but they’re not fantastic,’ Frank Carroll said. ‘I really want to see everyone going full force these last two days.’