In a memo to the San Antonio City Council and city staff on Wednesday, Mayor Ron Nirenberg said a ceasefire resolution vote on the Israel-Hamas War would not be held. The announcement followed District 8 Councilman Manny Pelaez’s decision to rescind his signature on the joint memo that called for the special meeting.
“In consideration of our goal to ease rather than exacerbate trauma within our community, the special meeting will not be scheduled now that the request lacks the required support,” Nirenberg’s memo said.
He also said nothing the city council could do would be adequate to address the situation.
“No gesture — however well-intentioned — from our city’s government can capture the intricacies of history of the Arab/Palestinian-Israeli conflict, nor could it appropriately represent the breadth of the grief and pain that has been felt for generations,” he said. “Wading into a complex and volatile international environment with an incomplete understanding could prove to be reckless.”
Pelaez said he withdrew his support for the ceasefire and hostage return resolution after hearing from constituents.
“It became evident that this was causing more pain and anxiety than was originally intended,” Pelaez said. “Even though I think that this resolution was written with the best of intentions, it was clear that it was amplifying some of those anxieties and compounding the pain that was already being felt.”
Pelaez said he came to the conclusion that there were better ways to address the pain and frustration being felt across San Antonio, and that the resolution would have prevented healing and dialogue. Nirenberg’s memo echoed that reasoning.
“We must encourage the pursuit of education and healing through continuous and productive dialogue,” Nirenberg said in his memo. “Like all paths for San Antonio, this must be one that we walk together.”
Moureen Kaki is the founder of San Antonio for Justice in Palestine (SAJP). She said Nirenberg’s comments about dialogue during a meeting she and other organizers had with him, City Manager Erik Walsh, and Pelaez on Tuesday, were hollow.
“[Nirenberg] made it clear that he would not support a ceasefire resolution and very condescendingly suggested that a way to be productive about this is to ‘dialogue with the other side,’ which was framed from the very beginning as sort of Muslim versus Jewish, which is absolutely not the case of what this is and not how we have ever interpreted this,” she said.
Kaki said Pelaez’s decision was morally inconsistent.
“I think it’s just sheer cowardice, honestly,” Kaki said. “I’m not sure that he’s actually accounting for the Muslim and Arab community when he talks about who he’s causing more pain to.”
The Jewish Federation of San Antonio, whose president and CEO Nammie Ichilov has been vocal against passing the resolution, did not respond to TPR’s request for comment.
Kaki said Pelaez’s decision left her and the rest of her organization feeling betrayed, especially since it came just hours after he met with them without mention of it.
“There were a lot of sort of feelings around this, the most clear one being sort of disappointment, but also the fact that we felt like we’ve been played,” Kaki said. “And our time was dramatically wasted by Councilman Pelaez, who knew that he was going to rescind his signature yet sat us through a two-hour meeting in the middle of a workday.”
A statement from SAJP said political leadership in San Antonio had failed its community.
“Palestinian life is not a political game,” the statement said. “Today, it was treated like one by our local political leadership. This is another example of people in power treating Palestinians trivially and with indifference.”
A vote on a ceasefire resolution should have been an easy, no-brainer thing to support. At this stage, realizing a ceasefire is about halting the intensifying genocide in Gaza by Israel. (1/7) pic.twitter.com/KyBibXmzwB
— San Antonio for Justice in Palestine (@SAJP1948) January 10, 2024
Pelaez said he wants McKee-Rodriguez and Castillo to continue their efforts despite his decision.
“I have a feeling that my two colleagues who did sign it and whose support for the resolution remains in place will likely ask for a third signature from another councilmember,” he said. “I’m hoping that they do, because that’s certainly their right and they have a lot of people looking to them to carry this forward.”
McKee-Rodriguez denounced Pelaez’s move in a Tuesday post on X and said later that he will turn to organizers to get feedback about what next steps should be.
“This is one of the weakest moves I’ve ever seen from any councilmember ever,” he said. “If you’re gonna do something stand on it. You had months of testimony, months to consider a special session, YOU volunteered your signature, but got scared of criticism. Anyone but Manny [Pelaez] for Mayor.”
This is one of the weakest moves I’ve ever seen from any councilmember ever.
— Councilman Jalen McKee-Rodriguez 🇵🇸 (@theloserteacher) January 10, 2024
If you’re gonna do something stand on it. You had months of testimony, months to consider a special session, YOU volunteered your signature, but got scared of criticism.
Anyone but Manny for Mayor. 😘 https://t.co/FHb3JCJxG0
McKee-Rodriguez and District 5 Councilwoman Teri Castillo both raised questions on Wednesday about whether the San Antonio city charter allows for a council member to remove their signature from a three-signature memo once it has already been filed.
“There’s a lot of questions and concern regarding the three-signature memo process and the city charter not stating how to remove one’s name from the document and how to essentially remove it from consideration once it’s been time-stamped and submitted to the city clerk, who now turns it over to the [city council] body,” Castillo said.
A spokesperson for the city attorney’s office referred TPR's questions to Nirenberg’s memo. Nirenberg said there is no path forward without a third signature, and that Pelaez has removed his support.
Pelaez said his position on the war in Gaza is unchanged. “And so, change in direction, but no change in the underlying conviction that I have, which is this war is unacceptable and it must end, and that too many people over there on the other side of the planet are suffering and dying,” Pelaez said.
The current phase of the conflict was inflamed by the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel that killed about 1,200 people and took hundreds more hostage.
The Israeli military campaign in response has killed more than 23,000 people, according to the Gaza health ministry. That represents more than 1% of the entire population of 2.27 million people who lived in the Palestinian enclave before the war began.
The U.S.-based Human Rights Watch and the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem have both alleged that the starvation of civilians in the Gaza Strip is conscious Israeli policy.
The United Nations World Food Programme said in mid-December that a quarter of the population in Gaza is starving, and that more than 90% of the Palestinian enclave’s population have regularly gone without food for a whole day.
Kaki said organizers will continue to make their appeals to the city council about a ceasefire resolution at public comment sessions and protests, and that her organization’s goal now is to find someone to replace Pelaez so that the vote can move forward.
