After a narrow victory that required the mayor's tie-breaking vote Wednesday, Chicago became the largest U.S. city to adopt a resolution calling for a permanent cease-fire between Hamas and Israel and the return of all hostages. The vote was delayed last week due to the sensitivity of passing it in the days leading up to International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
This was a moment of sadness and reflection for me, as a Palestinian American enduring the catastrophe of this war, where tens of thousands are losing their lives while the world watches. Paying tribute to the millions who perished in the Holocaust alongside talking about the indescribable pain of the Palestinian people in this moment should not have to be in tension with one another.
Instead, can the memory and horror of the Holocaust be part of what it means to know the immense suffering of others, no matter the place or politics? We have seen the powerful messages held by Jewish American activists at rallies and expressed in opinion columns: “ ’Never again’ means never again for anyone.”
This, of course, includes the tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians killed or confronting apocalyptic conditions in Gaza on a scale that dwarfs much of what we have seen in modern warfare.
A week before the horrific events of Oct. 7, an interfaith group of 30 mostly African American travelers and I visited Yad Vashem, Israel’s national Holocaust memorial outside Jerusalem. It was my third time in the past few years. Anyone who walks into Yad Vashem........