A resolution submitted by East Cobb commissioner JoAnn Birrell pledging support for Israel will not be considered at Tuesday’s business meeting.
That’s because the proposed resolution was pulled after an agenda work session on Monday.
Birrell’s resolution referenced “brutally inhumane” attacks on Israeli citizens by Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7 that killed more than 1,000 civilians, and that states that “the Cobb County Board of Commissioners offers full and unwavering support of Israel’s self-defense and offer our condolences to those families that have lost loved ones in this horrific war.”
(You can read the resolution by clicking here).
But Chairwoman Lisa Cupid read an e-mail from a Cobb Muslim leader noting the fate of several thousand Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip who have been killed and injured in Israeli airstrikes in response, as well as a decades-long conflict with Israel, which was formed in 1948.
The Israeli government urged an estimated 2 million Gaza citizens to evacuate the northern part of the strip prior to its reprisals.
Amjad Taufique, the head of the West Cobb Islamic Center, said in an e-mail to Cupid that the county should consider a resolution acknowledging the “basic human rights and self-determination” of the Palestinian people.
Birrell said her resolution was specifically a response to Hamas, which she called a “terrorist organization.” But Commissioner Jerica Richardson of District 2 in East Cobb wanted a resolution to include more inclusive language reflecting other ethnicities and religions.
Chabad of Cobb, one of three East Cobb synagogues, held a special service two days after the Hamas attack.
Richardson noted a recent rise in anti-Semitic and Islamophobic incidents in Cobb. After an anti-Semitic protest in front of Chabad in June, she was among the speakers at a special interfaith service at East Cobb United Methodist Church.
On Oct. 12, Cupid issued a standalone statement saying that “what is going on in Israel is utterly heinous”–in particular acts against children—and that “as a political leader, I would ask for the division overseas not to further entrench ours. Tragedy that brings us together as a county or country need not begin on our own soil.”
The resolution, which was to have been included on Tuesday’s consent agenda, is expected to be revised and brought back before the board.
The Cobb Muslim community also lashed out last week at the Cobb County School District for sending an alert message about an “international threat” from Hamas, saying the e-mail was needlessly fear-mongering. Some parents said they and their children were harassed and bullied as a result.
A parent told Cobb school board members on Thursday that the message reflects “the rampant ignorance prevalent with Americans equating Hamas with Muslims.”
Superintendent Chris Ragsdale denounced the mistreatment but defended sending the alert as a security measure.
Commissioners on Tuesday will hold their final public hearing on proposed code amendments as well as a proposal by Birrell to spend $1 million in discretionary capital contingency funding for the proposed Cobb Veterans Memorial.
Commissioners also will be asked to enter into an intergovernmental agreement with the Cobb school district to complete a pedestrian bridge between the Walton High School campus and a new sports complex.
The commission meeting begins at 7 p.m. Tuesday in the second floor board room of the Cobb government building (100 Cherokee St., downtown Marietta), and the full agenda can be found by clicking here.
You also can watch on the county’s website and YouTube channels and on Cobb TV 23 on Comcast Cable.
Related:
- Cobb County Manager gets raise, contract extension
- New Cobb Elections director hired; will start in December
- Citizens skeptical of transit tax at East Cobb town hall
- Conservative group opposed to Cobb transit tax referendum
- Cobb commissioners approve funding to finish police Precinct 6
- Cobb tax commissioner sends out 2023 property tax bills
- Cobb commissioners adopt FY 2024 budget with no millage cut
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Making proclamations is not the role of government. Stick to roads, traffic lights, local crime, streetlights, and such. You people are not that important.
Hamas committed atrocities in Israel with the intention of producing terror. Now they hide among civilians using innocents, schools, mosques and hospitals as cover for their rocket launchers and weapons storage. How can anyone say Hamas cares about the Palestinians. They are happy to see Palestinians die if it advances their cause. Their hatred for Israel has long since eclipsed any care for the Palestinians. But they do care about keeping their Iranian masters and arms dealers happy.
As a Christian, we are taught by Jesus (and others) to love our fellow man. Embrace the stranger, offer hospitality, etc. By showing love, you can win them over to civility and friendship.
But that does not apply across the board. If someone – and here it is Hamas and Hezbollah, NOT Muslims in general (to whom we should show mutual respect and support to each other), who openly vow to KILL YOU, and to push your people into the sea – then this does not apply. You cannot argue with a rabid animal, your only option is to stay out of its way, or shoot it.
No matter the invalid arguments posited by the “Palestinians” about whose land it is (who note, that even Egypt, Syria and Jordan refuse to let them come and live there because they are troublemakers – should tell you something) are misrepresenting facts. And even if they were right about the land which they are not – slaughter of innocents, especially the brutality to children and women, is unjustified in any civil world and removes any rights they may have to exist.
So we are unable to pick a side in this fight between Israel and Hamas? Come on, virtue signaling on steroids. But always keep in mind that Marxism requires a struggle to collapse societies, and struggle requires a victim. Their brilliant wording somehow makes Hamas the victim for their slaughtering of people on Oct 7 ????
Have local Muslim leaders taken a stand on Hamas or any other terrorist organizations?
Let’s start the virtue signaling by the republicans. First they have no problem with antisemitism in Cobb county schools. Now they fall over themselves claiming to “be with Israel.”
“..no problem with antisemitism in Cobb county schools.” What are you talking about??