On the day California lawmakers returned to Sacramento for the brand new yr, tons of of protesters convened on the state Capitol on Wednesday and shut down the Meeting with requires Israel to cease its warfare towards Hamas.
Legislators filed out of the Meeting chamber as at the very least 250 demonstrators chanted, “Stop hearth now.” Filling the Capitol rotunda, protesters unfurled a banner stating “No U.S. Funding for Israel’s Genocide in Palestine” and made paper flowers representing greater than 22,000 Palestinians killed within the warfare that started after Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, killing about 1,200 folks and taking 240 others hostage.
“We hear them, we help them, nonetheless we now have to guarantee that the legislative enterprise is completed for your complete state of California,” Assemblyman Mike Gipson (D-Carson) mentioned because the demonstrators’ chants echoed all through the halls.
“This simply stopped what we would have liked to do,” he mentioned.
On the opposite finish of the state Capitol, the Senate continued with enterprise as typical above the din of shouting protesters exterior the chamber. Gov. Gavin Newsom was in Los Angeles for the day to advertise his poll measure to fund psychological well being care and a brand new analysis heart at UCLA.
A whole bunch of Jewish organizers calling for a cease-fire in Gaza assembled within the California Capitol in Sacramento on Wednesday, interrupting the primary week of the legislative session.
(Mackenzie Mays / Los Angeles Occasions)
Wednesday’s protests thrust the difficult politics of the warfare into the California Capitol, which has been quiet whereas the Legislature was on recess for the fall. The U.S. response to the warfare has triggered a generational divide within the California citizens and a schism amongst Democrats, whereas polling exhibits California Republicans largely need the U.S. to help Israel.
Additionally on Wednesday, Meeting Republicans launched a decision condemning Hamas and the Legislature’s Jewish Caucus despatched a seven-page letter to lawmakers describing a searing sense of concern amongst Jewish Californians amid an “explosion of hate directed at our group.”
The letter requested legislative leaders to kind a particular committee on antisemitism in California. It additionally referred to as on lawmakers to handle “the poisonous anti-Jewish setting” on some public college campuses, proposed laws enshrining Holocaust training in public colleges and proposed increasing a grant program that helps establishments susceptible to hate crimes pay for safety upgrades.
“I believe there’s lots of people in our group that really feel trapped between the far proper and the far left,” mentioned Assemblyman Jesse Gabriel (D-Encino), a co-chair of the caucus.
“Although the far proper and the far left in America view one another as existential threats to every part that they maintain expensive and holy, the one factor that they appear to agree on is that Jews are uniquely evil, and that Jews are accountable for the world’s issues,” Gabriel mentioned.
Whereas Gabriel and Jewish caucus co-chair Sen. Scott Wiener addressed reporters in a Capitol hallway, protesters within the rotunda chanted, “Scott Wiener, you possibly can’t cover, we cost you with genocide.”
“That’s disgusting and false,” Wiener mentioned. “Apparently supporting Israel’s existence is sufficient for them to say that we’re supporting genocide, and that’s actually problematic.”
The protest was organized by Jewish Voice for Peace, IfNotNow, and the Worldwide Jewish Anti-Zionist Community. Organizers mentioned the demonstration included about 400 to 500 folks, about half of whom are Jewish.
Jennifer Esteen, a nurse who’s working for the Alameda County Board of Supervisors, took half within the protest, calling on state lawmakers to situation a decision to demand a cease-fire.
“These selections that we are able to make right here in California will completely change federal coverage,” Esteen mentioned as organizers chanted, “Free Palestine.”
“California leads the way in which … when the Legislature of the fourth-largest financial system of the world pays consideration and makes a press release, it’s going to lead this nation.”
The demonstration ended peacefully after about two hours. Meeting Republican Chief James Gallagher (Yuba Metropolis), launched a press release criticizing “pro-Hamas radicals” for “shouting down authorities proceedings and bullying folks into silence.”
“We should stand as much as this extremism,” Gallagher mentioned. “Folks have a proper to protest, however they don’t have the fitting to stop elected representatives from doing the folks’s enterprise.”
