Chicago City Wire

A City Council resolution denouncing Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel has exposed conflicting views between Chicago's only Jewish alderwoman and a Democratic Socialist alderwoman backed by Mayor Brandon Johnson.

Ald. Debra Silverstein proposed the "Israel Solidarity Resolution," which she said calls for the City Council to denounce the Hamas terror attacks that killed 1,000 people and expressed support for Israel.

The resolution was met with criticism from Ald. Rossana Rodriguez-Sanchez, who Mayor Johnson selected to head the City Council committee on health and human relations, according to published reports. Rodriguez-Sanchez asked Silverstein to change the resolution to support the humanity of Palestinians.

“Although I wholeheartedly agree that the attacks from HAMAS are brutal and that no one should be subjected to that violence, I also understand that the situation is more nuanced than what this resolution expresses,” Rodriguez-Sanchez wrote according to a Politico report.

Silverstein told the Sun-Times that Rodriguez-Sanchez's comments were "absurd" and she would not change her proposed resolution.

Johnson has not made a comment about the conflict over the proposed pro-Israel resolution.

But the City Council dust-up drew attention to the pro-Palestine views of other members of the Democratic Socialist Caucus and one of Johnson's supporters, Kennedy Bartley of United Working Families.

Johnson's City Council floor leader, Ald. Carlos Ramirez-Rosa has posted a news story on social media that compares the Palestine/Israel conflict to apartheid in South Africa.

And, in 2017, Ramirez-Rosa was bounced as Daniel Biss's gubernatorial running mate after being criticized for making statements to Real News Network calling for the United States' "subsidized … oppression of the Palestinian people" to stop.

Bartley, who runs United Working Families and has become a new fixture at City Hall, posted her support of Palestine on social media saying, "From the river to the sea Palestine will be free. Amen!"