Kansas City council members debate if they should vote on resolutions concerning Gaza

Some Kansas City council members asked Thursday night how they should vote to ensure they will never be asked to comment on events in Gaza again.

A tiff over a resolution recognizing the deadly attack by Hamas in Israel on Oct. 7 sparked debate about the council’s role in supporting a ceasefire in Gaza, which has been under fire by Israel in the months following the attack.

“We’re spending a lot of time on something that doesn’t have any place in these chambers,” councilman Kevin O’Neill said. “We’re not picking sides, and that’s why I would vote to refrain from voting on this. It’s just not our role.”

Initially, Thursday’s agenda included a ceasefire resolution and a resolution honoring the Palestinian American Medical Association. Both were special actions, which are used symbolically to recognize people, accomplishments and events.

In response, councilman Nathan Willett wrote a special action to recognize the killing of Jews by agents of Hamas on Oct. 7. The language would have been added to a previous resolution condemning antisemitism.

“A few of my fellow council members want to turn KC City Hall into what we have seen on college campuses all around the country these past few months,” Willett wrote on Facebook Thursday morning.

The ceasefire item was pulled from the agenda, after Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas told KCMO Talk radio Thursday morning that he planned to vote it down.

“With respect to all voices, we are here to legislate for the people of Kansas City for real-life solutions that we can control,” Lucas wrote on his personal X account, formerly Twitter. “I value all views, but cannot support the dueling messaging items on today’s City Council docket.”

The ceasefire resolution, which was sponsored by councilman Eric Bunch, also called for humanitarian aid to Gaza. PAMA requested that the resolution in their honor be withdrawn.

“This decision was made in order to protect PAMA’s monumental humanitarian medical efforts in Palestine from unnecessary discrimination,” PAMA wrote in a Tuesday news release.

Willett’s resolution stayed on the agenda. He tried to withdraw it, calling it unnecessary if the council was no longer voting on calling for a ceasefire.

Instead, council members voted Willett’s resolution down permanently, signaling future actions related to Gaza and the Israel-Hamas war could meet the same fate.

Some council members said they didn’t feel it was their place — or their job — to weigh in on Gaza and the Israel-Hamas war at all.

“I have a longstanding practice that I as a council member am not going to weigh in on international and geopolitical conflicts,” councilman Crispin Rea said. “I am simply not going to break my own rule… to vote on something that, quite frankly, we have no impact on.”

Others feel the city council has “a moral imperative” to act, even symbolically.

“These issues — we can’t hide from them,” Councilman Jonathan Duncan said. “They’re affecting our people right here, right now — whether you’re Jewish, whether you’re Palestinian.”

Eight council members voted down the resolution to recognize the events of Oct. 7. Five abstained.

City staffers have received thousands of emails urging the Kansas City council to call for a ceasefire, Duncan said.

“I’ve never experienced such amazing hope from people who have experienced such extreme loss,” Bunch said, describing a meeting with Palestinian residents. “All I’m suggesting is that we have a conversation about tricky, troubling issues.”

More than 100 American cities have passed local resolutions calling for a ceasefire in Gaza as of March, according to National Public Radio.

Along with the city council, Kansas City protestors have urged U.S. Reps Sharice Davis and Emmanuel Cleaver II to call for a ceasefire in recent months.

Al-Hadaf KC, a pro-Palestine advocacy group, called the council’s aversion to resolutions surrounding Gaza “regrettable.”

Councilwoman Andrea Bough also said a special action to recognize Oct. 7 would not interact productively with the council’s previous resolutions against antisemitism.