SAN FRANCISCO — Amid a tough re-election fight, Mayor London Breed refused to veto a non-binding resolution by San Francisco supervisors calling for an extended ceasefire in Gaza, a move she blamed for inflaming tensions in the city.
The first-term Democrat posted her decision online Friday, blaming the board for veering toward a foreign policy in which its members have no legal authority or expertise. She said the debate over the resolution left the city “angrier, more divided and less safe.”
“His tenure was never about bringing people together,” Breed wrote in a statement. “It was about choosing a side.”
A divided board approved the resolution earlier this month, which also condemned Hamas and the Israeli government and urged the Biden administration to push for the release of all hostages and the delivery of humanitarian aid. Ceasefire advocates in the audience erupted in cheers and chants of “Free Palestine.”
Breed previously criticized the supervisors, saying “the process at the board only fueled division and hurt.”
San Francisco joined dozens of other American cities in passing a resolution that carries no legal weight but reflects pressure on local governments to speak out about the war between Israel and Hamas, now in its fourth month after a deadly attack by the October 7 by Hamas militants.
Breed said he mostly refrains from commenting on non-binding board resolutions, but in this case he made an exception. His decision came in the run-up to the March 5 primary election, in which he tells voters he is making progress against homelessness, public drug use and property crimes in a city that has seen an avalanche of unwanted advertising about empty downtown offices and stratospheric housing prices.
Reaction to ongoing Israeli military action in Gaza is shaking campaigns from the White House to town halls. A poll conducted by The Associated Press and the NORC Center for Public Affairs Research in early November found that 40% of the American public believed Israel’s response in Gaza had gone too far.
Breed lamented the suffering in Gaza and the loss of life on both sides. But he rebuked activists who scoffed when a man spoke of relatives killed in the Hamas attack, writing that a Jewish city employee was surrounded by protesters in a bathroom.
Breed wrote that “abject anti-Semitism” had apparently become acceptable to a subset of activists.
“Anti-Semitism in our city is real and dangerous,” he wrote, adding that vetoing the resolution would likely lead to more divisive hearings and “encourage even more anti-Semitic acts.”
Breed said he had spoken to numerous Jewish residents “who tell me they don’t feel safe in their own city. … They fear increasing acts of vandalism and intimidation.”
Supervisor Dean Preston, who introduced the ceasefire resolution, told the San Francisco Chronicle that he was glad the mayor did not veto the resolution, which is now final.
Lara Kiswani, executive director of the Arab Resource and Organizing Center, an organization that has planned protests calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, told the newspaper that Breed’s statement amplified “dangerous, racist, worn-out anti-Arab tropes that seem to completely ignore our community”.