City Council Israel Resolution Debates—Zionism, Anti-Blackness, and Local Politics

Despite the focus on national political battles, local politics has been a critical battleground for conversations around Zionism. We look back at 2023 debates in the Baltimore City Council around two contrasting resolutions, one reflecting a Zionist frame, the other a call for ceasefire and attempting to balance concerns over anti-Semitism with Islamophobia. Through attempts to equate antisemitism with anti-Blackness and the Hamas attack on October 7th, the Zionist resolution is revealed as an attempt to frame questions about Israel with hate speech and obscure the systemic violence against Palestine. The political forces supporting the Zionist frame, including Sinclair Media and its board member, former head of AIPAC Howard Freeman, pushing Zionist propaganda, are shown to be the same forces pushing anti-Black and pro-mass incarceration propaganda in Baltimore. The negative responses to Black lawmakers who abstained from the vote on this resolution and supported a more balanced resolution demonstrate a weaponization of accusations of anti-Semitism against Black politics. . Finally, the political forces seeking to chill speech by punishing organizations that engaged in pro-Palestinian speech, reflected in the anti-Council on American Islamic Relations bill pushed by delegate Dalya Attar, created an environment of punishment for activists at a local level and produced the conditions that led to the bipartisan support of genocide that has defined the past two years.