Dozens of Colorado Leaders Call for Israel-Hamas Ceasefire

Dozens of current and former elected officials, from city council members to state legislators, stood outside the Colorado Capitol chanting "Ceasefire now!" on the morning of December 21.

The group had just sent a letter to Colorado's Democratic congressional delegation, asking the lawmakers to call for a bilateral ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war and to urge President Joe Biden's administration to do everything it can to end the war. The letter was signed by 79 people and organizations, including seventeen past and present legislators and twelve current and former councilmembers from Denver, Aurora, Lakewood, Edgewater and Thornton.

"I always want to give people the chance to do the right thing," says State Representative Iman Jodeh, who penned the letter. "I think people are seeing the urgency and how bad it's getting."

Jodeh is Palestinian, and Colorado's first and only Muslim state legislator. Her family maintains a home in Palestine and she has relatives in Gaza and the West Bank. "They're scared," Jodeh says. "I'm worried for my family, I'm worried for my home. I'm worried for my friends."

Jodeh was joined at the Capitol by fellow Democratic representatives Lorena Garcia, Javier Mabrey and Tim Hernández, who are among the eleven current state lawmakers (out of a hundred members total) who signed the letter. No Republicans are represented, and Democrat Julie Gonzales is the only senator who signed.

"This should not be hard," Garcia said during the event, pointing to civilian casualties of the war. "Eight thousand children have been robbed of their right to grow up. ... We are here calling for a ceasefire so that the number of 8,000-plus does not continue to grow, and unfortunately, it does."

Colorado legislators are split on the Israel-Palestine conflict, with personal connections on both sides.

Tensions between the legislators came to a head on November 20, when Democratic Representative Elisabeth Epps said "Free Palestine" during her remarks on a bill, prompting yells and insults from other legislators. Republican Representative Ron Weinberg then responded in a speech on the floor about his experience being Jewish, during which Epps repeatedly yelled over Weinberg while sitting with a group of pro-Palestine protesters. Epps signed Jodeh's letter.

Weinberg says when Jodeh told him about the letter last week, he suggested they send a joint statement instead, condemning terrorism and demanding the release of hostages. Jodeh's letter does state that the U.S. should focus its energy on securing the release of hostages, but it also calls for the restoration of services and humanitarian aid to Gaza, on top of the call for a ceasefire.

“There’s no ceasefire," Weinberg says. "Hamas needs to surrender. A ceasefire happened until October 7. It’s not Israel who ended the ceasefire. ... I wish people would take this opportunity to make proper statements as a unified body. Instead, we’re just participating in the circus of politics."

On November 21, the day after the Epps-Weinberg clash, over 200 Jewish Democratic leaders signed a letter asking members of their party to stop the "harmful and divisive narrative" about the Israel-Palestine conflict. Three state legislators signed that letter: Senators Steve Fenberg, Dafna Michaelson Jenet and Joann Ginal. Other signers include Attorney General Phil Weiser, four former state legislators and six current and former city council members.

"Why did you not issue a statement immediately following the Hamas attack but did not skip a beat when Israel began her defense? Why is the brutal murder of Jewish innocents not worthy of your condemnation?" the letter to the Colorado Democratic Party reads. "Equating a military response to a terrorist attack as 'ethnic cleansing,' 'genocide,' or 'colonizing' is not only inaccurate, it is downright dangerous."

Anti-Semitic incidents have surged in Colorado since the Israel-Hamas war began, as anti-Palestinian incidents have also increased. Several Colorado synagogues received bomb threats last weekend.

According to former representative Jonathan Singer, one of the bomb threats was made against the sister temple of his children's Hebrew school. Singer, who is Jewish, spoke in support of the ceasefire letter during the December 21 event. "Not every person that is fighting for a safe and secure Israel is Islamophobic," he said. "Not every person that is calling for a safe and secure Palestinian state is anti-Semitic."

"My children are innocent. The children of Gaza and Israel and the West Bank are innocent. It's time we act like that," he added. "If we could bomb and terrorize our way to peace, it would have happened decades ago."

Singer and other ceasefire advocates argue that a pause in the hostilities would give Israel and Hamas time to negotiate a diplomatic solution to the conflict while sparing innocent lives. But others argue that Hamas cannot be trusted to abide by the ceasefire, and say it would just give the terrorist organization time to regroup and rearm.

Weinberg says the local ceasefire movement is using Singer as a "token Jew" to suggest that the Jewish community at large backs their calls for a ceasefire.

"You can’t just insinuate that because one Jewish member is a part of it, now the whole community is for a ceasefire," he says. "As long as Hamas is strangling the Palestinian people, there can be no talks of peace. [Hamas] is not hiding that they want us Jews extinct."

The Jewish community "is not a monolith," Singer responds. "Using words like 'token Jew' in any context is incredibly hurtful and doesn’t foster any sort of understanding necessary to promote peace in the Middle East, or even peace amongst our own community."

According to Jodeh, the desire to annihilate Hamas at any cost is what kept most of the Republicans she talked with from signing the letter. "My response is simply, 'You can kill a person, but you can't kill an idea,'" she notes.

Jodeh says her group has spoken to all of Colorado's Democratic members of Congress about demanding a ceasefire. She believes they are starting to move in that direction, particularly U.S. Representatives Diana DeGette and Jason Crow. DeGette recently called for a long-term peace agreement, and Crow sent a letter to President Joe Biden, urging him to use his leverage to encourage a shift in Israel's military strategy to limit civilian casualties.

But those moves are not enough, Jodeh says: "That's putting a Band-Aid on a gushing wound."