Evanston Ceasefire welcomes Congressional Candidate Biss’s recent acknowledgment of Israel’s atrocities, but it’s hard to trust his sincerity given his record as Evanston’s mayor and a past Illinois gubernatorial candidate. We have questions for the candidate.
Does Biss regret opposing the Equity Commission’s ceasefire resolution—and preventing it from reaching City Council debate? Does he regret the attacks on four women-of-color commissioners or the firing of the Commission’s staffer that occurred under his watch and in the wake of that proposal?
Does he regret issuing a mayoral statement condemning “Hamas’s brutal terror attack” on Israel and proclaiming “[t]here can be no progress toward justice or peace if we are willing to turn a blind eye to the killing of civilians anywhere,” but remaining silent about the tens of thousands of Palestinians whom Israel has killed since, with tens of thousands more unaccounted for?
Were he in Congress, would he have supported the Block the Bombs Act, blocking the sale of specific weapons to Israel? If elected, will he commit to seeing that funding for Israel follows laws that restrict weapons sales to human-rights abusers?
Will he pledge not to attend American Israel Public Affairs Committee conferences or accept donations from AIPAC? Will he disclose past meetings with AIPAC representatives?
Supporting Israeli apartheid has been Biss’s pattern. Years prior, Biss dumped his running mate, Carlos Ramirez-Rosa, due to Ramirez-Rosa’s support for Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions. Will Biss now acknowledge BDS as a legitimate response to Israeli crimes? Will he oppose state laws, including Illinois’, that penalize BDS?
More Top Picks Best Cooling Memory Foam Pillows
Why, nearly two years into this genocide, is Biss still not naming it as such?
Biss’s recent words do not align with his actions. His constituents should not believe that he genuinely supports the rights of the Palestinian people or would navigate this issue differently if elected to Congress.
Judith Roeder
Evanston Ceasefire
Letters to the Editor express the opinions of the writer and not Pioneer Press or the baiduhai.