East Palo Alto's City Council rejected a proclamation meant to honor victims of the Oct. 7, 2023, attack in Israel, after the measure fell short of the three votes needed to pass during Tuesday's meeting. Mayor Webster Lincoln and Councilmember Mark Dinan voted to approve the proclamation, while Carlos Romero voted against it. Vice Mayor Ruben Abrica and Councilmember Martha Barragan were both absent, leaving the measure without the majority required for passage.
The proposed proclamation, titled a Day of Remembrance, was brought forward three years after the attack that killed about 1,200 people, which has been described as the deadliest assault against Jewish people since the Holocaust, according to Local News Matters. City Attorney John Le presented the proclamation at Tuesday's meeting and told the council it needed three votes to pass, a threshold the measure did not reach. Palo Alto Online reported that the council ultimately cited a reluctance to wade into international affairs.
Council Members Balk at Foreign Policy on the Dais
Romero said the council meeting was not the appropriate venue to take up the proclamation, according to the same report, and he did not want to discuss international affairs on the dais. Dinan, who said he supported the substance of the proclamation, nonetheless said he also did not want to weigh in on international events, arguing such matters distract from the city's core mission. Romero went further, suggesting that if the council were to recognize victims of Oct. 7, it should also recognize the roughly 72,000 Palestinians he said had been killed in Israel's military response — a figure he raised during the meeting but which has not been independently verified.
Some residents told the council they were disappointed Lincoln had not spoken about Palestinian deaths. Batool Zaro, who said she was speaking in a personal capacity and that her family had been directly affected by violence in Palestine, called the proclamation deeply disturbing and said it failed to recognize Palestinian civilians and families experiencing suffering and loss. Lincoln, who supported the proclamation amid the protests, said he believed people's suffering should be recognized with empathy and compassion, and he characterized some of the opposition as an excuse for hate.
A May Vote Set the Stage for Tuesday's Clash
Tuesday's fight did not emerge from nowhere. Lincoln had proposed a separate proclamation against antisemitism in May, and the council approved it 3-2, with Lincoln, Dinan and Barragan voting in favor and Abrica and Romero opposed, according to a CAIR-SFBA statement condemning the measure. That proclamation adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism, which the city described as a nonbinding educational and analytical framework, per Palo Alto Online's earlier coverage of the measure. The city attorney said at the time that the proclamation carried no immediate legal impact but could inform future city policy or actions.
Some residents at the May meeting said the antisemitism proclamation curtailed their right to criticize Israel. As Jweekly reported, commenters opposed to the measure argued it would be used to suppress pro-Palestinian speech by blurring the line between antisemitism and criticism of Israel. Palo Alto Online reported that at the October meeting, residents held pro-Palestine signs on one side of the room while others waved Israeli flags on the other, and the chamber erupted in shouts throughout the proceedings. Not every voice fell neatly into one camp — at the October meeting, a resident identified as Robin said people's suffering should be supported while symbols of hate should be rejected.
Mayor's Israel Trip Added Fuel to the Debate
Lincoln's own travel history has shadowed the debate. Earlier this year, he visited Israel on an all-expenses-paid trip provided by the Consulate General of Israel to the Pacific Northwest, one of 15 Bay Area leaders included on the trip, Palo Alto Online reported. On the second day of that trip, Lincoln reflected on visiting the Nova Festival memorial in the Western Negev. He has since said the backlash to his stance on antisemitism following the trip exposed misinformation, intimidation and an unwillingness to listen, according to the Combat Antisemitism Movement.
The IHRA definition has been adopted or endorsed by entities beyond East Palo Alto. By Jan. 1, 2026, 1,334 entities worldwide had adopted or endorsed the definition. East Palo Alto's own council had previously approved a ceasefire resolution.
