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Middle Eastern politics dominated Tuesday’s Berkeley City Council meeting as audience and Council polarized over two competing resolutions calling for Congressional investigations of deaths in the Israeli-Palestinean conflict. 

When the dust settled four hours later, the council had narrowly passed one of the motions, with the second back on the agenda for the elected officials’ next session on the Sept. 16. 

The failed “all American deaths inquiry” resolution was the competing measure to the successful “Rachel Corrie death Congressional inquiry” resolution recommended to Council by the Council’s Peace and Justice Commission and adopted by the council on a 5-4 vote. 

The results of the two votes divided the audience as much as it did the Council, leaving half walking out in angry disappointment and the other half cheering and waving signs. 

Corrie, a 23-year-old Washington state resident and a member of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), was killed last March in the Gaza Strip Palestinian village of Rafah when she was run over by a bulldozer driven by an Israeli soldier. She was one of several human shields who had placed themselves in the path of Israeli army units knocking down Palestinian homes. 

The Israeli government said that the Rafah operation was part of a search for terrorist hideouts, while ISM members contend it was part of an Israeli government plan to clear out Palestinian residents. 

An Israeli Army statement at the time called Corrie’s death “a very regrettable accident” involving protesters who were “intentionally placing themselves [in danger] in a combat zone.” But photographs of the incident showed that Corrie was wearing a bright orange vest. Fellow protesters at the scene said she was standing in full view of the bulldozer driver, and was driven over deliberately. 

Ten days after Corrie’s death, a bipartisan group of California Congressmembers, including Barbara Lee, George Miller, and Darrell Issa, joined 39 others in cosponsoring House Concurrent Resolution 111, which called for the U.S. and Israeli governments to cooperate in a “full, fair and expeditious investigation into the death.” 

Four months later, Berkeley City Peace and Justice Commission voted 11-2 to recommend that the Council adopt a resolution in support of Concurrent Resolution 111. At that same July meeting, Commissioners overwhelmingly rejected Commissioner Thom Seaton’s proposed amendment to Concurrent Resolution 111. 

Seaton’s proposal, included in the Commission report to the Council as a minority recommendation, would have asked that the investigation into Corrie’s death be expanded to include recent deaths of Americans killed by Palestinian suicide bombers, including former UC Berkeley student Marla Bennett. 

Emotional debate on the competing proposals dominated the Public Comment period of Tuesday’s Council meeting. 

Supporters of the Corrie resolution said that adding other deaths to the resolution would dilute its effect and doom efforts to force the Israeli government to provide information on Corrie’s death to the United States government and Corrie’s parents. 

Supporters of Seaton’s proposal, which was introduced by Councilmembers Betty Olds and Miriam Hawley, charged that failure to include deaths caused by suicide bombers left the impression that Corrie’s life was more important than the lives of other victims. 

The two sides of the public debate reflected competing positions on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict itself. 

Mayor Bates opened the debate with a plea to table the two measures indefinitely to keep the Council out of what he called “divisive” foreign policy issues. Bates eventually voted against the measure that would have only investigated the Corrie death and for the measure that would have investigated the deaths of Palestinian suicide bomber deaths as well as Corrie’s. 

While Councilmember Linda Maio voted in favor of the Corrie death investigation, she abstained on the resolution that would have added other deaths to the investigation. 

Maio said later that while voting for the competing resolution would have undercut the effect of the Corrie resolution, she “couldn’t in good conscience vote against a resolution that condemned the deaths of innocent Americans.” 

When the Corrie resolution passed, Councilmember Kriss Worthington, who had voted for the Corrie resolution, tried to introduce what he called a “compromise proposal” which would have included all of the Olds-Hawley language calling for a Congressional investigation into the “deaths and/or injuries sustained by all Americans...in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza due to ongoing conflicts,” but would not have asked Congress to amend the Concurrent Resolution 111 to include that language.  

Worthington’s measure would have also required the “all deaths and/or injuries” resolution to go back before the Peace and Justice Commission to “straighten out the language” while the Corrie resolution was passed on directly to Congress.  

Olds and Hawley rejected Worthington’s proposal, as well as requests by other Councilmembers to put their measure off for another week. 

That set the stage for the 4-4 vote which spelled temporary defeat on the Olds-Hawley measure—which the council will consider once again on Sept. 16 under the heading of old business. 

City Clerk Sherry Kelly said later that the request to put the “all American deaths” item on the Sept. 16 agenda was made by Mayor Bates. Kelly also said that Councilmember Hawley confirmed to her following the meeting that she wanted the item brought up again. 

Councilmember Betty Olds said Thursday that there was a possibility that supporters of the “all American deaths” resolution would pull it off the agenda before the September 16th meeting. 

The Corrie resolution vote: Ayes: Maio, Breland, Shirek, Spring, Worthington. 

Nayes: Hawley, Olds, Wozniak, Bates. 

The Olds-Hawley resolution vote:  

Ayes: Hawley, Olds, Wozniak, Bates. 

Nayes: Breland, Shirek, Spring, Worthington. 

Abstain: Maio.