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By Mike Barenti and Jackson Pincus

Inaction has consequences. Not long after Hamas terrorists invaded Israel on October 7, 2023, protesters stood outside Spokane City Hall and told us, “There is only one solution, the intifada, revolution,” and about the need to “globalize the intifada.”

Mayor Lisa Brown and much of the City Council, so quick to rightly condemn hatred of other minorities, remained silent about what was said outside their offices.

For people who cannot or do not want to remember the last Intifada – a piece of history. In 2000, after Israel made a peace proposal to create a Palestinian state for the first time in all of Gaza and almost the entire West Bank, with East Jerusalem as its capital, the radical Hamas and the ‘moderate’ Fatah joined forces to stab, shoot and bomb Israelis on buses, at family dinners and in nightclubs, killing more than 1,000 people – almost all of them civilians.

Those chants outside City Hall were not a call for peace, but for mass murder. Perhaps the mayor and council members did not understand what the chants meant; perhaps they hoped the demonstrators would get tired and go away. Maybe.

Not long after the October 7 massacre, the Plymouth Congregational Church, a small congregation on the South Hill, displayed a sign that read “We Stand With Israel.” In January, someone spray-painted a curse about Israel on the sign with orange paint.

Undeterred, the church, housed in what was once a synagogue, purchased a new electronic sign and once again proclaimed, “We stand with Israel.” Then, around Thanksgiving, someone spray-painted “genocide” on that sign with blue paint.

Councilor Jonathan Bingle, as he has consistently done, condemned anti-Semitism and called for city council action. Council members Paul Dillon and Lili Navarrete also denounced the vandalism, which is appreciated but still far less than what was done when other groups in Spokane became targets of hate. The mayor and the rest of the city council remain silent.

Maybe they didn’t understand that an attack on a church in support of Jews is still an attack on Jews, just as vandalizing a pride flag or a Black Lives Matter sign is an attack on LGBTQ+ people or African Americans, even if they show support is straight or white. Maybe they didn’t want to draw more attention to the vandalism.

Defending oppressed communities includes defending Jews, period. Spokane’s leaders need to know that failure to speak out in support of Jewish safety, the right of Jews to self-determination in Israel, our ancestral homeland, and the right of every citizen to express their views without intimidation, will harm the city makes today a less safe place. than before these hateful acts.

What’s happening in Spokane is happening all over the US. Since the Hamas massacre, anti-Semitism has increased. Jews make up just 2% of the U.S. population, but were victims of 15% of all hate crimes and 68% of all religion-based hate crimes in 2023, according to the FBI. That is an increase of 63% compared to the year before.

According to the American Jewish Committee’s State of Antisemitism in America 2023 Report, nearly half of American Jews have changed their behavior out of fear of antisemitism.

Even amid the growing hatred and abandonment of some community leaders, the Jewish spirit remains unbreakable.

Jews do not ask to be treated with respect and dignity. We demand this – as a people indigenous to Israel, and as Americans to whom the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness applies as much as anyone else.

It is up to our elected officials to set an example. Fear of how others will react is no excuse for silence.

Mike Barenti is a native of Spokane and a founding member of Inland Empire for Israel. More information can be found at domesticforisrael.org. Jackson Pincus is deputy director of the American Jewish Committee of the Pacific Northwest. Learn more at ajc.org