Thank you, City Council members, for your under-appreciated battle with a mountain of administrative tasks. Having stepped up, you are obligated to a far larger role than you might prefer – you are our voice. Who else can officially register our community’s dissent of national policy, if you shun moral issues? Your policy excuse is poor – it’s self-imposed.

Answer me, please: How should we act as individuals, when we see interpersonal assault? If we see a rape in progress, should we turn away? Or a child being beaten? Should we ignore the ongoing assault and disenfranchisement of minorities? “Bystander effect” describes how onlookers to violence avoid getting involved. Shall we Durango residents ignore a rape, a beating?

Israel is the far more powerful, assaulting the weak in Palestine. We witness this daily. Although initially attacked, Israel is now the aggressor – far beyond any “proportional response” to Oct. 7. Repeated, sustained attacks on civilians, the soaring mortality rate, the current and impending humanitarian crisis of starvation, and health care shortages. The depth of trauma inflicted on an entire population follows 70 years of apartheid, ongoing poaching of lives and settler encroachment. This is rape in front of our eyes.

Our young adults know and they call it out. Will we really silence them, refuse them moral expression?

Councilors, model moral behavior – speak up, speak out – when egregious immorality is unfolding. Speaking only for myself, I urge you to amend policy and call for a permanent cease-fire throughout Palestinian territory.

Kirby MacLaurin

Durango