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A Gaza ceasefire pledge circulated last week by a Portland City Council candidate is causing an uproar among fellow candidates, adding an unstable dynamic to the city elections days before the one-year anniversary of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel.
The local friction began Sept. 19, when District 4 candidate Andra Vltavín emailed other city candidates who had signed an initial ceasefire pledge in April. (Eighteen mayoral and City Council candidates had signed onto the pledge.) Vltavín attached an updated ceasefire pledge that Vltavín had recently edited.
Vltavín wrote in a group email email: “As we approach the one-year mark of Israel’s response to the events on October 7th, 2023, Palestine is back in the forefront of the global consciousness...After discussion with community groups who helped put together the first candidate ceasefire resolution, we have updated the statistics and streamlined the letter to be more broadly applicable.”
Vltavín wrote that they would keep all original signatories on the letter: “Since you signed the first version, we will assume that your signature still stands on this letter as nothing has been fundamentally altered.”
The tweaks made to the pledge itself were modest, tacking on an arms embargo request and, according to Vltavín, including “updated statistics on deaths [and] injuries.”
Several days later, on Sept. 25, Vltavín expanded the audience by sending the same email and revised pledge to an email list that includes most of the 118 City Council candidates appearing on the November ballot. (That email list has been the subject of WW’s coverage on donation-swapping agreements between candidates. The Secretary of State’s Office is currently conducting an investigation on the trend.)
The updated pledge received swift feedback from candidates—both positive and negative.
District 2 candidate Chris Olson wrote in the email thread on Sept. 25: “Israel is a genocidal state that has killed thousands of children in Gaza. I believe zero children were involved in the attacks on Oct 7.”
Three Jewish candidates objected strongly to the letter.
“As a Jew whose grandparents immigrated to Portland in the 1940′s I am honestly disgusted and offended that you would choose to send this out now at this time,” wrote District 2 candidate Sam Sachs, “and that you refer to the massacre that occurred on October 7th as ‘events.’”
Bob Weinstein and Stan Penkin wrote in a joint statement on Sept. 25: “The letter being circulated is accusatory and divisive and shows no understanding or acknowledgment of the unthinkable atrocities committed by Hamas or the holding and killing of hostages,” the candidates wrote. “The role of our City Council is to be focused on the challenges of our many local issues, not matters of foreign policy.”
Even three City Council candidates that signed onto the original pledge expressed discomfort with the timing of the revised pledge.
District 3 candidate Angelita Morillo wrote on Sept. 26: “Rosh Hashanah is on October 2nd, the anniversary of all of this is on October 7th. By releasing an updated anniversary statement, we have a responsibility to acknowledge Jewish pain on that day without negating that a genocide is happening,” Morillo wrote. “We can hold both, but I don’t think this letter adequately addresses that nuance as it’s written now.”
Morillo wrote that the timing of the revised letter put her, and other candidates who support a ceasefire, in a lose-lose situation. “If I leave the letter because I don’t think the content matches the timing in a way that both holds the weight of the genocide and the needs of our Jewish community members, it makes people question my commitment to an arms embargo (which isn’t true). If I stay on the letter as it is written, it needlessly opens all of me up to attacks from other candidates and media a month before elections, with possibly very little pay off.”
Tiffany Koyama Lane, a District 3 candidate that also signed the initial pledge, wrote on Sept. 26 in the email thread that she was “aligned with what [Angelita] outlined in her email.”
Mitch Green, a progressive candidate in District 4, wrote on Sept. 27: “I stand by the original letter I signed earlier in the year, but I don’t support a new letter at this time.”
Liv Osthus, who’s running for mayor, wrote that she agreed with Green and Morillo.
But by that point, a portion of the email thread and the updated pledge had made its way to Marc Blattner, the CEO and President of the Jewish Federation of Greater Portland. On Sept. 27 Blattner sent out a press release to the organization’s email list, naming each of the candidates who signed the original ceasefire pledge and whose names remained on the revised pledge that Vltavín circulated, before Vltavín removed the names of Green, Morillo, Koyama Lane and two other candidates for city office.
“Nothing troubles me more than writing about anti-Israel sentiments – especially when it comes to candidates for political office,” Blattner wrote. “Let’s be clear - No mention of October 7. No mention of the Israelis killed or those sexually assaulted. No mention of the hostages. No understanding that Israeli families in Portland have been impacted.”
Vltavín has since removed Morillo, Koyama Lane, Green, as well as mayoral candidate Liv Osthus and District 1 candidate Timur Ender, as signatories from the updated pledge. In a Sept. 30 email to those candidates, Vltavín wrote: “While I am sad that several of you have pulled out of this and wish that you could prioritize these efforts to prevent further harm, I understand and wish you well.”
Vltavín tells WW they stand by the updated pledge—timing and all.
“While I recognize that October 7th represents a very painful time for the Jewish community,” Vltavín says, “it also represents a full year of the Israeli government’s exceedingly harsh response, which is only the latest violence in a long history of occupation.”