As a resident of the City of Newburgh I want to express my gratitude for the Council’s careful deliberation and subsequent passage of the Ceasefire Resolution.

I was in attendance at the City Council meeting and it was clear that community comments were not nearly so divided as your Jan 24th article maintains (“Ceasefire resolution is passed by council but divides the city”). In fact, many of the more strident comments in opposition to the resolution were from elsewhere.

Criticism of Israel’s conduct in this horrific war is in no way anti-semitic. Courageous people of integrity simply cannot remain silent when human rights atrocities are being committed against civilians anywhere in the world. Our government’s continued funding of this war is wrong, as is its failure to support a ceasefire. I thank the City Council for taking the moral stand and conveying to our elected representatives, both locally and nationally, where the people of the City of Newburgh stand.