Local News: October 18, 2023

Tompkins County Legislature tabled resolution in support of Israel and to fly Israeli flag in chamber

The Tompkins County legislature was set to vote on a resolution in support of Israel at its meeting on Tuesday night but Legislator Greg Mezey from Dryden withdrew the resolution when the meeting started. Mezey says he started the resolution shortly after the October 7 attack in Israel by Hamas. Today he spoke with WRFI about some of his thoughts.

"When I wrote it, I felt strongly that it was where it needed to be, as the situation continued to evolve, you know, my thought process changed. And I think as a elected officials, in many levels of government, we sometimes aren't willing to take a step back and say, hey, you know, maybe this needs more work…or maybe this needs a different voice. 

And I don't know what the right words are, for a resolution to support Israel and to support Palestinians. And to recognize, you know, years of injustice, and, and years of conflict, and, and how we support that. So I'm, I'm kind of I'm at a loss right now.

But I know that what we had last night with our public comments needed to take place. And I'm glad that we held the space available for folks on all sides of the issue to come and speak. And I thought that for the majority of the conversation, it was respectful and peaceful and informative. [It] was what we should be doing as government, listening to the people and their concerns and their viewpoints and having that inform our actions and our viewpoints as elected officials."

You can hear Greg Mezey’s full comments here. 

A full recording of the meeting is on the county’s YouTube channel.