ANN ARBOR, MI – After being turned away by the city’s Human Rights Commission, anti-Israel protesters are again calling on City Council to weigh in on a foreign policy matter.

Blaine Coleman and Mozhgan Savabieasfahani, who have appeared before council with “Boycott Israel” signs for years to protest the killing of Palestinians, returned Monday night, Aug. 19.

They urged council to adopt a seven-word resolution stating: “We are against military aid to Israel.”

“It’s a simple resolution,” Coleman said, urging city officials to voice support for ending billions of dollars in U.S. aid to Israel.

“$38 billion is going to be going to Israel in the next 10 years,” Savabieasfahani said. “That $38 billion can pay for American health. It can pay for American people’s education.”

They were met with silence from council members. Most don’t think it’s an issue the city should discuss.

“This City Council deals with global and national issues all the time,” Coleman argued, noting council decades ago adopted resolutions to boycott apartheid in South Africa and Burma, and earlier this year it called for a boycott of the Wendy’s restaurant chain in support of farm workers.

“That’s a good thing,” Coleman said, noting the council also has dealt with global climate issues.

“This City Council can never ever use the excuse that it concerns itself only with the city limits of Ann Arbor.”

City officials for years have mostly ignored and objected to the anti-Israel protesters who have regularly spoken before council.

Council Member Jeff Hayner, D-1st Ward, suggested last month the city should take up the issue.

“I’m not going to sit here silent anymore,” Hayner said. “I’m going to recognize that for 17 years these folks have been coming up here and saying this. We don’t agree on everything, but I agree it’s a human rights crisis over there. We’re arming the Middle East.”

Hayner said last month he wanted to see what the Human Rights Commission had to say and “see if there’s anything we can do, even if it’s a gesture. It’ll only take a few minutes to make a gesture.”

Ali Ramlawi, a City Council liaison to the commission who is of Palestinian descent, supported exploring whether it was something the commission could consider.

City Attorney Stephen Postema advised the commission last week that foreign policy is not something it should attempt to address, as it’s not within its scope of duties per city ordinance. City Council still could separately vote on a resolution on the topic.

“I just don’t see the support on council to take this up,” Ramlawi said in an interview Tuesday, Aug. 20.

“The fact is none of my constituents have asked for this,” he said. “Many of my constituents have said, if I spend my time doing this, I will be doing them a disservice because I’m not going to be able to take care of the priorities and issues they elected me to address.”

It would be naive to think a simple, seven-word resolution could be passed on the topic, Ramlawi said.

“It would bring on a firestorm and I would spend the remainder of my term putting out dumpster fire after dumpster fire,” he said.

Jewish residents have argued that taking a stance against the world’s only Jewish state when there are human rights abuses all around the world would divide the community and would be hurtful to Jews.

Coleman said Monday night he doesn’t believe it’s a matter too complicated for the city to address.

“Is it complex when you watch a huge military power — a white supremacist power like Israel — gun down thousands of unarmed human rights marchers?” he said.

Savabieasfahani compared the Israeli government’s treatment of Palestinians to European colonizers killing Native Americans and building a new country “on their dead bodies.”

“Genocide is bad. Killing people who are living in their homes and not bothering you is bad,” she said.

The idea of cutting off military aid to Israel has been suggested by some members of Congress after U.S. Reps. Rashida Tlaib, D-Detroit, and Ilhan Omar, D-Minneapolis, were recently denied entry into Israel as part of a congressional delegation visit.

The two are the first Muslim women elected to Congress and support a boycott movement against Israel. Tlaib’s parents immigrated to the U.S. from the West Bank.

U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders tweeted, “If Israel doesn’t want members of the United States Congress to visit their country, maybe they can respectfully decline the billions of dollars that we give to Israel.”

Tlaib teared up while speaking at a press conference Monday, explaining her reasons for rejecting Israel’s offer of a restricted visit to the West Bank, where her 90-year-old grandmother lives. Abiding by Israel’s conditions, that she would not promote the boycott movement, would go against “everything I believe in,” she said.

U.S. aid to Israel should be tied to its treatment of Palestinians, Omar said Monday, questioning whether funds should continue after she and Tlaib were blocked from visiting in an official capacity, The Hill reported.