Agran’s antics enable menacing environment
The screaming was so intense that the mayor called for a 30-minute recess of the city council meeting. When the meeting resumed, it started all over again—one group of people talking loudly to drown out the speakers from the other side and then taunting them individually at their seats. Police presence was everywhere, but the hate speech and threats continued relentlessly until midnight.
“The climate at city hall was like nothing I’ve ever seen,” said Julie Heiman, an attorney. “There was screaming, interpersonal bullying, people saying that Hitler was right, and other people chanting ‘From the river to the sea.’”
Surprisingly, this scenario took place in one of America’s safest cities where amicable diversity has always been a hallmark. The chaos is a biweekly occurrence at Irvine City Council meetings as radical Muslims shout anti-Semitic tropes and blood libels at members of the Jewish community. Both sides have reacted to council proposals to make Gaza City a sister city to Irvine and for Irvine to give humanitarian aid to Gaza, but one side is intent on intimidating the other one.
According to Julie Marzouk, also an attorney, “I had been so comfortable in Irvine, but now it has become a place of divisiveness. We had to sit there and be attacked for who we are. The proposed measures were not relevant to the city council or part of its jurisdiction. People who were disruptive could have been removed, per the Brown Act. The council could have shut down the comments after the council majority voted down the proposals, but the mayor and vice mayor decided to put it in their purview, violating the rules for subject matter and decorum.”
What does surprise some—but not all—Irvine residents is the fact that the controversial proposals came from Vice Mayor Larry Agran, a lifelong politician who has held office or promoted candidates for office in Irvine for 46 years. Agran, who lists himself as a Democratic Socialist, also ran for President in 1992 and is running for mayor of Irvine again this year. Ironically, he is also the only current member of Irvine’s city council who is of Jewish birth.
Robin Gurien, an activist and professor of communications at Cal State Fullerton, telephoned Agran “before the first public melee—the December 12 council meeting, not believing he would seriously consider a cease-fire resolution.” Gurien, who was aware that many members of the Jewish community were going to come to the council meeting to ask the council what it was thinking, said that Agran assured her that he would not support such a resolution, because it would be too divisive.
Then the anti-Israel faction brought “babies in effigy” (pillows made to look blood-stained) and inauthentic videos to the council meeting. Agran seemed pleased and decided to spearhead the cease-fire effort, according to Gurien. She has “been waiting more than 6 months to hear Agran say that he does not support the language being used to condemn Israel and the Jewish community. He doesn’t speak against it. He can stop it, but he says it’s free speech.”
Efrem Joelson, a planner for Meritage Homes, who described Agran as “Irvine’s Bernie Sanders,” thinks that Agran was trying to appease both sides, and it backfired. He explained, “He needs power to do what he wants, so he makes unprincipled decisions as he panders for votes, even if he has to sidle up to nefarious groups.”
“How does a Jew say, ‘I want to be a sister city with Gaza?’’ asked Karen Jaffe, a regulatory affairs manager for a biopharmaceutical company. “He knows the difference between free speech and hate speech, but he just let it go. Agran and (Mayor Farrah) Khan have fomented hate that serves to exacerbate anti-Semitism. He has sowed the seeds of divisiveness, but he’s just promoting himself.”
Ilene Schneider has been chronicling Jewish life in Orange County for five publications since 1978. She has served as a communications consultant for a number of Jewish organizations. She is a contributing writer to Jlife Magazine.