October 7 commemoration is too political, some say
Coral Gables Mayor Vince Lago thought he’d raise a flag. Instead, he raised eyebrows. And tempers.
At next week’s city commission meeting, expect a little political kabuki over an idea that already sparked plenty of drama: raising the Israeli flag at City Hall to mark the anniversary of the October 7th Hamas attack, where more than 1,200 people were killed and 200 were taken hostage.
Lago already proposed the gesture at the first meeting in September, but he had to defer the plan after he got some unexpected resistance from the newest commissioner, Richard Lara, who dared to go against the mayor’s wishes. Lara wasn’t buying the symbolism and there was plenty of blowback from residents, as well.
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Coral Gables has shown support for Israel before. After the 2023 attacks, the city lit up the building in blue and white and hosted 
a demonstration of solidarity with the local Jewish community. Resolutions were passed. Hands were held. No drama.
But raising a flag at City Hall? That’s different. It’s a more public, visible — political. And people noticed.
The city should not recognize the Israeli victims without also recognizing the Palestinian victims, said Jay Shahadeh, who lives on North Greenway Drive. He said the message was: “If the victims look like me or if they look like my children, it doesn’t matter.”
Some residents questioned whether City Hall is the place for these kinds of international gestures. Others warned about opening the door to every other foreign conflict and flag — Palestinian, Ukrainian, Armenian, Cuban, you name it. If we fly one, are we ready to fly them all?
“City Hall is supposed to be welcoming to all,” said Sadia Raja, a pharmacist who spoke at the Sept. 10 meeting. “It sends a message that the city is taking sides in a foreign dispute. All suffering and death should be acknowledged, not just one side.”
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The only person who spoke in favor of the flag raising was South Miami Mayor Javier Fernández, who was there as a lobbyist on a land use issue, but just decided to chime in because he felt the need to support Lago on this. Fernandez was also in Israel for a week in July with a delegation of other electeds from across Florida, including Sen. Alexis Calatayud and State Rep. Vicky Lopez. They met with U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, who might be taking a break from peddling his sleep aid, and the families of some of the hostages and former hostages, Fernandez said. The value will be on his next disclosure form.
“We met with Israelis, Christians, Jews, Palestinians, Islamists and Muslims,” Fernandez told Political Cortadito this week.
And, in fact, he liked Lago’s idea about raising the Israeli flag so much, he brought it to his own South Miami commission, which passed a similar item on Sept. 16 unanimously, to commemorate the Oct. 7 mass killing.
Fernandez told Ladra that the action is just to pay homage to the hostages and their families, to commemorate the events of Oct. 7. “I certainly have a lot of reservations about how the current Israeli government is conducting its military campaign and operations in Gaza,” he said. “But the resolution is to express solidarity with the hostages and the victims of Oct. 7, which is in line with our 9/11.”
He did, however, parrot a lot of the Israeli arguments about civilian deaths being the fault of Hamas and how all the Palestinians have to do is leave and there
is no genocide. But forcing hundreds of thousands of people into refugee camps with no food, no running water, no safety net, no educational opportunities, no future is practically genocide by neglect.
And nobody who is driving by City Hall on Oct. 7 is going to know the nuanced differenced. Most people haven’t read the wording of the resolution. Maybe 10 people saw the Sept. 16 meeting, where nobody opposed the raising of the flag. But when they drive by City Hall with the Israeli flag raised, they will just think that the city has taken a side in the conflict. Period.
And the timing is insane. Every week, it seems, another country or international body is calling out Israel for what it’s doing in Gaza and the West Bank. From the streets of London and Paris to the chambers of the U.N. and the Hague, the tide of global opinion is turning — and fast. What used to be whispered is now being shouted: that Israel’s treatment of Palestinians is not just “self-defense” — it’s oppression, occupation, and has even been called genocide. Governments in the Global South, European parliaments, human rights groups, even some Jewish organizations — they’re lining up to condemn what’s happening.
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And Lago is doubling down? What’s in it for him? Is he seeking some group’s backing in his ambitions for higher office? Everybody knows that he wants to run for Miami-Dade mayor. Is he making a move for the Jewish vote?
Commissioner Lara said the quiet part out loud: The city shouldn’t be in the business of picking sides in global conflicts, 
especially when those sides divide the people who live here.
Wow. That came out of his mouth?
So L’Ego deferred, promising “more community input,” which is code for “more time to get people to convince Lara.”
Source told Ladra that people tried to convince Lago to drop this flag thing. They appealed to him on several levels.
This is a city that celebrates its international ties with the “Flags on Ponce” program, where national flags flutter along Miracle Mile. But that’s about cultural heritage and global presence — not geopolitics.
There’s a big difference between flying the flag of your parents’ homeland during carnival and raising the Israeli flag to commemorate a war that’s still going on. This isn’t about being pro-Israel or pro-Palestine. It’s about what City Hall should represent. And whether the dais is the right place to wage symbolic battles with real-world consequences.
Flying a foreign flag, especially one tied to an ongoing and deeply divisive international conflict, might not be the unifying move Lago says he wants. In fact, it might do the opposite.
City raising an Israeli flag causes fuss and fury at Coral Gables City Hall added by Ladra on
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Elaine, I am disappointed that you took down your response to me and my reply…..Censoring a post and dialogue is the last thing I would have expected from you. WOW
What’ next: Blocking me from responding and posting…..
Dear Saul, my response to your comment and your response back are on another post. I do not censure anyone, unlike Mayor Lago. But you are so blinded by your hate and ignorance that you just made that assumption. I expect nothing less of you.
Love, Ladra
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[…] Read related: City raising an Israeli flag causes fuss and fury at Coral Gables City Hall […]
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fix the potholes and the sidewalks and cut the grandiosity. CG is city (a small one) why do our politicians insist on wasting their time and efforts in anything other than managing the city professionally for the benefit of all residents.
Red fox, Your either an ignorant or anti-semetic revisionist
Dateline 2009. In an effort for peace, based on PLO promises, Israel kicks out its SETTLERS, hands over Gaza to the Gazans, leaves infrastructure, including greenhouses that made the area self-sufficient. Response, burn the infrastructure down, build tunnels and attack Israel permitting Hamas to establish a terrorist footprint
Dateline October 7, 2023. Gazans and Hamas murder, rape, torture, and take hostages
Dateline October 8, 2023, to the present. No change in the Gazan, Hamas, or PA objective to kill off Israel and Jews.
Jews and Israelis and civilized communities like those in Coral Gables, see through the Hamas/PA/Iranian facade, because many of their residents are here because they have lived it; others are so anti-Semitic, that they throw reality to the wind.
Stephanie Kienzle, same to you. At least the post shows that the Gables is still full of racists and Anti-Semites, but we live in a country in which I respect their right to live and state their position. I am old enough to have spoken Spanish on a pay phone (remember those?) at the Riviera Country Club in 1982, and was thrown out. However, for the overwhelming amount of money Hispanics spend in the City, that would be the case… The same applies to Jews at that time and before. So CG has always had an anti-Hispanic and anti-Semitic footprint … it seems that has not gone away.
JC
Raz Segal and many others are pretending to be Jews ala the pretend to be French with the Nazi’s
HAMAS is the war agency of those Muslims, led and funded by Iran and Qatar (a make-believe neutral party, that most Arab states agree, is part of Hamas) who don’t seek peace, they seek to COLONIZE the world, not with peace by peace.
They are the same ones who cheered when Jews were slaughtered, kidnapped, raped, and then the surviving held hostage and starved and beaten—and you are the kind that finds that to be justification for granting them a state? After they turned it down??
Lago is so full of himself. He is incapable of realizing when he is wrong. His Herald quote “he wanted to give commissioners time to come up with alternative solutions because he wanted unity on the decision” is a cop out. He didn’t get his way and is too childish and fragile to admit it. What a sorry little man. Son, take the silver spoon out of your mouth and man up.
One of my anti-Zionist Jewish friends once told me that “Zionism is narcissism.” Once noticed, you can’t help but see it in all of the justifications for land theft, genocide, etc. and it’s clearly illustrated in the racist, delusional comments (thanks Saul!) below.
tut tut. Playing the “I have Muslim friends” card doesn’t erase anti-Arab or anti-Muslim hate.
Many Arabs are Christian, Druze, agonists and atheists. Democracy means no race or religion gets special treatment.
You’re from Cuba, but you claim the right to kick a Palestinian out of their home because you have Jewish ancestry? That’s not faith—that’s entitlement.
Is Judaism a religion or a race? You switch it when it suits you.
Israel is an apartheid state. Yes, some Palestinians live there—just like Black South Africans lived under apartheid. The world rejected apartheid in South Africa, and it’s rejecting apartheid in Israel.
Even Golda Meir admitted in 1970: “I am a Palestinian. From 1921 to 1948, I carried a Palestinian passport.”
You deny anyone else’s suffering, as if only your people suffered most. But genocide is not exclusive. Rwanda. Bosnia. The slave trade. Native Americans. None of these justify new atrocities.
Israel has existed since 1948. Fine. Palestine also has the right to exist—and Israel has crushed that right in Gaza, the West Bank, and the Golan Heights.
Terrorists are terrorists—Hamas, Netanyahu, Smotrich, or the IDF.
Visiting a place of worship doesn’t make you less racist. Entitlement over someone else’s land does.
The UN, Amnesty International, Doctors Without Borders—all document Israel’s crimes. Even Israelis protest Netanyahu’s government.
Meanwhile, our schools, veterans, and healthcare go underfunded—while billions in U.S. tax dollars flow to Israel.
Likud’s charter says “from the river to the sea” will be Judea. That’s not survival—it’s ethnic cleansing.
And Israel’s “coexistence” with 1.2 million Arabs? Peace at gunpoint. Peace under the boot of the IDF.
Rejecting Isarel’s actions is not anti Semitism . Wanting all of Gaza to disappear and become Israel that is anti Semitic. Arabs living in Palestine for over 2000 years are Semites too.
Lago wants to show support for Jews but what about for immigrants that were denied due process and thrown in Alligator Alcatraz? We didn’t hear a peep from Vinnie then. Why, because he has to show daddy Trump that he knows how to play nice. Lago is a coward and opportunist.
The ONLY flag that should be there is the AMERICAN flag.
Oh dear! Lara had a difference of opinion with Lord Farquaad, no! Is this the beginning of the end between them? Everyone knows that if Mayor L’ego doesn’t get his way 100% of the time, you are dead to him. Hmm, interesting times ahead.
FACT REDONE: Actually your a bigot and a sloppy revisionist. If my name was not blatantly Jewish, you may have come at me with the dignity a public forum requires, But you come at me with baited hate. I did not come with hate, just fact: Had Hamas not taken over the territory that is Jewish around 2009, had it not turned the area into a staging area for war, then it would not be
But rest assured, Jews WILL not stand by and get slaughtered. Nor will we permit Kool Aid being spewed by the likes of you, to desecrate the memory of 6 million Jews and millions of others killed in the Holocaust and since then by the Hamas of the World. 1.5 million “Palestinians” peacefully live in Israel; Abbas to this day seeks to kill off all Jews. In the words of Golda Meir, “Peace will only come when [Israel’s enemies] care more about their own children than killing Jewish Children.”
As to your partying bigotry, I have been to many mosques — even welcomed to the one in Cuba — and attend church more regularly than a synagogue, with my devout Catholic Fiancé. I was raised in a Catholic/Jewish Home. How about you?
How can anyone in their right mind think raising this flag under the current climate is a wise idea? The simple and direct comment from Tell-It-Lik-It-Is that “[L]iving under one flag is proving hard enough!” is all we need to consider.
Saul,
You keep showing your true colors as a racist, anti-Muslim, anti-Arab, anti-Christian bigot, and genocidal ideologue. You claim to support democracy and secularism here, but not for Palestinians—while defending Israel’s expansion, land theft, and ethnic cleansing under the guise of ancient entitlement.
History lesson:
• Before the Kingdom of Judah, the land was inhabited by the Canaanites, a Semitic people who built city-states and civilizations across Canaan.
• Israelites later settled among them, followed by Romans, Greeks, Arab Jews, Arab pagans, and others.
• Christianity was born there, then spread, and many later became Muslims. Arabs, Jews, and others intermingled for centuries.
To suggest Jews have remained untouched for 3,000 years—never mixing, never sharing—is absurd. Cultures and faiths always evolve. Just as Latin Americans today are not “pure Spanish” so they should go kick people living in homes in Spain and just take it over due to historical ties. Neither are Jews or Palestinians are frozen in time.
Palestinians gave refuge to Holocaust survivors and European Jews. Yet ever since Britain (which was not theirs to begin with) divided the land, Palestinians have been forced to pay for Europe’s sins. Families are still being displaced to build illegal settlements condemned by the international community for over 75 years.
Hamas is horrific and should be condemned—but it only formed in 2009. Long before that, Israel was already seizing land, uprooting families, and committing massacres since 1948.
The IDF is a terrorist army.
Israel presents itself as a democracy while functioning as an ethno-religious apartheid state. If ancient history is the justification, then by the same logic, Americans should return their homes to the Seminole and Miccosukee peoples. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.
Palestine has the right to exist. Israeli society cannot build its future on the graves of Palestinian children—it will collapse from within if it continues down this path.
L’Shana Tova. Salam Alaykum. May Jesus be with you.
Ladra, your article makes it clear that this is about what City Hall should be about – representing the citizens of its community. Raising an Israeli flag is so far away from that that it could only be for one thing: posturing for future office. Any discussion of Hitler and “Judea” is a total non-sequitur. Foreign policy has absolutely ZERO to do with the business that should be conducted at city hall; it is not an embassy!
But even putting that aside, that our leaders, who ostensibly serve us as a constituency, would want to support an Israeli regime that calls for and conducts the rest of the world and many here recognize as a genocide in Gaza is an outrage and unacceptable to any decent citizenry.
Israeli-American scholar Raz Segal called Israel’s attacks on Gaza a “textbook case of genocide” after Israeli Defense Minister Gallant ordered a siege of the place because this shows a “deliberate intent to destroy.”
The 1948 Genocide Convention, adopted after the Holocaust, obligates signatories to prevent and punish acts committed with “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.” This has been demonstrated by the Israeli government again and again.
In one of the worst examples, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is on record with the genocidal intent of his regime. He invoked the story of Amalek, saying, “Remember what Amalek has done to you, says our holy Bible. We remember.” In the biblical narrative, God commands the destruction of Amalek’s entire people and livestock. Amalek has long symbolized total annihilation in far-right Israeli discourse. Netanyahu and his party, Likud’s regime, are openly genocidal.
That Hamas is a violent organization that has committed atrocities does not erase the outward, direct destruction of Palestinians as a people, nor does it excuse what has become an openly genocidal campaign under the guise of war by a state.
And let me be clear, since people often accuse those who speak against this genocide as “anti-semitic” with no evidence, this has nothing to do with the history of the Jewish people or Judaism itself; it is about a political regime weaponizing Jewish symbols and sacred references to justify and carry out a campaign of destruction against Palestinians.
In this context, raising an Israeli flag over City Hall, while countries like Canada, France, and the UK are confronting the humanitarian catastrophe and legal questions head-on, would not simply be inappropriate; it would be openly immoral.
Saul, thank you so much for your comment. I’m so glad someone has the courage to tell the truth! God bless you, and L’shana tova.
Sure, Mayor Lago. Force the city to stand in solidarity with a regime that has slaughtered tens of thousands of people. What are your plans to commemorate them?
The last sentence of Saul’s comment reveals the actual objective here: ethnic cleansing.
Elaine, here you go again. You hold yourself out as a forensic journalist, stating accurately that you usually do not have a dog in the fight. But on the Palestinian issue, you do– you made it clear in a recent post that you support pro-Palestinian causes, directing readers to a specific site. To the extent you want to be transparent, let all readers know your position is that of an advocate, not a neutral journalist, twisting in snippets of your position, while silent on hostage taking, murder, and rape by Hamas. I could go on for a while. To sum it up, Abbas has stated the Palestinian agenda is to rid the world of Jews, Hitler 2.0, while Israel has sought peace. That the Commission can discern right from wrong is not an indictment of its position regarding one group, just the one that is right in this instance. I am Cuban and Jewish, and my staff includes many Muslims and Arabs, as do many of my friends. They are all outraged at Hamas, and the takeover of the affected areas, hostage taking and murder and rape. 99% of Muslims and Arabs are the same decent humans as those who live in South Florida. 1% are the loudest–Hamas . By the way, it started as Judea, as in “Jew’s Land,” even when attacked over centuries.
Enough with all the damn flags – LGBTQ, BLM, Israeli, Cuban, Gables High …
Living under one flag is proving hard enough!