culture 38 MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY november 16-22, 2023 www.montereycountyweekly.com There is a decades-old tradition of leaving messages, made of sticks or ice plant, on the 160-foot-high sand dune by the Sand City exit off Highway 1. The dune seems open-minded, equally happy to praise anarchy as to express someone’s love for Becky. An Oct. 12 incident, however, made the humble hill into a thermometer that shows how locals are affected by events on the other side of the world— where Hamas fighters attacked Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people and kidnapping 240. Israel’s military response since has killed an estimated 11,000 people in Gaza. World leaders, including within the U.S. Congress, have clashed over how to respond. So have Monterey County supervisors. And as seen in Sand City on Oct. 12, so have regular people in the community. That day, three Monterey residents of Palestinian origins (ages 13 to 27), spelled out “Free Gaza” on the dune. Max Steiner, who was visiting from Chico with his bicycle and was biking by, found the sign inappropriate. He stopped and started a conversation that led to a full-on confrontation and left both sides shaken. The versions of what exactly happened differ, but both sides agree that Steiner damaged the sign (it’s documented in video footage taken by the women, posted on social media and available online), and that he took the phone of 13-year-old Maryam Khalil, who was recording, and threw it on the ground. But Steiner also says that he damaged the sign only after an exchange with the women, whose remarks he said were antisemitic (the group denies that), and that he grabbed the teenager’s phone only after the three started to kick his bicycle, damaging it. Kicking the bike is not part of the women’s story. Steiner left the scene before Sand City police arrived, called by the women. Sand City Police Chief David Honda says the case was so complex that they passed it on to the Monterey County District Attorney’s Office, where it remains under review as of the Weekly’s deadline. No charges have been filed to date. The police collected the damaged phone in their investigation; it has since been returned. In the meantime, the women started their own investigation, identifying Steiner, who ran for Congress in northeastern California as a Democrat in 2022, and posted a video on TikTok showing him damaging the letters with his feet. The video went viral, with over 1 million views, and Steiner has been receiving hate mail on social media, including messages calling for him to die. Steiner says he would damage a swastika sign too, even though he says “Free Gaza” doesn’t mean “No Israel” or “Hamas Rules.” Steiner, who is not Jewish, joined the Army at 19, serving two years in Iraq. He participated in a peacekeeping effort in the Middle East and then served for eight years as a U.S. diplomat. “I do not want to see extremists erecting pro-terrorist signs in America,” Steiner writes by email. “I asked them what it meant, and it’s why I tore it down when they answered with a terrorist apology. I know that ‘Veteran Reacts Aggressively to ProTerror Sign on Beach, Gets Doxed’ isn’t a gripping headline, but that’s basically the summary of this incident.” The Khalil family has a different summary of the incident. They say Steiner not only grabbed Maryam Khalil’s phone but choked her; Steiner denies even touching her. “To take her phone, he had to touch her,” argues her father, Dodi Khalil. He has been living in Monterey County for 40 years, running an auto shop in Seaside. “He confronted us because we looked young and we were wearing hijabs,” says Sara Khalil, age 27, who was on the hill. “Our people are being dehumanized and attacked for free speech in Monterey County. We don’t feel safe here anymore.” Given that Scribble Hill is on private property, it is not technically a matter of free speech rights, says David Loy, legal director of the First Amendment Coalition. “The only person who has a right to take the sign down is the property owner,” he notes—same thing goes for putting up a sign. (The property owner is Ed Ghandour, who plans to build a hotel and condominium project on this spot. The project has been on hold since at least 2014.) Whether or not either side intended simply to exercise their right to free speech, they captured the tension that has been felt in the polarizing national and international discourse on a complex, emotional topic. Monterey County saw a divided board of supervisors vote twice to not approve a resolution in support of Israel, while some Bay Area cities have more recently approved resolutions in solidarity with Gaza. College campuses across the country have seen walkouts and protests, but Monterey County has seen just a few peace marches so far; a rally in solidarity with Palestinians and call for a ceasefire, organized by a group calling itself Monterey Palestine Solidarity, is scheduled to take place in front of Monterey City Hall from 3-5:30pm on Friday, Nov. 17. Dodi Khalil views Steiner’s confrontation as representative of a broader problem of hate. “It was also fueled by Islamophobia and prejudice against Muslims, specifically Palestinians,” he adds. “It’s disheartening to witness such hatred.” He also spoke about the incident inside the Monterey County Board of Supervisors chambers on Tuesday, Oct. 24, when the board was considering a resolution condemning acts of terrorism by Hamas and expressing solidarity with Israel. The measure was introduced by Supervisor Luis Alejo, who said it was important to take a stand against antisemitism. County staff incorporated language “calling for a just and lasting peace in the region, and for Israelis and Palestinians alike,” and brought the resolution back for consideration, where Dodi Khalil and others spoke against it, urging the board not to take a position on one side or the other. They voted 3-2 twice against adopting a resolution in solidarity with Israel. Meanwhile, the incident at Scribble Hill remains unresolved and the question unanswered of what’s next for the Khalils and Steiner. The Khalil family demands punishment for Steiner, saying they need justice to feel safe in Monterey County. While the facts of their confrontation remain under investigation, the conflict in Gaza continues. Since Oct. 7, a reported 11,000 people in Gaza have been killed in Israel’s military response, 4,000 of them children. The Battle for Scribble Hill A confrontation in Sand City brings the polarizing divide over the Israel-Palestine conflict to Monterey County. By Agata Pop˛eda “Our people are being dehumanized and attacked for free speech in Monterey County.” Scribble Hill on Thursday, Oct. 7, before Max Steiner biked past, confronted three Monterey County women of Palestinian origin who made the sign, and destroyed it. The incident is under investigation by the Monterey County District Attorney’s Office. Courtesy of the Khalil family
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