Ali Afghan with his two daughters Roya and Sara, his brother Hamid and his son Andisheh. (Courtesy photo: Ali Afghan)

If you happen to run into Lake Oswego City Councilor Ali Afghan in the community, you may see him donning a black hat with the word “Gaza” emblazoned in red.

Afghan continues to be appalled at reports coming out of Palestine — including the more than 57,000 people who have died, the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who are starving and suffering and the thousands of orphans who are alone and in need.

To raise awareness about the humanitarian crisis and get community members to no longer turn a blind eye, he has worn the hat every day for nearly a year and plans to continue to do so until the bombings stop and Palestinians are provided sustenance and reconnected with humanitarian organizations. He is doing so not as a city councilor but a citizen.

“I wear it as a personal expression of compassion and what is happening in Gaza is a humanitarian crisis, honestly. Civilians, especially children, are suffering on a massive scale and this is my way of not turning away. It’s about empathy for human life,” he said. “We as citizens of the world and U.S. citizens have become numb to certain things — the internal politics, different issues we hear on world news every night, different executive orders. What we cannot get numb to is human life being taken away without us taking a stand against this. This matter is not a complicated matter. We can turn it into a complex and complicated matter. When innocent people die, it has to stop.”

Israel’s bombardment of Gaza began after the Hamas-led attacks of Oct. 7, 2023, during which more than 1,200 Israelis were killed. More than a year and a half later, Israel’s tactics have drawn international outcry.

For Afghan, the tipping point was when Israel bombed hospitals and schools while causing seemingly indiscriminate destruction. Afghan bought the hat at a market in Santa Monica, California that was dedicated to supporting Palestinians.

“When I walked through and started listening to stories, it affected me. I wanted to have something in my hand that was a mirror for myself. I started wearing it as my everyday hat and keeping that alive in front of me,” he said.

Although nationally the Israel-Gaza conflict has become a polarizing political topic, Afghan said he has mostly heard support from Lake Oswego community members who comment on the hat, although some people he has encountered said what he was doing was controversial.

“My response was, if expressing my constitutional right is controversial then we need to look at ourselves regarding those fundamental values and rights that we have in order to practice our freedom of speech as opposed to ‘Let’s not talk about something that is controversial,’” Afghan said. “I want to talk about these things so we can start addressing the injustice in the world in countries and communities.”

Afghan doesn’t want the statement he’s making to be considered a political one and in turn is not wearing the hat during City Council meetings. He also emphasized that it’s not meant to be a statement against Israelis.

The city councilor and engineer is an Iranian immigrant who left the country to attend university in America amid the Islamic Revolution in the late 1970s.

He said his Middle Eastern roots don’t necessarily make him more sensitive to the Israel-Gaza conflict; what does is his experience witnessing atrocities wrought by political conflict.

“Because I am an immigrant and I saw the beginning of a revolution in Iran and I saw what war and conflicts can cause, I am more sensitive to these types of issues as opposed to (it being because I’m) from that region,” he said.