Yesterday, on Thursday, April 4, 2024, The New York Times ran an article on Page A6. Here is the headline that appeared with the story (hard copy version):
I was happy to learn that the President's wife, known to be an advisor whom he trusts, is making an urgent appeal to the President, and is imploring him to do whatever he can to end the conflict in Israel and Gaza.
For many, many reasons, it will be tremendously difficult for the President to do what his wife advises. There are many "political" problems, here in our country, and the President cannot ignore them; there is a great deal at stake; he must navigate carefully through the politics upon which his wife is urging him to embark. There are also many issues related to international relationships, not only in the Middle East, but in Europe and throughout the world. Similarly, the President must navigate carefully with respect to these international relationships.
It is also true, of course, that the United States is not Israel, and cannot appropriately, or practically, dictate what Israel must or will do - and that is true even though the United States has been and currently continues to be a major supporter of Israel, militarily and otherwise, and even though Israel depends, in the military actions that Israel is taking, on the military and economic support that the United States is providing to it.
The attack by Hamas on October 6, 2023, was horrendous, and it is difficult to ignore that, and to discount or deny the claim that Israel faces an existential threat to which it must respond.
But what is happening now in Gaza is horrendous, too, and arguably on an even greater scale.
A call to, "Stop it, Stop It Now" is an appeal to our President to transcend and leave behind the conventionalities to which I have just alluded. I believe that the only way that our President can pull that off, and succeed in doing that, is for him to indicate to the entire world (to our country and to the entire world) that what is happening now in Israel and Gaza is a demonstration - a "proof" - that military destruction, so often the blunt tool of choice employed as a way to address complex political, economic, and environmental problems, must now be seen to be a categorical failure. We need to build a peace that can support the mutual efforts, worldwide, that are absolutely necessary to address the supreme challenges ahead - challenges that face every country in the world, and certainly our own.
This is the time that we can (and must) do something new. Now is the time that we must change the course of what has proven to be a bankrupt strategy that has premised world peace on nuclear threats and military might.
Jill Biden has stated, clearly, what is a truth recognized by many, all around the world.
Can we solve our complex problems with guns and bombs? NO! Jill Biden is right. Here is what we need to do:
"Stop it, Stop It Now."
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