It has been 30 days since the horrific Hamas terror attack on Israel, which left over 1,400 dead, the single deadliest day in Israeli history.
Israel’s retaliation has been immediate and unrelenting. After four weeks, the death toll in Gaza has surpassed 10,000, including 4,104 children with more than 25,000 injured. These are figures supplied by Gaza’s Health Ministry; the Israeli tally of casualties is not significantly different. The bombing and attacks go on. Last night, the Israeli military reported strikes against 450 targets amid a total communications blackout in Gaza City. Hospitals are short of fuel, medicine, food, and water.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken says that he is “optimistic” that there would soon be movement toward “humanitarian pauses” in Gaza–but the Israeli government has so far refused to agree to them.
It is past time for a ceasefire. And it is time for the world community to speak with one voice in calling for a ceasefire.
As Dr. Martin Luther King said when he delivered his historic address at Riverside Church on the Vietnam War, “A time comes when silence is a betrayal.” A betrayal of our basic humanity, a betrayal of our basic values.
The mass reprisals must end. Israel seeks security, which surely is understandable. But this violence offers no answer. Everything in our experience teaches that these attacks will produce more terrorists than they will kill. They will touch off more violence than they will end. Even the most extreme use of violence – the alleged Israeli memo speculating on pushing 2.4 million Gazans into Egypt – will only serve to relocate and reinforce the hatreds, not end them.
An immediate ceasefire is necessary. It is not sufficient. Massive humanitarian aid is needed to stop a humanitarian catastrophe. That aid should be reciprocated by the freeing of the hostages. Negotiations about the underlying conditions – the need for Israeli security and Palestinian freedom – must be pursued by all parties to the conflict.
The Biden administration has been unwilling to support a ceasefire, even as it has pushed at first privately and now publicly for “humanitarian pauses.”
There is a thing Dr. King taught us, “as being too late.”
“Procrastination,” he warned, “is still the thief of time.” In Gaza, procrastination will be the theft of thousands of lives of civilians and children. Israel’s leaders, if they were wise, would end the assault now. Israel’s friends should be firm in calling for them to stop. If we do not act as Dr. King warned, we will be charged with possessing “power without compassion, might without morality, and strength without sight.”
I can understand the pain and the fear that drives the urge for retaliation, the desire to eradicate the enemy completely for once and for all. I know the agony that is felt as antisemitic attacks are on the rise. I realize that all of us who call for a cease-fire now
will be exposed to bitter attacks.
But this cannot go on. Terror begetting terror. Attacks on civilians in Israel, begetting, attacks on civilians in Gaza. An unimaginable humanitarian calamity in the making. If this continues, it is the terrorists who have won, even if they are among the dead.
The bombing must stop. The road to a just peace will be next to impossible. Continued death and destruction in Gaza are too awful to contemplate. It is time for our humanity to speak and to act.
You can write to the Rev. Jesse Jackson in care of this newspaper or by email at jjackson@rainbowpush.org. Follow him on Twitter @RevJJackson.
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