In your editorial “Dueling ‘Red Lines’” (March 14), you suggest that President Biden is pressuring Israel to soften the blow in Gaza merely because the president himself is feeling pressure from progressive and younger voters. Isn’t it possible, though, that the president — a man consumed by decency — is feeling pressured not just by political expediency, but also by his conscience and his sense of humanity?
And, contrary to your suggestion that this pressure by Biden constitutes a softening of his historic support for Israel, isn’t it possible that acting in the interest of humanity can be fully consistent with acting in Israel’s best interest, too? Your editorial (like so much of the writing surrounding the tragedy of the Middle East) suggests it’s a zero-sum game — one is either pro-Israel or pro-Palestinian, and one can’t be both. But isn’t it possible that it’s in Israel’s interest not to perpetuate an even greater human catastrophe in Gaza?
Sometimes it takes some tough love from a caring, older friend to knock some sense into a wayward soul, understandably blinded by trauma.
Richie Feder, Mount Airy
Mr. Feder, is allowing a terrorist government to survive so that it can repeat it’s Oct, 7th inhumane savagery over and over,really working in the interest of humanity? If Israel permits Hamas to survive, as you obviously wish to happen, is that in your opinion in the interest of Israelis? How many innocent Israeli women have to be savagely raped how many innocent children have to be savagely beheaded, and burned alive in order for you to understand that the interests of humanity in general and of Israelis in particular are not served by allowing these Hamas Nazis to repeat their unspeakable barbarities?
Biden is being threatened by Tlaib and Omar to stop the destruction of Hamas. That, and not his conscious and sense of decency is why he is pressuring Netanyahu to stop the total destruction of Hamas. Once Hamas is gone both the Israelis and the Palestinians will have a brighter future absent the destructive fascism that Hamas promotes.