Mr. President, Call Netanyahu: End the Holocaust in Gaza

Mister Trump, call Netanyahu and demand an end to the Holocaust in Gaza

President Donald Trump,

You’ve said the legacy you most want to leave of your time in politics is that of a “peacemaker.” But we’ve learned from past presidents that such a legacy depends not just on speeches to the hopeful, trustful crowds that delivered you to the White House. It depends on proving you have a moral backbone when it counts – and letting the weight of the world lean against it as a backstop against global catastrophe.

In 1982, as Israeli forces laid siege to West Beirut, President Ronald Reagan picked up the phone and called Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin over a matter of considerably less weight than the one you face today. He didn’t send a diplomatic cable. He didn’t issue a vague press release. He called Israel’s leader directly, and he didn’t mince words.

Reagan told Begin that the bombardment of civilians had become intolerable. In his own diary, Reagan wrote that he used the word “holocaust” during the call—not lightly, but deliberately—to confront the prime minister with the gravity of what was happening. He warned that if the attacks did not stop, the United States would reconsider its support. 

Within twenty minutes, Begin called him back. The bombing stopped.

That is what moral leadership looks like.

Today, the world watches in horror as Gaza descends into something far worse than the plight of the civilians in Beirut. Not just bombardment but famine. Not just war but obliteration. Entire neighborhoods razed to dust. Over 35,000 Palestinians killed, the vast majority of them women and children. Schools, churches, mosques, hospitals flattened. Families erased. Children starved. And still, the world’s most powerful leaders remain mute – or complicit.

Behind the horrors of Gaza is exactly the filth and cynicism your supporters saw you as a champion against. Supporters like the Catholics throughout America who now are reeling from the violence and the insult of an Israeli tank shell fired upon the only Catholic Church in Gaza. Or like the Palestinian ex-pats who cheered for you in Michigan and Pennsylvania, when you told them just last year that when it came to Israel’s campaign of ethnic cleansing – then already nearly two years in and ramping up – you believed “the violence has to stop.”

Mr. Trump, now is the moment that will decide your legacy.

Just as Reagan picked up the phone and told Begin “This must stop,” you must pick up the phone and call Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Tell him: End the famine. End the holocaust.

Say it plainly. Say it with resolve. Say it in just the way you said it to your voters when you worked to inspire them to turn out for you at the ballot box.

And say it not as an enemy of Israel, but as a friend of truth and of humanity. Because the truth holds all human life sacred, not just some. And the truth says “never again” means never again for anyone.

You are not part of the self-entangling Washington establishment that plays by rules and never goes where members of that compromised club are forbidden to go. You are not beholden to the cowardice and hypocrisy your voters put you in the White House to confront. You were elected to have the strength and the independence to say what must be said – and to say it exactly now.

Tell Netanyahu:

    •    Open the borders to food and aid.

    •    Stop bombing aid convoys and shelters.

    •    Halt the mass destruction of homes, churches, and refugee camps.

    •    End the siege. End the war.

Reagan showed the world that American presidents don’t have to be passive bystanders to atrocity. They can act. They can speak. And their words, when spoken with courage, can stop the killing.

This moment demands no less of you.

America will be watching, yes. But even more importantly, history will be watching – and Heaven will be listening in.

Stand with Us: Sign Our Appeal to President Trump — Call on Netanyahu to End the Famine Now: www.TrumpCallBibi.com