The headline of the Lancet story “Counting the dead in Gaza: difficult but essential” says it all. Yes, essential. But not as essential as deciding once and for all that war doesn’t work for the overwhelming majority of us. Yes, there is a minority that wants to go to war, needs to go to war, for the money, to gain power, or to hold onto power. For the rest of us, war is only necessary when survival itself is threatened. Ask the Ukrainians.
If anyone can understand how easily hatred and suspicion morphs into madness, how ginned-up loathing ultimately forces us to count the dead, it is Americans. We are the ones whose children are slaughtered in our schools. We have seen our Capitol attacked, our Capitol Police battered while the criminals who committed those cowardly acts are celebrated by a former president just dying to retake power.
But as bad as it is, it can get so much worse. Think of these shootings as spasms of evil. Look to Israel and Gaza to see evil unloosed, the bonds of all restraint gone, when, as essential as it is, counting the dead becomes nearly impossible.
The human mind and the human heart almost break in the face of such loss, the unspeakable horror of the Hamas invasion itself, the reality of the response. I can’t explain why my brain took me to music I had not thought of for so many years, words I kept hearing in my head, and lyrics I eventually had to look up. I surprised myself as I appreciated—maybe for the first time—that considering their later rifts, “The Ballad of John and Yoko” was written together by John and Paul:
Christ, you know it ain’t easy
You know how hard it can be
The way things are going
They’re going to crucify me
Because in a way, sadly, it turned out to be so. And it is fair to say that, for me, it has never been easy. And pretty much from the earliest days in my both crazy and poor family, I have always known how hard it can be.
Let me acknowledge that I am a flawed chronicler. I just learned that a marriage of friends I poetically celebrated in print several years ago has just ended in divorce. So, add being wrong to the many other good reasons why I have hesitated for the longest time to write about Israel and Gaza, about the death and destruction, about the protests here in the U.S. and the anger those protests have provoked.
A good deal of my reluctance to wade in was multiplied by the fact that I know someone whose family paid an unspeakable price. It is one of the greatest tragedies in life that so very often it is the innocent who suffer from the evil doings of the few. And I have learned that all pontificating and all politics fade in the face of personal tragedy, that so much of what is said seems so inadequate.
On January 13, 2024, The Jerusalem Post published “Ten numbers that define the 100 days since October 7,” and here are excerpts:
1,391 Israelis killed since October 7, as of January 10. Hamas’ October 7 invasion of Israel was a seismic moment in Israeli and Jewish history: Hamas terrorists killed approximately 1,200 people that day, mostly civilians, took hostages and wounded thousands — making it the bloodiest day in Israeli history and the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust. The attackers also committed numerous atrocities and destroyed several communities. The attack shattered a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, and launched the war. Israel invaded Gaza, aiming to depose Hamas. So far, more than 185 Israeli soldiers have been killed in the invasion …
136 Hostages still held in Gaza, as of January 7. On October 7, Hamas took more than 240 people hostage, hailing from countries worldwide and ranging in age from an infant to an octogenarian. The campaign for their freedom — led by the hostages’ family members — has become a global activist movement …
23,357 Palestinians killed since October 7, as of Jan. 10. Israel’s counteroffensive in Gaza, launched in the days after October 7, has devastated the coastal enclave. The casualty figure, provided by the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry, covers both combatants and civilians, including thousands of children. Tens of thousands more have been injured.
The casualty figure — far higher than that of any previous Israel-Hamas conflict — has driven global calls by international bodies and left-wing activists for a ceasefire. Israel has rebuffed those calls and maintains that it makes extensive efforts to safeguard civilian life. It blames Hamas for putting noncombatants in harm’s way.
200,000 + 1.9 million Israelis and Palestinians, respectively, displaced by the fighting. In addition to the war’s death toll, it has also driven masses of people from their homes. Hamas’ invasion of Israel ravaged the Gaza border region, sending thousands of residents to hotels where they have been living since October 7. Tens of thousands more evacuated the area as it became a war zone, and further tens of thousands evacuated their homes on Israel’s northern border as clashes with the Lebanese terror group Hezbollah have ramped up.
Now with the escalation and involvement of Hezbollah and Iran, it seems there may be no escape, hurtling us all into an even worse darkness. And so, with time, my reluctance to comment has faded.
I am a life-long protester. Some of you may have seen me in front of Town Hall year after year with my sign: “Support Our Troops. Bring Them Home.” But the recent round of protests drove me nuts. I have no problem with excoriating Netanyahu. The fact is so many Israelis—with so many more reasons than Americans—have expressed their profound anger at him. It is clear that, like our former President Donald Trump, much of Netanyahu’s politics is driven by his desperate desire to stay out of jail. But what puzzled me about the recent protests is the lack of any ongoing, crystal-clear expression of outrage at the criminality and barbarism of Hamas.
Early on, I was trained in civil disobedience. The civil rights movement insisted on nonviolence. And along the way, I have been spat on, had coffee thrown at me, was tear-gassed and billy-clubbed. But I never fought back. It was clear to me that because I was white, it was unlikely that I would ever experience the kind of extreme rage and hatred faced by my Black compatriots. So, if they could summon the extraordinary discipline and faith in the face of those attacks, the very least I could do is respect and mirror their choice. Their courage and bravery was constantly inspiring.
But years later I know, in my heart of hearts, if I had been present at that peace and music festival and faced the despicable inhumanity of those Hamas murderers, I wouldn’t have hesitated for a moment if I was able to grab whatever weapon I could find and try my best to kill as many of them as I could.
I have, regrettably, learned over these years the power and persistence of evil. Everything Hamas did was evil, and evil must always be fought.
Yes, smart and compassionate people will argue that Netanyahu’s response was its own abomination and, surely, there has to be a better way. Rather than choosing to imprecisely bomb buildings by air, leveling them, he ought to choose a more surgical response—if necessary, to employ the most highly trained troops to go floor by floor, room by room, to root out those Hamas soldiers who have occupied hospitals and schools. Yes, Hamas has infiltrated themselves amongst Palestinian civilians. It may seem to be asking too much of those soldiers to be put at extreme risk, but there has to be an almost heroic attempt to distinguish between the innocent and the guilty. Yes, of course, the truth is the evil always hide amongst the innocent. But we have witnessed the never-ending cycle as the children of those unfairly killed often grow up to become the next generation of fighters. And so, again and again, there is engendered a never-ending need for what seems like revenge and retribution to some, but what appears to be justice for those who lost loved ones.
So, yes, those without guilt are doubly penalized. I don’t doubt for a moment that there is as little space for dissent and disagreement, for accountability and responsibility, for true democracy in Gaza as in Russia or China or North Korea, in Iran, Syria, or Saudi Arabia. The Palestinians are as trapped as the Russians, dissenters as easily disappeared. When you have no real opportunity for any viable alternatives, it makes sense for so many to stay silent, or if necessary, to even signal assent. Putin continually claims the Russian people want him and believe he is necessary. So, too, Hamas claims they are wanted and invaluable. Years ago, I met with Chinese citizens who for many years were sent to labor camps thousands of miles from home, all because they said—or someone heard them say—something they thought was critical of the regime, or because party functionaries suspected they wouldn’t always be reliable. Given my big mouth and value of personal and political freedom, I have always known I wouldn’t stand a chance in any of those worlds.
It is one of the terrible ironies of this conflict that nothing is more likely to help rebuild Hamas once more than the overwhelming death and destruction visited upon Gaza. I imagine most Americans are unaware of a poll taken just before the horrific invasion and the unrelenting brutality of Hamas was revealed. The results of the poll clearly reveal the lie behind the claims that Hamas truly represents the Palestinian people:
An October 25, 2023, article in Foreign Affairs by Amaney Jamal and Michael Robbins makes clear how damaging it has been, and continues to be, to believe that all or most Gazans have embraced Hamas:
The argument that the entire population of Gaza can be held responsible for Hamas’s actions is quickly discredited when one looks at the facts. Arab Barometer, a research network where we serve as co-principal investigators, conducted a survey in Gaza and the West Bank days before the Israel-Hamas war broke out. The findings, published here for the first time, reveal that rather than supporting Hamas, the vast majority of Gazans have been frustrated with the armed group’s ineffective governance as they endure extreme economic hardship. Most Gazans do not align themselves with Hamas’s ideology, either. Unlike Hamas, whose goal is to destroy the Israeli state, the majority of survey respondents favored a two-state solution with an independent Palestine and Israel existing side by side. (Emphasis added.)
Here is more from Arab Barometer:
Domestically, AB8 Shows most Palestinians did not support Hamas on the eve of October the 7th war; but the war led to a significant rise in Hamas’ popularity and a significant decline in the standing of the PA leadership among the Palestinians. The war also led to a significant rise in support for armed struggle in the West Bank. Nonetheless, after the eruption of the war, Hamas did not gain a majority support in either Gaza or the West Bank and support for the two-state solution did not decline …
The period leading up to the poll witnessed a number of important developments, including the 30th anniversary of the signing of the Oslo Accords. The period saw a rise in the number of Israeli incursions into Palestinian cities and refugee camps, particularly in the northern parts of the West Bank. During this period, Palestinian factional leaders met in City of El Alamein in Egypt in the presence of President Abbas but failed to agree on a joint statement. During this period, settler terrorist acts in Palestinian areas of the West Bank increased, as did armed attacks by Palestinians against settlers and Israelis.
So, like the bravery of the demonstrators in Hong Kong, Moscow, Tehran, and Ankara, it has been a remarkable accomplishment for Palestinians to have survived both the continuing war and the never-ending authoritarianism enforced on them by their leaders. And it is so painful to watch them attempt to endure the Israeli military’s response to the crimes committed by the same totalitarians who have so clearly failed to represent them, who are clearly unwilling to agree to the absolutely necessary ceasefire and ultimate political settlement.
It is fairly easy to say to the Palestinians that they must get rid of Hamas, or to insist that until they do so, they will have to suffer the consequences. I call that cruel and unusual punishment. It is as easy to say the same thing to the Russians, but just take a moment to consider the price paid by Navalny as he tried to democratically replace Putin.
So, what I am saying is that it certainly ain’t easy. And the same goes for the now popular demand that the United States immediately stop sending weapons to Israel. Or for the recent outrage that our universities are complicit in war crimes and genocide because their portfolios include companies that profit from the production of weapons that go to Israel. Where exactly have these students been for the last many decades? Those portfolios have always contained stock from General Electric, Monsanto, ExxonMobil. I am always fascinated by the sporadic spasms of morality and conscience that occasionally come from those rushing to benefit from capitalism, who can’t wait to turn their snazzy Columbia, Yale, Harvard, and Williams degrees into impressive lifelong profit.
Perhaps I am bitter, but so many of them attend the kind of expensive universities I and so many sons and daughters from working families like mine could never afford. And do they ever admit how their daily choices in life are so very far beyond the dreams of the Gazans they tell us they support? How about they drop out and head on over to community college and send some of those savings to Chef Andres and World Food Kitchen? Help feed some of those in need in Gaza?
And where in the hell have they been since that first day in class? Don’t those very same portfolios help produce our climate crisis, our cancer epidemic, our housing crisis, the ever-increasing divide between the one percent and the rest of us?
Might a smidgeon of antisemitism help explain why their overwhelming, long-term silence has now erupted into selective outrage? Before Israel and Gaza, haven’t there been a multiplicity of reasons for justified outrage about American universities and their continuing financial complicity in a variety of crimes against human health and the environment?
Let me be clear, there have been good reasons to question the policies of the Biden-Harris administration when it comes to Israel and Palestine, good reasons to question all American politicians and many of our institutions. But it helps no one to turn this into a simple black-and-white test of morality. This is one of the most complicated social, religious, political, economic, and military problems facing us all—like all ethnic, religious, political disputes between tribes and nation states.
Simplicity helps no one. Pretend all you want, but the U.S. is limited by the inability of the Palestinians themselves to effectively advocate for peace with Israelis. And we have seen how Netanyahu and other right-wing Israelis politician have thwarted the desire of so many Israelis who yearn for a more lasting peace. There have always been majorities of both peoples who desire an end to the violence and a stable two-state solution.
Yes, it is some of our bombs killing innocent people, but those bombs have also kept Israel’s neighbors from obliterating the Israeli state. And let’s not forget that we are also the one nation in the world—recently propelled by Joe Biden and Kamala Harris—that might still be able to pressure both sides to negotiate a viable ceasefire and an ultimate two-state solution. Sadly, it seems to count for very little in the calculations of the demonstrators that we have actually tried as humanely as possible to feed the Gazans and to provide medical care.
It is fairly easy to take a few hours out of your schedule and carry signs, to show up and chant every couple of months. But as they decry the bombing of Gaza, if their chants and signs neglect to point some of their fingers at the barbarism of Hamas and the tyrants of Iran and Syria and those others hoping to wipe away the state of Israel, the demonstrators will never accomplish more than feeling good about themselves and will never build a mass movement to make lasting change.
Simplicity always falls short in the face of complexity. “Christ, you know it ain’t easy. You know how hard it can be.”
So how about we take a closer look at Hamas. In their August 18, 1988, founding “Covenant of the Islamic Resistance Movement,” Hamas wrote:
You can’t be much clearer about your intentions than Hamas: “Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it (The Martyr, Imam Hassan al-Banna, of blessed memory).”
Add this as another example:
Our struggle against the Jews is very great and very serious. It needs all sincere efforts. It is a step that inevitably should be followed by other steps. The Movement is but one squadron that should be supported by more and more squadrons from this vast Arab and Islamic world, until the enemy is vanquished and Allah’s victory is realised.
It is pretty clear that if you are smart, you will join the crusade:
‘The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, (evidently a certain kind of tree) would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews.’ (related by al-Bukhari and Moslem).
It seems the demonstrators find it easy to blame the Israelis and the United States government when it comes to Palestine, but if you actually read what Hamas has to say about its mission, you will see that for Hamas only victory will do. There is no path to a lasting peace that allows for the existence of Israel:
For those asking why Hamas slaughtered innocent women, children, soldiers, and civilians, well, Hamas has told the world why:
Initiatives, and so-called peaceful solutions and international conferences, are in contradiction to the principles of the Islamic Resistance Movement … There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors. The Palestinian people know better than to consent to having their future, rights and fate toyed with.
On April 5, 2024 the BBC offered this analysis:
Hamas became the sole ruler of Gaza after violently ejecting political rivals in 2007.
It has an armed wing and was thought to have about 30,000 fighters before the start of the war.
The group, whose name stands for Islamic Resistance Movement, wants to create an Islamic state in place of Israel. Hamas rejects Israel’s right to exist and is committed to its destruction.
Hamas justified its attack as a response to what it calls Israeli crimes against the Palestinian people.
These include security raids on Islam’s third holiest site – the al-Aqsa Mosque, in occupied East Jerusalem – and Jewish settlement activity in the occupied West Bank.
Hamas also wants thousands of Palestinian prisoners in Israel to be freed and for an end to the blockade of the Gaza Strip by Israel and Egypt – something both countries say is for security.
It has fought several wars with Israel since it took power, fired thousands of rockets and carried out many other deadly attacks.
Israel has repeatedly attacked Hamas with air strikes and sent troops into Gaza in 2008 and 2014.
Hamas, or in some cases its armed wing alone, is considered a terrorist group by Israel, the US, the EU, and the UK, among others.
Iran backs Hamas with funding, weapons and training.
As for complexity, in response to the October attacks, the BBC notes:
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel’s aims were the destruction of Hamas and the return of the hostages. Israel launched a ground invasion three weeks later. It has also bombarded Gaza from the sea. Attacks were initially focused on northern Gaza, particularly Gaza City and tunnels beneath it, which Israel said were the centre of military operations by Hamas. All 1.1 million people living in the north were ordered by Israel to evacuate south for their safety.
Beyond the issues of history; competing claims to the territory; enormous casualties on both sides; and the continuing psychological, social, and economic hardships of a never-ending violence—or maybe because of all this—we have arrived at a situation where the political leadership of both sides will not be comfortable with anything less than the eradication of the other.
As a result, sadly, both sides dehumanize the other. Jewish settlers routinely seize the lands of Palestinians, and Hamas deliberately diminishes and mocks the obscene and systematic destruction of the Jewish people by the Nazis:
It is impossible to read those words without remembering the brutality of the October 7 invasion: the rapes, the murder of babies, the decision to attack those who were attending a music and peace festival—“making no differentiation between man and women, between children and old people.” Of course, the hypocrites are the last to acknowledge their hypocrisy.
On August 1, 2024, the Council on Foreign Relations offered this vision of the wider political landscape:
Hamas’s most important ally in the region is Iran, but it has also received significant financial and political support from Turkey. Qatar hosts the Hamas political office and also provides it with financial resources, though with the knowledge and cooperation of the Israeli government. Hamas is meanwhile one component of Iran’s so-called axis of resistance, a regional network of anti-Israel partners that includes Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Lebanon’s Hezbollah, Yemen’s Houthis, and various militias in Iraq and Syria. Given these connections, many security experts fear that the Israel-Hamas war could engulf the region in a wider conflict.
Hamas’s rival party, Fatah, which dominates the Palestinian Authority and rules in the West Bank, has formally renounced violence, though it has not always upheld that vow in times of high Israeli-Palestinian tensions. The split in Palestinian leadership and Hamas’s unwavering hostility toward Israel diminished prospects for stability in Gaza ahead of the ongoing war, which has only cast the territory into further despair.
Of course, we live in the age of public relations, and even organizations of terror realize at some point that such explicit hatred occasionally proves inconvenient. And so not surprisingly, even Hamas opted for revision, issuing in 2017 what it called “A Document of General Principles and Policies.” Killing the Jews and references to the Nazis were replaced by:
Palestine is a land that was seized by a racist, anti-human and colonial Zionist project that was founded on a false promise (the Balfour Declaration), on recognition of a usurping entity and on imposing a fait accompli by force. Palestine symbolizes the resistance that shall continue until liberation is accomplished, until the return is fulfilled and until a fully sovereign state is established with Jerusalem as its capital.
There is no diminishing the awful loss of life in Israel and in Gaza, the systematic destruction of houses, of schools, of mosques, and hospitals, the disappearance of entire neighborhoods. It is as if the very lives of so many innocents vanished in a moment.
And so, with a heavy heart, I return to Lancet:
Furthermore, the UN estimates that, by Feb 29, 2024, 35% of buildings in the Gaza Strip had been destroyed, so the number of bodies still buried in the rubble is likely substantial, with estimates of more than 10 000.
Lancet reminds us:
Armed conflicts have indirect health implications beyond the direct harm from violence. Even if the conflict ends immediately, there will continue to be many indirect deaths in the coming months and years from causes such as reproductive, communicable, and non-communicable diseases. The total death toll is expected to be large given the intensity of this conflict; destroyed health-care infrastructure; severe shortages of food, water, and shelter; the population’s inability to flee to safe places; and the loss of funding to UNRWA, one of the very few humanitarian organisations still active in the Gaza Strip.
In recent conflicts, such indirect deaths range from three to 15 times the number of direct deaths. Applying a conservative estimate of four indirect deaths per one direct death to the 37,396 deaths reported, it is not implausible to estimate that up to 186 000 or even more deaths could be attributable to the current conflict in Gaza. Using the 2022 Gaza Strip population estimate of 2,375,259, this would translate to 7-9% of the total population in the Gaza Strip.
The citizens of Israel and Gaza are trying to survive in the midst of madness. Violence transforms all it touches. There are profound wounds that are both visible and hard to see. It is critical we acknowledge the pain felt by all who have been touched by the incomprehensible terror.
Still, it is so very important to look beneath the surface, to better appreciate what the decision-makers have been up to, to look with clear eyes at the lies that have been told by both sides. On June 21, 2024, The New York Times revealed what they describe as the Israeli “Secret Government Bid to Cement Control of West Bank.” The Times writes:
Israeli judges have long ruled that Israel’s control of the territory is a temporary military occupation and complies with international law. A powerful minister’s recent speech, caught on tape, suggested the government is trying to change that …
In a taped recording of the speech, the official, Bezalel Smotrich, can be heard suggesting at a private event earlier this month that the goal was to prevent the West Bank from becoming part of a Palestinian state …
… the Israeli government’s official position is that the West Bank’s status remains open to negotiations between Israeli and Palestinian leaders …
Mr. Smotrich’s June 9 speech … outlined a carefully orchestrated program to take authority over the West Bank out of the hands of the Israeli military and turn it over to civilians working for Mr. Smotrich in the defense ministry …
‘We created a separate civilian system,’ Mr. Smotrich said. To deflect international scrutiny, the government has allowed the defense ministry to remain involved in the process, he said, so that it seems that the military is still at the heart of West Bank governance.
‘It will be easier to swallow in the international and legal context,’ Mr. Smotrich said. ‘So that they won’t say that we are doing annexation here.’
The Times explains:
Israel seized control of the territory from Jordan in 1967 during a war with three Arab states. Since occupying it, Israel has settled more than 500,000 Israeli civilians, who are subject to Israeli civil law, alongside the territory’s roughly three million Palestinians, who are subject to Israeli military law. Roughly 40 percent of the territory is administered by the Palestinian Authority, a semiautonomous Palestinian-run body that relies on Israel’s cooperation for much of its funding …
Even as international pressure grows to declare a Palestinian state that would encompass the West Bank and Gaza, Mr. Smotrich’s comments suggest that Israel is quietly working to firm up its control over the West Bank and make it harder to disentangle from Israeli control.
Perhaps more shocking was the October 8, 2023, revelation by the Times of Israel that “[f]or years, Netanyahu propped up Hamas. Now it’s blown up in our faces.” They wrote:
For years, the various governments led by Benjamin Netanyahu took an approach that divided power between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank — bringing Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to his knees while making moves that propped up the Hamas terror group.
The idea was to prevent Abbas — or anyone else in the Palestinian Authority’s West Bank government — from advancing toward the establishment of a Palestinian state. Thus, amid this bid to impair Abbas, Hamas was upgraded from a mere terror group to an organization with which Israel held indirect negotiations via Egypt, and one that was allowed to receive infusions of cash from abroad.
Hamas was also included in discussions about increasing the number of work permits Israel granted to Gazan laborers, which kept money flowing into Gaza, meaning food for families and the ability to purchase basic products. Israeli officials said these permits, which allow Gazan laborers to earn higher salaries than they would in the enclave, were a powerful tool to help preserve calm …
Since Netanyahu returned to power in January 2023, the number of work permits has soared to nearly 20,000. Additionally, since 2014, Netanyahu-led governments have practically turned a blind eye to the incendiary balloons and rocket fire from Gaza.
Meanwhile, Israel has allowed suitcases holding millions in Qatari cash to enter Gaza through its crossings since 2018, in order to maintain its fragile ceasefire with the Hamas rulers of the Strip.
Most of the time, Israeli policy was to treat the Palestinian Authority as a burden and Hamas as an asset. Far-right MK Bezalel Smotrich, now the finance minister in the hardline government and leader of the Religious Zionism party, said so himself in 2015.
According to various reports, Netanyahu made a similar point at a Likud faction meeting in early 2019, when he was quoted as saying that those who oppose a Palestinian state should support the transfer of funds to Gaza, because maintaining the separation between the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza would prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state. (Emphasis added.)
As these reports make clear, we are left with corrupt leaders who are invested in war. They lie to and abuse their citizens. I pity the people; on both sides of the borders, the fences, the walls, they are the innocent victims of war.
As for Kamala Harris, as The New York Times reports, she is trying to help:
In what amounted to her debut on the world stage since her rapid ascension as the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, Ms. Harris sought to strike a balance and capture what she called ‘the complexity’ of the strife in the Middle East. But while she did not stray from President Biden on policy, she struck a stronger tone on the plight of Palestinians.
‘What has happened in Gaza over the past nine months is devastating,’ she told reporters after meeting with Mr. Netanyahu at the White House complex. ‘The images of dead children and desperate, hungry people fleeing for safety, sometimes displaced for the second, third or fourth time — we cannot look away in the face of these tragedies, we cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering, and I will not be silent.’
This tragic complex reality can’t be captured in a slogan or a chant; it is too complicated a message. Still, despite her good intentions, I am guessing the demonstrators will need to interrupt her. Though why they have spared Donald Trump and J.D. Vance eludes me. God forbid MAGA wins, they are sure to make things worse. And we will continue to count the dead.
