For the past several months, I’ve been gravely concerned about Israel’s war in Gaza, thinking about what I can say or do as an American, as a Jew, and as a former member of Congress. It’s crystal clear to me that this war must end.
I was deeply involved in the U.S. solidarity movement against apartheid in South Africa. Forty-one years ago, I helped confront the trustees of Williams College and launch a hunger strike to demand divestment. While we didn’t win in the moment, we raised the awareness of the entire student body and faculty, adding a modest drop to the ocean of direct action and resistance led by brave South Africans that ultimately ended the system of racist supremacy there.
That experience weighed on my mind last month when I visited an exhibit about Nelson Mandela at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Mich., which happens to be the heart of our country’s Arab American community. When I left the immersive galleries honoring Mandela and emerged into the museum’s bright main hall, I sat down on a bench and wept. I remember seeing Mandela speak to a packed Tiger Stadium when he visited Detroit in 1990, just four months after he was freed from prison. Sitting on that bench, through my tears, I felt we had failed him. I heard him asking: What are you doing to advance peace, human rights and reconciliation among those who have been so bitterly at odds?
The above excerpt was originally published in Stars and Stripes.
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