I’ve written columns for the Chieftain for 35 years, and although I have never been shy about my views on the social and political scene, I have always tried to be gentle and persuasive rather than outraged and demanding.

Today, along with United Nations officials, aid agencies, doctors on the ground in Gaza, and Bernie Sanders (whom I did not support as a presidential candidate!), I ask Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley to immediately stop all military aid to Israel. Like Bernie says, “not a nickel more” until this war against the people of Gaza is halted.

Yes, I know that Hamas’s attack on Oct. 7, 2023 was brutal and barbaric. And no, I do not think that Hamas was somehow justified by Israel’s long strong grip on Gaza and the West Bank. It was a wrong and disastrous move, and it elicited what some in Hamas wanted, a scorching, no-holds-barred response from Israel, led by embattled prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Yes, in this complicated affair, he has criminal charges awaiting him when he is no longer prime minister, and right up to the Hamas attack, was besieged by constant protests. The Hamas attack allowed Netanyahu to seize his hold on power. He would wipe Hamas from the face of the earth and pursue them until they were utterly and finally defeated.

The invasion of Gaza began, with bombs and foot soldiers, destruction of houses and schools, of hospitals which Netanyahu claimed were the places where Hamas fighters hid and hid their weapons. Maybe they did.

Hundreds, maybe thousands of Hamas fighters were indeed killed, but so were thousands of innocent Gazan men, women, and children. The nightly news is full of pictures of children without limbs, women and children dying, doctors performing surgeries without anesthesia and patients suffering without needed medicines. Pictures of men stripped and searched, made to bow and humble themselves in public; many, maybe most, released, but all humiliated.

Common sense says that Israel is creating a next generation of enemies, people who have lost homes and livelihoods, sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, spouses, and dear ones. The people who remain are diseased and starving, Gaza is an absolute shamble, and Netanyahu’s only endgame is to eradicate Hamas, wherever he finds them.

Pressure on Netanyahu for a cease fire was mounting — until Iran’s attack. Which was supposedly ignited by the bombing of their embassy in Syria, the killing of a leading general. Israel has not admitted that attack, but who else? And let’s remember that Netanyahu covertly supported Hamas and undercut the Palestinian Authority prewar. Everything to avoid a Palestinian state.

There has to be a better way, and there is. After 30 years of “troubles” in Northern Ireland, with thousands of Protestant Unionists and Irish Catholics killed and wounded, the warring factions made peace in 1998. They recently celebrated 25 years of peace.

After a disastrous war in Vietnam, with over 58,000 Americans and 3 million Vietnamese killed (including an estimated 2 million civilians), there was an American pullout and a peace. Today, even though the Vietnamese communists control a united country, we — the United States — trade vigorously with Vietnam, and American vets and Vietnamese refugees return to visit.

There is now peace in Rwanda and South Africa, and Germany and Japan are now our allies after being enemies of the United States and most of the world during the big war of the 1940s.

The strongest case for enemies and former terrorists coming to terms and joining the regular order is in Israel itself. When the Jews were fighting the British and Arabs for a Jewish state in the 1940s, the leader of their terrorist wing, Irgun, was Menachem Begin. Irgun famously killed British bureaucrats and innocent Arabs. Yet, after independence, Begin developed a political party, became prime minister, and won the Nobel Peace Prize for making peace with Egypt!

I believe that Hamas cannot be eradicated, and must, like Irgun and the fighters in Northern Ireland, be brought into the peace process.

Why do I write this now? Because I started my working career in the Peace Corps 59 years ago, and everything I have done since has been aimed at moving people together, not dividing them. My major work now is in reconciling all Americans with Native peoples after 250 years of land theft, removal, assimilating by force, and discrimination. Thousands of small Gazas. Mine’s a small voice, but how wonderful to join others here in Wallowa County in welcoming the Nez Perce home.

This letter, this voice against war in Gaza, might be a small one, but it joins 120 American cities, the United Nations, and the besieged people of Gaza in calling for an immediate halt to the killing. Sen. George Mitchell helped make peace in Ireland. Step up on Gaza, senators!