As a college student in the 1960s, I became so appalled at our government’s prosecution of the Vietnam War that I joined the protests against the war. On April 15, 1967, hundreds of thousands of us marched from New York’s Central Park to the United Nations on the East River in the biggest anti-war rally up until then.[1] But as the war grew, so did the protests. On November 15, 1969, the Moratorium to End the War staged an even larger demonstration in Washington.[2] I was among the protesters at the Pentagon that the police teargassed that day.

Today, as then, college students are spearheading the protest movement against America’s involvement in a costly war. And, similar to President Johnson back then, President Biden is now the primary target of the students’ wrath.

True, there are very significant differences between the two conflicts. Most importantly, no Americans are fighting and dying in Gaza today. Over 58,000 American service people lost their lives in Vietnam.[3]

On the other hand, the Administration’s unconditional support for one side is very similar in both wars. Then the United States was all in with the South Vietnamese. Today, our government fully backs Israel. At the same time, a large segment of the American Jewish community as well as Muslim Americans oppose Biden’s position, making his re-election campaign that much more difficult. 

In both cases, however, resistance to our government’s handling of the war grew. By March 31, 1968, the opposition was so great that President Johnson announced he would not run for re-election that fall.[4] While President Biden does not appear to be considering withdrawing his candidacy in this year’s election, the protests on college campuses and beyond have increased, though not to the extent of the Vietnam-era demonstrations; at least, not yet.[5]

The Democrats will hold their National Convention in Chicago this coming August. Ironically, that’s the same city where the Democrats gathered in 1968 to nominate their presidential candidate, and it didn’t go well. Anti-war protesters clashed with the police on national television reminding the voters of the Dems’ responsibility for the quagmire in Vietnam.[6] The Democrats ended up losing the election to Richard Nixon. We could very well see a repeat of that tragic scenario later this year if Biden fails to take decisive action soon to stop the slaughter in Gaza.

Despite the growing protests, as well as the increasing death toll in Gaza, Biden just signed a bill providing another $26 billion for Israel’s war effort. Included in that Israeli figure is over $9 billion in humanitarian aid to Gaza.[7]

At the same time, 55% of Americans now disapprove of Israel’s military actions and only 27% approve of Biden’s handling of the Middle East conflict, according to a March Gallup poll.[8]

While the war is not one of the top concerns of the electorate, in a close election as this year’s is likely to be, Biden could lose critical swing states due to his continued support for Israel’s military aggression. Given this distinct possibility, it’s puzzling that Biden hasn’t done more to stop the slaughter of thousands of innocent Gazans, mostly women and children, and the destruction of their homeland.

New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof recently offered this path forward for Biden: stop sending Israel offensive weapons. Kristof noted, “…that would get the attention of the Israel Defense Forces very quickly.” He argued for suspending “the transfer of offensive arms to Israel, pending food actually being delivered to Gaza to end this starvation, and some indication of dialing back the more reckless side of the bombing in Gaza and then push immediately for some kind of a cease-fire and hostage release and, likewise, then try to use that for some kind of an arrangement for a Palestinian state.”[9]

Kristof explained that Biden was right to call out Hamas’s October 7^th attack on Israel as “barbaric and intolerable. But if you only care about human rights for one side in a conflict, then you don’t actually care about human rights. And if you regard the deaths of children on one side of a conflict as a tragedy, as unacceptable, but deaths of children on the other side of the conflict as regrettable, then there is something profoundly wrong not just with your geopolitics but with your moral compass.”[10] While it remains to be seen whether Biden actually gets that, we can only hope that he changes course soon before it’s too late.

However, there is something you can do here at home to try to advance peace between Israel and the Palestinians. At 11:15 a.m. on May 12, a live-streamed Joint Memorial Ceremony will be viewed at the Jean Cocteau Theater in Santa Fe as part of an international event in support of efforts to end the violence and bring freedom and justice to all in the Middle East. I hope to see you there. For more information about the Memorial, go to https://www.afcf.org/2024-joint-memorial-day-ceremony.

Bruce Berlin

A retired, public sector ethics attorney, Berlin is the author of Breaking Big Money’s Grip on America (See breakingbigmoneysgrip.com.), the founder of New Mexicans for Money Out of Politics, a former U.S. Institute of Peace fellow, and the founder and former executive director of The Trinity Forum for International Security and Conflict Resolution. He can be reached at breakingbigmoneysgrip@gmail.com. Subscribe to this blog at https://breakingbigmoneysgrip.com/my-blog-3/

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[1] https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/massive-anti-war-demonstrations/

[2] https://archive.nytimes.com/learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/15/nov-15-1969-anti-vietnam-war-demonstration-held/#:~:text=all%20Historic%20Headlines%20%C2%BB-,On%20Nov.,and%20towns%20across%20the%20country.

[3] https://www.archives.gov/research/military/vietnam-war/casualty-statistics#:~:text=April%2029%2C%202008.-,The%20Vietnam%20Conflict%20Extract%20Data%20File%20of%20the%20Defense%20Casualty,casualties%20of%20the%20Vietnam%20War.

[4] https://billofrightsinstitute.org/essays/lyndon-b-johnsons-decision-not-to-run-in-1968

[5] https://www.reuters.com/world/us/pro-palestinian-seders-planned-new-york-other-cities-college-campuses-simmer-2024-04-23/; https://www.washingtonpost.com/podcasts/post-reports/the-mounting-antiwar-protests-on-college-campuses/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_campaign=wp_post_reports

[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1968_Democratic_National_Convention_protests

[7] https://apnews.com/article/congress-ukraine-israel-pacific-glance-0af96be97c47496f88506a21ebe1ddab#:~:text=%E2%80%94%20About%20%2426%20billion%20for%20supporting,amid%20the%20Israel%2DHamas%20war.

[8] https://news.gallup.com/poll/642695/majority-disapprove-israeli-action-gaza.aspx

[9] https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/24/opinion/biden-morality-gaza-israel.html?action=click&module=audio-series-bar&region=header&pgtype=Article

[10] Ibid.