Enough of Blood and Tears - Again

In a time of deep division, it’s on all of us to see the humanity in those we oppose — and to manage our disputes, and our democracy, with care.

Assassinations have — sadly — defined much of my conscious political life.

My very first real memory as a child is not of a birthday party or a school event, but of the silence and sadness that filled my home in June 1968, when Robert Kennedy was killed.

My late baby boom cohort was too young to remember Dallas in 1963, but we grew up in its shadow. Kennedy’s death imprinted on me, before I could even understand politics, the sense that violence could strike at the very heart of democracy.

Decades later, as a younger man with deep roots in Israel, another moment indelibly shaped me: the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin in 1995. That crime didn’t just end a life — it altered the trajectory of a nation.

I believe Rabin’s murder condemned us to nearly two generations of bloodshed and conflict, when we might instead have followed his words from the White House lawn a year earlier: “Enough of blood and tears. Enough.”

As I drafted this column on an airplane on September 11, 2025, the date itself reminded me once again how fragile life and security can feel — and how political violence and terror have scarred my lifetime.

So yes: political violence is nothing new. Over six decades, I have been a front-row witness to far too much of it. Yet even with all that history, the divisive politics of those earlier moments feel almost like child’s play compared to what we are living through today.

When news broke of the assassination of Charlie Kirk, I knew instinctively it would become a defining moment in the American story. And I feared immediately what has already begun to take shape: that his killing would become a political cause, sparking a firestorm that may prove impossible to contain.

Here is what has changed since Robert Kennedy, since Rabin, since September 11th: not the human heart, but the media environment in which it beats.

Ignorance, prejudice, hate, extremism — these have always been with us, as has mental illness. What’s different now is the accelerant.

Conspiracy theories and half-truths circle the globe in seconds. Social media platforms give the loudest and most toxic voices instant reach to tens of millions. Images — often manipulated, sometimes entirely fabricated — spread faster than any sober correction ever could.

There are no guardrails anymore. No shared perception of fact or truth. No unifying figures able to rise above the din to inspire and lead us toward a more perfect union — or, as President Clinton said at Rabin’s funeral, toward the “promised land.”

That is what frightens me most. Not that violence occurs — it always will — but that in today’s communications ecosystem, each act becomes a spark thrown into a forest of dry tinder. The flames leap outward instantly, and soon no one can control them.

What is so unnerving now is that just when we need calm leaders to douse the flames, we too often have arsonists running the fire department.

In the US, we have a president who vows retribution and who — with his determination to upend every norm — could use this act as an excuse to crack down on political freedom and dissent. We are witnessing, in real time, the weaponization of the justice system and the transformation of parts of our military and law enforcement into private militias, loyal to a leader rather than to the Constitution and rule of law.

This is not a column about Israel, but the parallels are unavoidable. When a convicted criminal and terrorist becomes National Security Minister, or when leaders of the settler movement — actively seizing Palestinian land and property — are put in charge of administering the very territories they are stealing, power is being handed to those who inflame violence rather than restrain it.

And yet, despite it all, I hold fast to one core belief: that the vast majority of people in this country, in Israel, and around the world are good, decent, empathetic human beings. That in the eternal struggle within our souls, and within our societies, between good and evil, compassion and prejudice, love and hate — most people still choose decency.

The road ahead will not be easy. The temptation to give up, to retreat from public life, or to answer hatred with more hatred is strong. But if we are to honor the memory of those whose lives were stolen by violence, we must resist that temptation.

We must refuse to join the loudest fringes in the gutter. We must insist on civility, on moderation, on the possibility of community even in the face of division. We must remember always to acknowledge the humanity of those on the other side of our debates. The survival of our democracy depends on it.

That is not naïve optimism. It is, I believe, the only path forward.