Chicago Tribune should applaud Mayor Johnson’s call for ceasefire in Gaza, not belittle it

 Chicago Tribune should applaud Mayor Johnson’s call for ceasefire in Gaza, not belittle it

Kudos to Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson for supporting ceasefire in Israel’s genocidal ethnic cleansing of 2,300,000 Palestinians in Gaza. Raspberries to the Chicago Tribune’s Editorial Board for calling it “posturing” on an attempted genocide occurring before our eyes, and further demeaning that grotesque slaughter as a “Middle East conflict.”


Johnson was not “speaking only to his base. He was speaking on behalf of two thirds of Americans polled and virtually the entire world outside the leaders of Israel, the US and UK. To claim he considers those not in line with his ceasefire proposal “sworn enemy or chopped liver” is a gratuitous insult to Johnson not worthy of the Tribune. We should all honor an important public figure wading in on possibly the most important moral issue, an ongoing attempted genocide, we will be faced with in our lifetime. His stand may inspire more city and state government leaders to follow his call for ceasefire.


The Trib’s concern how his call for ceasefire will negatively affect Chicagoland’s 300,000 Jews is preposterous. Johnson, like we in the peace community, knows that a large segment of American Jews are horrified by the collective devastation by Israel making Gaza’s 139 square miles uninhabitable, and support ceasefire. Many are beginning to understand that Israel’s disproportionate response is destroying Israel’s moral standing in the world and may lead to an uncontrollable regional war.


If the Chicago Tribune was truly concerned about Israel’s future as well as the 2,300,000 Palestinians being killed and displaced, it would applaud Mayor Johnson’s call for ceasefire and add their fervent support.