OPINION:
On Sept. 23, 1957, President Dwight Eisenhower signed an executive order to enforce a federal court order that the schools of Little Rock, Arkansas, be integrated immediately.
In his address to the nation, he said he was saddened by the events that had led to his action, but he could not ignore his constitutional duty to enforce a federal court order. Mobs of people were preventing the attendance of Black students at Little Rock’s segregated Central High School and local governments had not acted to stop them.
Eisenhower sent in 1,200 soldiers of the elite 101st Parachute Division to provide an armed escort of the students to school and to stand in the hallways to protect them against any untoward conduct. In his address, the president said the actions of the mob were being used by our foreign enemies to besmirch the fair and honorable name of the United States.
In recent weeks, we have been given the same opportunity to quell mob action and secure safe passage and tranquillity for students at several universities (“Northwestern accused of caving to protesters as House opens antisemitism probe,” web, May 10). These students are being threatened, abused, and denied their equal rights — not because they are Black, but because they are Jewish. Using Eisenhower’s Order 10730 as precedent, our president could still send in federal troops to quell mob action and to solidify our constitutional commitment to equality for all under our laws.
The cries of the mobs this time are even more detestable than those in Little Rock. Those mobs were furious because people were asking for equal rights. The mobs today are supporting Hamas, which has sworn in its charter to destroy Israel, the home of the Jewish people.
Those crying “From the river to the sea” are calling for genocide of the Jews. Those calling for a two-state solution are ignoring the warning, now come true, made to the United Nations in 1949, that the “creation of a separate Palestinian state or states would create such civil strife as would threaten the peace of the world.”
The Biden administration’s recent acts of punishment against Israel have some of us wondering whether these could be the events predicted by the biblical prophet Zechariah, who foresaw a time when “all the nations of the earth would turn against Israel.”
When he finishes an address, President Biden often says “God bless America.” I must confess that I join him in his prayer. One of the kindest blessings God might bestow upon America would be gently persuading our present biblical calamity to retire.
JIM FRENCH
Dakota, Illinois
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