A few days ago the New York Times, which has been a longstanding supporter and defender of the Israeli state, editorialized:

“The U.S. commitment to Israel — including $3.8 billion a year in military aid, the largest outlay of American foreign aid to any one country in the world — is a reflection of the exceptionally close and enduring relationship between the two countries. A bond of trust, however, must prevail between donors and recipients of lethal arms from the United States, which supplies arms according to formal conditions that reflect American values and the obligations of international law.Mr. Netanyahu and the hard-liners in his government have broken that bond, and until it is restored, America cannot continue, as it has, to supply Israel with the arms it has been using in its war against Hamas.”

Shifts like this should be welcomed, not cynically dismissed out of hand. Or, minimized as too little too late. Or characterized as nothing but a smoke screen. Not by itself, but in combination with the shifting positions of other political actors, including the Biden administration, and the actions of protesters on the street, they are the stuff out of which majoritarian movements are born and morph into the powerful engines of substantive and, hopefully, enduring change.

I saw this phenomenon decades ago — ancient history for some —with the rise of the Civil Rights in the “sixties.” Since then other movements (or perhaps, more accurately, coalitions) that are diverse in their political and social makeup and loosely united around a political objective have arisen. Of recent vintage is the anti-Trump, anti-Maga coalition whose work is obviously not done and whose attention is increasingly on the November elections.

My reply to a high school classmate who complained about Trump haters: I’m sure much of what you say in defense of Trump was said by Hitler admirers in defense of Hitler in Germany in 1932. Only later did many Germans regret their worship of the Fuhrer. But by that time it was too late. Trump isn’t Hitler you are probably thinking. That’s true, but in our 200 plus years as a country, no president or presidential aspirant has come closer to Hitler in his politics and demagoguery than Trump. Or different in some ways, but they are found in the same ball park.

It is hard to figure what the political calculus is for Biden’s resistance to curb arm’s shipments to Israel and insist on a permanent ceasefire. The November elections? U.S. international standing? A desire to turn the White House’s attention to China and Asia? Congressional Democrats? The foreign policy establishment? Jill Biden? Former President Barack Obama? Not likely! If anything each is a prod to cut off shipments and shut down the guns of war.As Detroit’s Bob Seger sang long ago, “Turn the page!”

Martin Luther King died too young. Yet his short life was full of meaning, relevance, and inspiration. Though more than a half century has passed since his assassination, he remains the foremost public figure of the 20th and the first decades of the 21st century. While no one since then measures up to King as a visionary, moral leader, champion of justice, and untiring and courageous proponent of a big tent strategy and tactics, each of us in our own way can carry on King’s legacy in trying circumstances that even MLK could not have imagined.

It’s good that President Biden expressed outrage over the recent Israeli strikes killing humanitarian aid workers in Gaza. But that isn’t enough. The cessation of the weapons pipeline to Israel and a permanent ceasefire are in order. Both, in fact, are overdue and would politically and logically follow from Biden’s earlier criticism of the Netanyahu government and its conduct of the war against the Palestinian people.