The World and Everything in It - May 25, 2021

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning!

It’s been a year since the death of George Floyd sparked protests and violence across the country. What’s it like for people living in cities still racked by civil unrest?

NICK EICHER, HOST: Also getting to herd immunity for Covid-19. Natural immunity is part of it. We’ll talk with our resident physician, Dr. Charles Horton.

Plus a Notable Speech by former Navy lieutenant John Kerry: 50 years ago before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and it did change public opinion.

And commentator Cal Thomas sees folly in rebuilding Gaza with American dollars.

REICHARD: It’s Tuesday, May 25th. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

EICHER: And I’m Nick Eicher. Good morning!

REICHARD: Now the news with Kent Covington.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR:  Blinken to Middle East in effort to jumpstart peace talks » Secretary of State Tony Blinken is in the Middle East this morning to push for peace talks between Iraeli and Palestinian leaders.

Blinken told ABC’s This Week...

BLINKEN: We have to start putting in place the conditions that would allow both sides to engage in a meaningful and positive way toward two states.

In a statement, President Biden said Blinken will work with regional partners to help provide humanitarian aid and rebuild in the Gaza Strip. That follows an 11-day battle between Palestinian militants and the Israeli military.

And Blinken hopes to help jumpstart long-stalled peace talks.

The secretary will visit with leaders in Israel, the West Bank, Jordan and Egypt this week. He will not see anyone from Hamas, which runs Gaza. Hamas is a U.S.-designated “foreign terrorist organization,” and contacts between American officials and the group are banned.

That means the U.S. must rely on third-party countries like Egypt and Qatar to pass messages to Hamas.

West condemns plane's diversion to arrest Belarus journalist » Western nations continue to express outrage and the EU threatened more sanctions Monday against Belarus. That after the Belarusian government forced the diversion of a plane in order to arrest an opposition journalist.

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki told reporters...

PSAKI: Obviously we’re outraged, as the international community has expressed and we have expressed as well. And we think this was a brazen affront to international peace and security by the regime.

The commercial airline Ryanair said flight controllers told the crew there was a bomb threat against the plane as it was crossing through the country’s airspace and ordered it to land in the capital of Minsk.

A fighter jet was scrambled to escort the plane — in a show of force by Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko.

When the plane landed, authorities arrested activist and journalist Raman Pratasevich. The 26-year-old ran a popular messaging app that played a key role in helping organize massive protests against Lukashenko.

The EU summoned Belarus' ambassador “to condemn” the move. EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen earlier said it amounted to a “hijacking.”

Intel: Wuhan lab staff sought hospital care with COVID-19 symptoms in Nov., 2019 » Newly revealed U.S. intelligence is further fueling speculation that COVID-19 may have escaped from a Chinese lab. WORLD’s Anna Johansen Brown reports.

ANNA JOHANSEN BROWN, REPORTER: Three researchers from China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology got sick enough to seek hospital treatment in November of 2019and their symptoms were consistent with COVID-19. That according to previously undisclosed U.S. intel.

Many experts believe November, 2019 was when the virus began spreading in Wuhan.

The Wall Street Journal reported that officials familiar with the intelligence had differing views on the strength of the evidence behind the assessment.

One official said an international partner provided the information and that further investigation is needed. But another said—quote—“The information that we had coming from the various sources was of exquisite quality. It was very precise.”

The Chinese government has repeatedly denied that the virus escaped the Wuhan lab. But it has not shared relevant records from the laboratory.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Anna Johansen Brown.

New York City schools returning to in-person classes in fall » The nation’s largest school district is heading back to class next fall.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has announced that classrooms will open for in-person instruction in September with no remote option.

DE BLASIO: That’s the news I think parents, kids, everyone’s been waiting for to know we’re going to be back strong, ready safe.

De Blasio said the roughly 1 million students who attend traditional public schools in The Big Apple will be back at their desks.

The mayor said COVID-19 is “plummeting” in the city as health workers have administered almost 8 million vaccine doses.

Gas prices remain elevated » Gas prices remain elevated after the Colonial Pipeline shutdown.

The average U.S. price of a gallon of regular unleaded jumped 8 cents over the past two weeks, to $3.10.

The lingering effects of the shutdown is one reason. Analysts say another is the rising price of corn. Corn is a key ingredient in ethanol, which is blended by refiners into gasoline.

But Patrick De Haan of Gasbuddy.com said Monday...

DE HAAN: The national average should drop back under $3 per gallon by Memorial Day weekend. We anticipate about $2.98, but we may see prices go back up later in the summer.

He said that may depend on how much demand there is for gas around the holiday weekend.

The price at the pump is more than a dollar higher than it was a year ago. But of course gas prices plummeted during pandemic lockdowns.

The highest average price in the nation right now is $4.23 a gallon in the San Francisco Bay Area. The lowest average is $2.53 in Houston.

I’m Kent Covington.

Straight ahead: Seattle and Portland mark a year of unrest.

Plus, prospects for peace in the Middle East.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST:  It’s Tuesday the 25th of May, 2021.

Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST:  And I’m Nick Eicher. First up: living with unrest.

One year ago today, George Floyd died in the custody of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin. The death sparked demonstrations around the nation and even the world to call attention to racism and police brutality. Some of those demonstrations devolved into rioting, arson, vandalism, and looting—resulting last year in at least $1 billion in insurance claims and maybe twice that.

REICHARD: In cities like Seattle, Washington, and Portland, Oregon, civil unrest continued through the entire year. What’s it been like living with it and bracing for the possibility of more? WORLD correspondent Bonnie Pritchett talked to people in the community, as well as pastors and business owners to find out.

AMBI: LOADING BARRICADES, SOUND OF CONCRETE BLOCKS BEING LOADED ONTO TRAILER

BONNIE PRITCHETT, REPORTER: At the beginning of May, City of Seattle workers used a forklift to hoist giant concrete blocks from the perimeter of the East Precinct, the city’s central police station. A line of waiting trailers sat ready to haul them away. Stephen Brown looked on. The owner of Eltana Bagels called the barricade “ugly.” He was glad to see it come down.

VICTORIA BEACH: Everybody says it’s an eyesore...

Across the street Victoria Beach watched anxiously. For two years she’s chaired the Seattle Police Department’s African American Advisory Council. It works to dismantle social barriers between Seattle’s black residents and police.

As police Captain Eric Sano approached to greet her, Beach voiced her concern.

BEACH: I want to say something to you. I so disagree with that coming down. It's a big mistake. And we know with the anniversary coming up and everything, that fence isn't going to do anything. I'm so annoyed about it…

REPORTER: Police officers used tear gas…

Shortly after George Floyd’s death last year, Seattle police temporarily abandoned the East Precinct when violent protesters targeted the building. With the police gone, demonstrators cordoned off a 16-block area of downtown Seattle. They called it CHOP, the Capitol Hill Occupied Protest.

About a month later, Seattle police cleared the area. In August, the concrete wall went up as sporadic, sometimes violent, protests lingered.

Beach fears today’s anniversary could spark new violence.

Eric Sano and another officer listened and tried to assure her that removing the barricades showed life was getting back to normal.

Two years ago community leaders repeatedly urged Beach to lead the Advisory Council. Ironically, it was a former East Precinct captain who convinced her to take the position even though she had every reason to say no.

BEACH: I grew up hating the police. I watched my dad get beat up. My brother, my sister. I never had a great encounter when I was pulled over—never. And so I hated them…

Beach also saw how some black residents treated the last Advisory Council chair. It’s a job she’s not paid to do though she’s earned plenty of grief from it.

But she also earned key allies, like Sano, and friends within the Seattle PD. Through candid conversations, she’s discovered some police officers see the need for change within the justice system. Some also admit to needed change in how police engage with Seattle’s black residents.

AMBI: PORTLAND PROTESTS

Like Seattle, Portland also endured violent protests after Floyd’s death.

That, combined with the pandemic, has left remaining downtown business owners wondering if customers will ever return.

Jonathan Oliveira co-owns Forte, a coffee and wine bar in downtown Portland. Like many business owners he supports peaceful protests.

JOHN OLIVEIRA: But we were very angered by the violence for small businesses and around us. We used to have seven restaurants and other coffee shops around us. And business breeds business. And every single one of them have closed permanently. And that's because of the protesting, the violence. COVID was part of it. But then the city became a mecca for destruction of business. And that is what was so painful to see…

Still, Oliveira remains hopeful.

AMBI: STREET TRAM SOUNDS

A few blocks away, Maki Casey wants to share Oliveira’s optimism. But evidence to the contrary surrounds the restaurant her parents started 8 years ago. She said people who used to work—and dine—downtown continue to work from home. Those who lived downtown are moving out.

MAKI CASEY: I do want to say, I think that they have gotten a little bit better. But definitely, you know, anniversaries do bring up a lot of tension. And I know that there's been some stuff kind of lately in the news that is a bit worrisome…

One constant presence in downtown Portland isn’t going anywhere.

A church known as Imago Dei Community strives to resemble the diversity of God’s kingdom in a city that is 77 percent white.

RICK MCKINLEY: Because we’ve been here and been at it for a while, we have quite a bit of influence with the churches in Portland…

That’s Rick McKinley, Imago Dei’s white founding pastor. He said those churches began calling Imago Dei after Floyd’s death.

RICK MCKINLEY: So, the big conversation that took place immediately was the white churches of Portland tuning in. Right. And so those conversations, that's what you saw on zoom. But the immediate effect seemed to be all these white leaders are wanting to listen for about 30 seconds…

Lay leader Michelle Lang Raman, who is black, spoke with a white pastor who watched the video of George Floyd’s death.

MICHELE LANGE RAMAN: And he just cried. This grown man just fell apart. And he just broke. He said, I don't know what to do. And I remember saying to him, that's what you do. Because it was that brokenness that as soon as I heard it, I was like, that's it. We're either going to tell the truth, be broken by it, and move forward. Or we're going to continue to keep putting band aids on it and say, Oh, yeah, that was bad. And then we're going to get swallowed up by this...

AMBI: LOADING BARRICADES

Back in Seattle, Victoria Beach has considered moving. But she’s the third of five generations to call Seattle home and can’t reconcile leaving when so much work remains undone.

BEACH: Well, I want the police to be held accountable. And I want a mayor, all the city council and a police chief to get along and work together and agree to disagree. You know what you're never going to probably agree on everything, but come together. You know what, show the community that you can work together and let us all work together and come to the table.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Bonnie Pritchett in Seattle and Portland.

NICK EICHER, HOST:  Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: herd immunity.

It’s the only winning strategy in our battle against COVID-19, or any contagious disease for that matter. If an overwhelming majority of people are immune to it, the virus can’t spread.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Right, and the focus of efforts to achieve herd immunity has been on vaccines. But that’s not the only way to develop antibodies against Covid. People who’ve had it and recovered also have some level of immunity.

Joining us now to talk about how that plays into the overall strategy of fighting this disease is Dr. Charles Horton. He’s a physician in Pennsylvania and WORLD’s resident medical expert. Good morning, Dr. Horton!

CHARLES HORTON, GUEST: Good morning!

REICHARD: So, we know vaccines provide immunity by triggering an immune response in the body. Vaccines basically train the immune system to recognize the virus and fight it off. Does natural immunity work the same way?

HORTON: First and foremost, of course, is to have immunity: either of those choices is far better than not being immune to COVID. Looking around the world and seeing how Europe and India are faring, I feel very grateful to live here in America.

REICHARD: Same. So let’s talk about how natural immunity compares to vaccine immunity?

HORTON: We’re still learning about that, about the quality of the antibodies. It’s quite the academic, theoretical debate: by definition, if you’ve recovered from COVID, your immune system has figured out how to fight off the bug. Someday we’ll look back and consider things like sensitivity to variants, but right now, we’re just guessing about who’s better prepared for those.

What we can study is how long antibodies last. One study from England published in January followed tens of thousands of healthcare workers. It found well over 6,000 people with antibodies and counted two “probable” and 42 “possible” reinfections over the course of five months. That’s awfully good.

*REICHARD: Interesting. What else came from that study?

HORTON: At WORLD, we like to talk about “sensational facts, understated prose.” And to the research team’s credit, it dealt with its findings in that same way -- if anything, it really undersold them. It’s that very British understatement. The team said that “antibody protection after infection lasts for at least 5 months,” without even pointing out that a five-month-long study wouldn’t be able to prove anything more. It also looked at the least flattering scenario for its data to come up with its headline number of 83 percent protection, and only on page 14 does it mention that it found a 94 percent protection against symptomatic infection. That’s great!

Another British study followed 20,000 people, of whom about 1,600 came down with COVID during the study period. It looked at how long they continued to test positive for antibodies, and found that 87 percent of them still tested positive at six months. In other words, they were still able to fight off Covid.

These results confirm what we learned last fall from smaller studies at Mass General and in Canada: the immune system generally remembers how to fight COVID, regardless of how it first learned it.

REICHARD: Does this mean there’s no difference between natural immunity and vaccine immunity?

HORTON: There may still be a difference. I should say the studies were prior to the more contagious variants we’re seeing in England and in the United States. We do not know how well natural immunity will protect against variants yet...whereas the evidence about the vaccines does look very reassuring.

REICHARD: Does it matter whether someone had a severe case of COVID or a mild one? What if they were asymptomatic and didn’t even know they had it?

HORTON: This is where testing for antibodies can be very useful. If you think you had COVID, but you don’t have antibodies, there’s a good chance you didn’t actually have COVID. That’s not a guarantee, since false negatives can still happen, but the newer tests have gotten very good indeed. Conversely, if you have antibodies, then your immune system knows how to fight off COVID. It’s not entirely a yes-or-no thing, because you can have the antibodies at low levels, but the flip side of that is that you can also ramp up production of antibodies quickly.

REICHARD: About 10 percent of the U.S. population has had covid, based on the number of confirmed cases. What’s the current thinking on the number of people who have had it but never got a confirmed diagnosis?

HORTON: The CDC actually has a really excellent tracker on its website for what it calls a seroprevalence survey, meaning a look at how many people have antibodies. What’s very helpful is that it breaks down what antibodies are being looked for -- you vaccinate against spike protein, so testing someone who’s been vaccinated for anti-spike antibodies will only tell you the vaccine did its job. But there are other tests, meaning that you can assess whether a person with anti-spike antibodies also has what are called anti-nucleocapsid antibodies, which in America you only get from having had COVID. Listeners from outside the United States might note that other parts of the world have inactivated-virus vaccines, which show the entire virus to the immune system and would thus produce them. Anyhow, the prevalence for those antibodies is running at around 20 percent in California, 24 percent in Texas, 30 percent in Ohio. It’s less elsewhere—11 percent in Colorado, 13 percent in Kansas.

Now, if we extrapolate from that and say that 20 percent of America had COVID, that’s about 75 million people. We have 32 million confirmed cases right now, and although this means we did miss a large number of cases we initially wondered if we were missing 5 cases or 10 cases for each case we diagnosed. It looks like we missed 1 case for each case we diagnosed.

REICHARD: Well, we know that the number of COVID cases has dropped dramatically since the start of the year. Health officials attribute that to the vaccines. The CDC says 61 percent of adults in the United States have had at least one shot. Surely natural immunity is playing some role as well?

HORTON: Absolutely. One of the big debates last year was what percentage of the population would need to have antibodies in order for us to have herd immunity, and the consensus was on the order of 70 percent. We’re not quite there yet, since you can’t just add the vaccine numbers to the seroprevalence numbers. There’s a lot of overlap, and you’d be counting a lot of people twice. But we have seen the nationwide numbers dropping sharply as we get closer and closer to that mark, and I do think that natural immunity is part of that.

REICHARD: We had one listener email us to say he had COVID and recovered. He doesn’t plan to get vaccinated because he’s heard it could be dangerous. Any truth to that?

HORTON: No, based on the research it doesn’t appear to be dangerous. It’s basically a booster shot at that point, with the first “shot” being the COVID infection. Whether that’s really necessary or a little bit of a belt-and-suspenders approach is a separate question, but previous COVID infection doesn’t appear to be dangerous for the vaccines. Based on the statistics we discussed, every time someone gives a COVID vaccine in America, there’s a 1-in-5 chance that the person receiving the shot has already had COVID. We as a country have given 283 million doses so far, so that’s an awful lot of experience with this.

REICHARD: Dr. Charles Horton is a practicing physician and WORLD’s resident medical expert. Thanks so much for joining us today!

HORTON: Thanks for having me!

NICK EICHER, HOST:  Spring has sprung—you’ve no doubt enjoyed colorful flowers in bloom…

But I doubt you’ve run across a rare plant native to Sumatra. One that drew more than 1,200 admirers in San Francisco.

Maybe “admire” isn’t quite the right choice, given the revolting smell this plant gives off.

The scent of its bloom—the odor—has the same chemicals in it as does limburger cheese, garlic, rotting fish, and sweaty socks.

Now you know why the plant’s known as the “corpse flower.”

Nursery owner Solomon Leyva decided to showcase the unusual plant.

Leyva explained just how rare it is to local tv station KGO.

LEYVA: This is a tree-like looking plant with a really wide canopy, and it produces it over and over every year until the bulb has sort of enough energy for it to bloom. This can take 10 years. This can take 15. This can take 20.

The bloom only lasts for about a day, so when you get the chance, you gotta hustle. And maybe put that Covid mask back on!

It’s The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST:  Today is Tuesday, May 25th. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day. Good morning. I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. Coming next on The World and Everything in It: another in our occasional series Notable Speeches Past and Present.

We go back 50 years when 27-year-old John Kerry addressed the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the Vietnam War. During his testimony, he detailed what he said were atrocities by U.S. soldiers and Marines. He painted American troops as criminals and monsters.

As a Navy lieutenant, Kerry admitted he hadn’t personally witnessed any of these crimes. But that didn’t keep him from passing on the unconfirmed stories of others.

REICHARD: The consequences of this then raised Kerry’s prominence as an anti-war activist and changed Americans’ opinion of returning troops. His words distorted the facts, yet became entrenched in people’s minds as truth. That’s what makes this speech significant and why we share it with you today.

We have edited the content for time, and removed the most graphic descriptions. Here’s John Kerry from April 22nd, 1971:

JOHN KERRY: They told the stories at times they had randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the country side of South Vietnam in addition to the normal ravage of war, and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country.

The country doesn't know it yet, but it has created a monster, a monster in the form of millions of men who have been taught to deal and to trade in violence, and who are given the chance to die for the biggest nothing in history; men who have returned with a sense of anger and a sense of betrayal which no one has yet grasped.

As a veteran and one who feels this anger, I would like to talk about it. We are angry because we feel we have been used in the worst fashion by the administration of this country.

In 1970 at West Point, Vice President Agnew said "some glamorize the criminal misfits of society while our best men die in Asian rice paddies to preserve the freedom which most of those misfits abuse" and this was used as a rallying point for our effort in Vietnam.

But for us, as boys in Asia, whom the country was supposed to support, his statement is a terrible distortion from which we can only draw a very deep sense of revulsion. Hence the anger of some of the men who are here in Washington today. It is a distortion because we in no way consider ourselves the best men of this country, because those he calls misfits were standing up for us in a way that nobody else in this country dared to, because so many who have died would have returned to this country to join the misfits in their efforts to ask for an immediate withdrawal from South Vietnam, because so many of those best men have returned as quadriplegics and amputees, and they lie forgotten in Veterans' Administration hospitals in this country which fly the flag which so many have chosen as their own personal symbol. And we can not consider ourselves America's best men when we are ashamed of and hated what we were called on to do in Southeast Asia.

We rationalized destroying villages in order to save them. We saw America lose her sense of morality as she accepted very coolly a My Lai and refused to give up the image of American soldiers who hand out chocolate bars and chewing gum.

We learned the meaning of free fire zones, shooting anything that moves, and so we watched while men charged up hills because a general said that hill has to be taken, and after losing one platoon or two platoons they marched away to leave the hill for the reoccupation by the North Vietnamese because we watched pride [to] allow the most unimportant of battles to be blown into extravaganzas, because we couldn't lose, and we couldn't retreat, and because it didn't matter how many American bodies were lost to prove that point. And so there were Hamburger Hills and Khe Sanhs and Hill 881's and Fire Base 6's and so many others.

We are asking here in Washington for some action, action from the Congress of the United States of America which has the power to raise and maintain armies, and which by the Constitution also has the power to declare war.

We have come here, not to the president, because we believe that this body can be responsive to the will of the people, and we believe that the will of the people says that we should be out of Vietnam now.

We are here in Washington also to say that the problem of this war is not just a question of war and diplomacy. It is part and parcel of everything that we are trying as human beings to communicate to people in this country, the question of racism, which is rampant in the military, and so many other questions also, the use of weapons, the hypocrisy in our taking umbrage in the Geneva Conventions and using that as justification for a continuation of this war, when we are more guilty than any other body of violations of those Geneva Conventions, in the use of free fire zones, harassment interdiction fire, search and destroy missions, the bombings, the torture of prisoners, the killing of prisoners, accepted policy by many units in South Vietnam. That is what we are trying to say. It is part and parcel of everything.

We are also here to ask, and we are here to ask vehemently, where are the leaders of our country? Where is the leadership? The Army says they never leave their wounded.

The Marines say they never leave even their dead. These men have left all the casualties and retreated behind a pious shield of public rectitude. They have left the real stuff of their reputations bleaching behind them in the sun in this country.

We wish that a merciful God could wipe away our own memories of that service as easily as this administration has wiped their memories of us. But all that they have done and all that they can do by this denial is to make more clear than ever our own determination to undertake one last mission, to search out and destroy the last vestige of this barbaric war. Thank you. [APPLAUSE]

REICHARD: That’s John Kerry speaking before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee 50 years ago.

In a 2001 interview, Kerry tried distancing himself from the speech: saying he was wrong to call it genocide, adding: “those were the words of an angry young man.”

For the record, the military did convict 95 soldiers and 27 Marines of war crimes for their actions during the Vietnam War.

NICK EICHER, HOST: It’s Tuesday, May 25th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Commentator Cal Thomas now on the truce between Israel and Hamas to stop the most recent fighting.

CAL THOMAS, COMMENTATOR: In 1991, Gen. Colin Powell outlined the goal for winning the Persian Gulf War against Saddam Hussein. He said, quote— “Our strategy to go after this army is very, very simple. First, we're going to cut it off, and then we're going to kill it.”

The ceasefire announced last week between the terrorist organization Hamas and the state of Israel is the opposite of that strategy and solves nothing. As with previous ceasefires, it simply gives Hamas an opportunity to regroup and reload in time for the next assault. Perhaps then it will have even more sophisticated and deadly weapons supplied by Iran.

Israel has faced criticism for not responding "proportionately" to the Hamas attacks. Was proportionality a consideration after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor? Did we respond proportionately to the threat from Nazi Germany?

Winston Churchill put it best when he stated the goal of Allied forces: “What is our aim? ...Victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror; victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival.”

The Biden administration has pledged to help rebuild Gaza with money we don't have. Yes, we rebuilt Germany under the Marshall Plan following World War II, but that was after we won the war. We did the same for Japan, after achieving victory.

Israel should never have withdrawn from Gaza in 2005. It did not take a prophet to know what would follow. At the time, I warned Gaza would become one more base for terrorists to launch attacks against the Jewish state. Israel gained nothing, but instead lost another level of security.

President Biden has withheld direct criticism of Israel this time around, possibly because of his longtime friendship with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. But others in his administration, who are veterans of the Obama years, have a track record of favoring Israel's enemies.

Still, Biden has said a "two-state" solution is the best approach to resolving the conflict that existed even before Israel's re-establishment in its ancient homeland in 1948. The problem is and always has been that radicals desire a one-state solution that doesn't include Israel or the Jewish people. Since these radicals believe their motivation is rooted in their religion, it is impossible for them to make peace with a nation and a people they believe their god wants destroyed.

The response to this continuing warfare should not be a false sense of satisfaction about a ceasefire. Nor should anyone pledge to rebuild Gaza while the terrorist occupiers re-arm. Rather, Israel should be encouraged to wipe out the terrorists who do not even put the interests of their own people first.

A ceasefire is worse than a truce and even a truce is no substitute for victory.

I’m Cal Thomas.

NICK EICHER, HOST:  Tomorrow: stemming immigration. The United States has spent billions to improve conditions in Central America. Where has all that money gone? We’ll talk about that on Washington Wednesday.

That and more tomorrow.

I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard.

The World and Everything in It comes to you from WORLD Radio.

WORLD’s mission is biblically objective journalism that informs, educates, and inspires.

The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.

Go now in grace and peace.

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