Former President Bill Clinton returned to the hometown where his father-in-law was born Saturday and urged people to remember others' humanity as they debate great problems.
Clinton spoke to a mostly male crowd of more than 800 at the Scranton Cultural Center at Masonic Temple during the 118th Annual Friendly Sons of St. Patrick of Lackawanna County dinner.
The 77-year-old former president sounded less vigorous than he once was. He spoke more slowly and in a raspier voice, but managed mainly without a script to keep what can sometimes become a boisterous group mostly quiet for almost 40 minutes. They roundly applauded him afterward.
He said people from diverse backgrounds and differing opinions who gather to find solutions succeed more often than “lone geniuses.”
“Because our common humanity matters,” he said. “But it doesn't work unless you believe that there are certain rules, which you won't violate, which basically involve (not) stripping some people of their humanity.”
Clinton said young people shouldn't denigrate Israel just because they don't like its current government's non-stop war on Hamas. Earlier Israeli governments sought two-state solutions with Palestinians, and that can happen again, he said. He remembered the late Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.
“And he was assassinated trying to get a state for the Palestinians. He gave up his life. All these young people think they hate Israel, they should know that it was a lot more than the current government,” Clinton said.
Clinton said Russian President Vladimir Putin has stayed in office too long and turned its stellar technological advantages towards war with Ukraine and tracking dissent instead of building another Silicon Valley.
“So instead of caring most about the people they're supposed to represent and serve, you start worrying most about how you can eliminate all opposition,” Clinton said. “You start seeing what is healthy criticism, as somehow a poisonous, venomous threat.”
He pointed out St. Patrick turned Ireland toward Christianity without killing a single person. The United States' founding fathers often disagreed, but knew they had more in common.
“The people who started this country cared a lot about ideas. But not so much about ideology,” he said. “They believed in debate, they believed in the rule of law, they believed in the endless search for facts, they believed in staying open to new ideas and new information.”
Clinton said combatants in places like the Middle East need organizations like Friendly Sons of St. Patrick.
“They need to find a way back to each other,” he said.
He urged the group to keep helping to keep the peace in Northern Ireland. Clinton's appointment of a special envoy to negotiate the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 contributed to an end to three decades of between Catholics and Protestants there.
Clinton's father-in-law was Hugh Rodham, father of former presidential candidate and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Clinton told a story about visiting the Rodham family cottage at Lake Winola when their daughter, Chelsea, was about 11 months old.
The cottage lacked an indoor bath, so washing up meant swimming in the lake, and then someone would pour buckets of water to rinse you off.
“I thought this was what I left Arkansas to get away from,” he said.
Hours before he spoke, about 10 supporters of NEPA for Palestine stood across from the cultural center as dinner-goers filed in.
The protesters demanded a ceasefire in the war between Israel and Hamas. They waved Palestinian and Irish flags.
One protestor told the Friendly Sons to "enjoy their steaks while the children of Gaza starve.”
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WVIA News reporter Kat Bolus contributed to this story.
