I’m Jewish, not antisemitic, and strongly opposed to the Biden administration’s unconditional support for the right-wing government in Israel and its genocidal attack on 2.3 million civilians in Gaza in response to the Hamas attack of Oct. 7. And Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made things far more dangerous with his recent assassinations of top Hamas and Hezbollah leaders.

Hamas committed war crimes on Oct. 7, but many of the alleged atrocities have been proven untrue, according to some Israeli media and independent sources. And many of the Israelis killed were victims of their own military’s policy of killing Hamas fighters along with any Israeli civilians they had captured.

I hope Vice President and presidential candidate Kamala Harris will show both courage and compassion and call for a permanent cease-fire, a huge increase in humanitarian aid, and negotiations to finally bring peace, safety, and security to both Israelis and Palestinians.

I write also about “that other war,” in Ukraine. It must be stopped through urgent negotiations before it spins out of control into a direct confrontation between the U.S., NATO, and Russia — even into a catastrophic global nuclear war.

Biden and the West are poking the proverbial Russian bear with escalations such as:

■Allowing the Ukrainians in May to attack and damage three of 10 early-warning radars deep within Russia. This increases the danger of an accidental nuclear war, if Russia’s ability to accurately detect an attack is degraded.

■Providing Ukraine with F-16 planes and long-range missiles that can attack targets inside Russia.

■Sending NATO advisers (troops) to help Ukraine avoid losing more and more of its territory to the advancing Russians.

Unlike our government’s and the mainstream news media’s narrative, my research into the war, including the views of experts like George Beebe, John Mearsheimer, Ivan Katchanovski, Nicolai Petro and Jeffrey Sachs, has convinced me that it’s a civil war that started in 2014. A new, vehemently anti-Russian government in Kiev began attacking the political, economic, cultural, linguistic, and religious rights of millions of Russian-speaking Ukrainians in the eastern half of the country.

Now 10 years later, the majority of the people in Crimea, Donbass, and other parts of eastern Ukraine want to align with Russia and not Kiev, and took up arms to defend themselves and their rights. Therefore, in negotiations to end this war, they should be allowed to become independent from Ukraine.

If we keep feeding weapons to Ukraine, they’ll simply suffer even more horrendous losses of soldiers and territory, and have an even harder time rebuilding their country when the war ends.

If President Joe Biden doesn’t come to his senses and start negotiations with Russia — like JFK, Nixon, Carter, and Reagan did despite their strong disagreement with Soviet leaders — to not only end the Ukraine war but also halt the nuclear arms race and prevent nuclear war, then I hope Harris will pledge to break from his rigid policy and start such diplomacy as soon as she’s elected.

I support such urgent negotiations and policy change for two other vital reasons. These two wars are costing the U.S. hundreds of billions of dollars that are urgently needed for housing, education, environmental, racial justice, and other domestic needs. I find it so frustrating that Northampton, like every town and city throughout our state and country, always struggles to find enough money to adequately fund its schools, while the Pentagon’s annual budget keeps soaring to record heights that soon will reach $1 trillion!

And then there’s the climate emergency. Think about all that jet and diesel fuel burned up by our planes, ships, and trains taking all those bombs, missiles, and tanks halfway around the world to two different wars. And all that carbon burned by the Ukrainian, Russian, and Israeli military fighting those wars.

This is not what the world needs to reduce its carbon footprint and avoid the worst impacts of the climate crisis.

Contact U.S. Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey, and Reps. Jim McGovern and Richard Neal, and urge them to call on Biden and Harris to support cease-fires and negotiations now, so that we can solve our country’s critical problems, and not risk our children’s and grandchildren’s future by the threats of nuclear war and climate chaos.

John Berkowitz lives in Northampton.