David J. Kramer, Executive Director of the George W. Bush Institute shares remarks on the tragic events of Oct. 7, at the 2023 Engage Nexpoint Lecture.
“Thank you all for being here for the annual Nexpoint Lecture, which is always a special edition of our Engage series, and we’re very grateful to Nexpoint for endowing this series which is an opportunity to focus on pressing policy issues with some of the leading experts in the nation.
Tonight’s program of course comes against the backdrop of the barbaric Hamas terrorist attacks against Israel on Oct. 7, and nothing of course justifies the brutal and inhuman onslaught by Hamas whose stated objective is the extermination of Israel and Jews. Our hearts go out to the families who are suffering, and for the innocent loss of life.
We mourn for those among Israelis and Palestinians, who it is important to distinguish from Hamas itself. With the wake of what happened in Israel, we have seen ugly acts of hate carried out elsewhere. Including in this country, where a six-month old Muslim boy was brutally stabbed to death, and his mother badly wounded. There must be zero tolerance for such hate and evil in the world, it is dangerous, destabilizing, and deadly. It must be condemned unequivocally, whether it be anti-sematic, anti-Islamic, racist, or hatred of any other kind.
This backdrop makes tonight’s conversation about technology and A.I. as potential threats to our democracy and democracies around the world particularly timely. We see disinformation playing a role in the crisis in Israel, the bombing of the hospital yesterday, we see it in Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine, we see it in our own politics.
Tonight’s topic amplifies the work we do here at the Bush Institute, on strengthening our democracy and compliments the wonderful Freedom Matter’s Exhibit that I hope you will have a chance to see.”
