Alexi Navalny was a once-in-a-lifetime example of what John F. Kennedy once called “Profiles in Courage.” That such villainy and treachery caused his killing are the reasons we must recognize and honor this man’s willful courage and stoic fearlessness. Alexi Navalny is gone and Mother Russia has endured another blow to her attempts to join Lady Liberty as a paean to freedom and democratic ideals.

One mourner at Navalny’s funeral put it simply this way, “Alexi might have been imprisoned, but he died a free man.”

Having been poisoned at least once but probably twice, having spent over 300 days in solitary confinement, having ended his living days in a cold prison cell in a Stalinistic Arctic penal colony, he then gave his life as a martyr in homage to the ideals he had hoped would be forthcoming in Russia. Yet at the end of his days, he finally succumbed to predation and the personification of evil, Vladimir Putin.

Freedom and democracy are lifelong gifts that we often take for granted in this country, much to the dismay of our forefathers. The example of freedom’s absence was blatantly on display in Russia this past week, as it has been with past assassinations and arrests of other political opponents and journalists by the cruel rulership of Mr. Putin and his gang of thugs.

Also on display this past week, in juxtaposition to the courage of Mr. Navalny, were the seditious sentiments of a speaker at last week’s CPAC conference in Maryland just outside Washington, D.C., who said incredulously, “Welcome to the end of democracy. We are here to overthrow it completely. We didn’t get all the way there on January 6, but we will endeavor to get rid of it.” This shameful rhetorical shadow cast a long shade across the Washington and the Lincoln memorial monuments, not far away.

The other tragedy this past week of historical proportions was multifaceted. In 140 days of fighting in Gaza, over 30,000 civilians have been killed, mostly women and children. To put that in perspective here in Ohio, that’s the equivalent of wiping out the entire cities of Bowling Green, or Kent or Shaker Heights or collectively killing all the residents of Hillsboro, Washington C.H. and Wilmington. But I say multifaceted because the United Nations now believes that one in four Gazans, or half a million, are one step away from famine. It’s estimated that for the 2.3 million people living in Gaza, 70% of their homes have been destroyed. No place to go back to.

According to the British Broadcasting Company (BBC), satellite data analysis suggests that between 144,000 and 175,000 buildings have been destroyed or damaged across Gaza, or between 50% and 61% of its buildings. Supplies of freshwater, electricity and sewer services have been critically diminished.

Perhaps the biggest tragedy of all in this situation is that Israel, a nation whose ancestry suffered the unimaginable slaughter of its people, is now being accused by the majority of United Nations members of genocide, defined by the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide as: “Acts committed with the intent to destroy, in or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group as such.” Such tragic damage to its reputation is almost unimaginable and beyond sad. It overwhelms the sympathy that these nations genuinely felt for Israel from the atrocities resulting from Hamas’s assault that killed over 1,200 Israelis.

Bringing an end to this war in the Middle East has proven to be problematic. Prime Minister Netanyahu has been singularly obsessed with demolishing Gaza and then occupying the territory with the Israeli Defense Force (IDF). He disdains the notion of a two-state solution, the solution that most international leaders believe is the only path to a peaceful solution.

Martin Indyk, former ambassador to Israel under President Clinton and President Obama and current fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, suggested in a recent essay in Foreign Affairs Magazine that the only way to peacefully transition away from war would be to install a UN peacekeeping force in Gaza. This would mean he says: “An interim governing body would need to run the territory. That entity would need to be legitimized by a UN Security Council resolution and would oversee the gradual assumption of responsibility by the Palestinian Authority (ed. Not Hamas). It would control a peacekeeping force tasked with maintaining order. To prevent friction with the IDF, the force would need to be led by a U.S. general.”

I agree.

Thus, two tragedies of historical significance: one the execution of a Russian freedom fighter and the other a realization that overzealous revenge only further damages a nation’s honor and reputation, killing with it many historic sympathies that have existed for decades for its endless sufferings.

Bill Sims is a Hillsboro resident, retired president of the Denver Council on Foreign Relations, an author and runs a small farm in Berrysville with his wife. He is a former educator, executive and foundation president.