Two Truths are True: Israel’s Trauma and Gaza’s Agony
Op-Ed
By Citizen Ben
The war in Gaza is not just a news cycle—it is a moral emergency. For 632 days, Gaza has endured unrelenting bombardment, starvation, and isolation. While the world debates policy, children starve. Hospitals collapse. Families are buried beneath rubble. And the United States, under the leadership of President Donald Trump, has not only failed to intervene but has actively blocked aid, silenced diplomacy, and shrugged at atrocity.
Let’s begin with a truth that should be undeniable: The October 7th, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel was a horrific act of terror. It left over 1,200 Israelis dead and many taken hostage. The grief of Israeli families is real, valid, and must be respected. Jews worldwide were re-traumatized by images that echoed the darkest chapters of their history. That pain matters. That trauma is not up for debate.
However, there is another truth: what followed has spiraled far beyond retaliation. It has become a campaign of devastation so vast and so punishing that the word “disproportionate” barely does it justice. Entire neighborhoods in Gaza are flattened. Over 37,000 Palestinians are dead—many of them women and children. Thousands more are injured, disfigured, or maimed. The scale of destruction is not just collateral damage; it is systematic annihilation.
Let’s talk about starvation as a weapon of war. Gaza is under siege. Food trucks are turned away. Flour is hoarded. Children eat grass. Aid convoys are bombed. UNICEF warns of “catastrophic levels of hunger.” The World Food Programme has been obstructed, their workers killed, and their missions blocked. This is not a famine born of drought or economic collapse. This is a man-made famine, crafted by military encirclement and the willful denial of humanitarian aid.
And where is America?
Under Trump’s second term, the United States has pulled out of USAID humanitarian missions to Gaza completely. Where previous administrations tried—however imperfectly—to balance Israeli security with humanitarian concern for Palestinians, President Trump has torn away the mask. There is no balance. In February 2025, USAID warehouses filled with food and medicine sat untouched in Jordan while Gaza's infants died of dehydration. Trump dismissed the crisis as “an Israeli matter.” His State Department echoed that message, even as international agencies begged for help. Promised airdrops never came. Ceasefire resolutions at the United Nations were vetoed again and again by Trump’s ambassador, citing Israel’s “right to finish the job.”
Let’s be clear about what that “job” has included: bombing refugee camps, leveling schools, and shutting down the last remaining hospitals. It includes the use of white phosphorus, targeted strikes on ambulances, and the deliberate obstruction of humanitarian corridors. Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, now faces charges from the International Criminal Court for war crimes—including the intentional starvation of civilians, the targeting of infrastructure, and the refusal to allow adequate medical aid.
Supporting justice and accountability is not antisemitic. Supporting Palestinian civilians is not antisemitic. Opposing the brutalization of an entire population is not antisemitic.
Two things can be true at once:
Israel has a right to exist and defend itself.
Palestinians have a right to live with dignity, safety, and freedom.
The conflation of criticism of Israeli policy with antisemitism is a weaponized deflection. It has silenced not only pro-Palestinian voices but also Jewish dissenters—rabbis, historians, and Holocaust survivors—who cry out against the current brutality in Gaza. The moral courage of these voices should be honored, not erased.
To those still asking, “But what should Israel have done instead?”—the answer is not this. Not carpet bombing refugee camps. Not destroying every university in Gaza. Not turning hospitals into morgues. Not creating a generation of orphans.
And while Gazans bury their dead in mass graves, President Donald Trump had the gall to suggest that Gaza could be “turned into a beautiful resort community” once the war is over.
Let that sink in.
After months of bloodshed, starvation, and structural annihilation, the sitting President of the United States envisions beachfront hotels and casinos built on the ruins of bombed-out homes. It’s not just tone-deaf. It’s dehumanizing. Reducing the suffering of an entire people to a real estate punchline is grotesque. Gaza doesn’t need resorts. It needs reconstruction, reconciliation, and respect. It needs clean water, functioning hospitals, and—most of all—an end to the war.
Even in Israel, the hunger for peace is growing louder. In Tel Aviv, tens of thousands have taken to the streets in June 2025, demanding an immediate ceasefire, the safe return of Israeli hostages, and an end to the endless cycle of bloodshed. Mothers of the kidnapped march with photos of their children.
Veterans join peace activists in chanting, “Shalom achshav”—“Peace now.” Their message is clear: the war no longer makes Israel safer; it only deepens the wound.
Many are pleading with the Trump administration to press Netanyahu directly, hoping the U.S. might still have the moral leverage to force a ceasefire. But Benjamin Netanyahu is not listening—because for him, ending the war means losing the one thing he values most: power. His fragile coalition government is propped up by extremists who see war as identity. If the war ends, so too might his political career—and Netanyahu, more than anything, is fighting to save himself.
This is not about Hamas anymore. This is about destroying a people’s will to live. This is collective punishment on a massive scale. It is a war crime. And President Trump’s indifference is not just a matter of policy- it is complicity.
As Americans, we must reject complicity. We must speak up. We must demand a permanent ceasefire, the restoration of humanitarian aid, and justice for the civilians of Gaza. Saying that Palestinian lives matter should never be controversial.
This is not just about foreign policy. This is about humanity. And if we cannot extend it to the most vulnerable among us, then we’ve already lost more than our moral compass—we’ve lost our soul.
We can grieve with Israel and stand with Gaza.
We can oppose terror and demand justice.
We can hold empathy in both hands—if we choose to.
Citizen Ben
Because silence is not neutrality—it’s surrender.
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