Empathy for Gazans “Ain’t No Disgrace”

“That’s just the way: a person does a low-down thing, and then he don’t want to take no consequences of it. Thinks as long as he can hide it, it ain’t no disgrace. That was my fix exactly.” – Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn, confronting shame and guilt for helping Jim escape slavery.

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Many American Jews, while feeling anger and anguish about the October 7 rampage by Hamas, also harbor misgivings about the daily suffering of Palestinians in Gaza. Like Huck Finn, maybe they won’t discuss this openly because they feel they’re betraying their people or that it’s social suicide to step outside the mentality of “Israel can do no wrong” and “Jews are the only real victims.”

It should be comforting to know, as we watch the utter devastation and forced starvation of two million Gaza residents, that Israel disputes the numbers of dead (is it “only” 40,000 total? 20,000 civilians? 5,000 kids?). That what matters most, in the shadow of the Holocaust, is maximum force to protect Israelis and to expand Israel’s control over Gaza, the West Bank, Syria, and even Yemen. And if we have any sympathy for the plight of so many non-Jews, most of whose only crime after generations under Israeli occupation and control is hating Israelis, then we should only be blaming Hamas.

If we as Jews feel any shame or guilt – or “God forbid,” any responsibility – then we must be naïve victims of manipulation by Hamas and the global media bias against Jews… or so we are instructed. But who’s really being naive, and who is being morally blinded?

Since Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu launched the military counter-offensive into Gaza 19 months ago, a succession of prominent Israelis have accused him of war crimes and ethnic cleansing against Palestinians. Nearly a year ago, Netanyahu overruled his own security and military chiefs who’d insisted a deal was possible to end most of the fighting and free the remaining Israeli hostages, some of whom have since died. Members of the current Israeli government have effectively called for scorched earth in Gaza, the expulsion of Palestinians, and the establishment of Jewish communities in their stead. And yet we are supposed to parrot official denials of any ill intent.

Netanyahu himself has made clear that the latest siege and operations are designed less to achieve military goals than to pressure Hamas into broader concessions. This makes Israel’s starvation tactic a flagrant breach of the Geneva Conventions and other bedrocks of international humanitarian law. The modern concept of war crimes derives from the Holocaust, which makes this situation a greater travesty rather than an excuse.

When the focus of our communal engagement is on protecting college kids from campus harassment and ensuring no politician strays beyond the official pro-Israel gospel – when politicians who pander to us by trumpeting Netanyahu are acclaimed for their “moral courage” – it takes a lot to publicly express unambiguous empathy for starving babies in Gaza. When we hear officials and activists call to “Bring them home now!” many of us applaud uneasily, knowing that Netanyahu’s stated policy precludes swiftly freeing the hostages and quieting Israel’s border with Gaza.

Of course it isn’t just Netanyahu. While most Israelis mistrust him, they do support his and U.S. President Donald Trump’s idea to permanently transfer Palestinians from Gaza. In the long run, this dissonance between Israelis and American Jews could prove our greatest existential threat.

In undermining the basic values that once bound Israel and the United States so closely, Netanyahu would also drive more American Jews toward the Trump mindset where precepts like democracy, rule of law, human dignity and collective responsibility are derided as “woke” relics that keep us vulnerable and weak. If their idea of a good Jew means eschewing the values that keep two-thirds of American Jewry within the Democratic Party, then Netanyahu and his American allies hope to rebalance the Jewish vote.

Despite increased antisemitism and anti-Israel sentiment in the United States, it is not 1930s Germany, at least not for Jews. When we have the police and nearly all politicians denouncing Israel’s critics and standing up for Jewish rights, the lessons of the Holocaust don’t seem to apply quite as much to us as to those who are actually being rounded up and deported.

The Trump administration is not targeting Jewish studies programs except by accident, while formally banning books and curricula on the African American experience and civil rights. The loudest champion of American Jewish security is the President himself, though he’s also the one shutting down the civil rights bureaus that do the actual work combating antisemitism and other forms of hate and hate crimes. More than half of American Jews consider Trump himself to be antisemitic.

Trump is also pressuring Netanyahu on Gaza, negotiating with Iran, and arranging the release of an American-Israeli hostage without involving the Israeli government. Not since George Bush (41) has a U.S. President so openly disputed policy with an Israeli Prime Minister.

The fact that anti-Zionists call for Israel’s destruction doesn’t negate the imperative to value innocent Palestinian lives in Gaza or basic civil rights in Waltham and Manhattan.

A Jewish state is still a state like any other, and with sovereignty comes responsibility. Even when Hamas does steal some of the food aid entering Gaza, which isn’t nearly as often as Netanyahu claims, that doesn’t free Israel from the moral and legal obligation to ensure food gets delivered.

As long as Israel maintains control of Gaza’s borders and deploys troops across the territory, it is the responsible party. We may not flinch in our support of Israel, but American Jews share culpability when Israeli leaders violate universal norms and Jewish precepts – no less than when the United States does so. The least we can do is to not turn away from the horrifying images of starving and blast-torn Palestinian children, not pretend it doesn’t matter, and not ostracize those who complement their Israel solidarity with a measure of human empathy and Jewish guilt.