Why Aren't We More Outraged by the Starvation and Slaughter of the People of Gaza?

An OP ED

Each night, we witness the systematic destruction of the land and people of the Gaza Strip. Families, or what is left of them, flee on foot or donkey cart from the latest place of refuge that is no longer safe from relentless aerial bombing. Why are we not more outraged?

By early May, 2024, an estimated 35,000 people had been killed in the war in Gaza, a majority of them women and children. The New York Times published maps, showing the devastating destruction of farmland. Last week, Cindy McCain, Director of the World Food Program, stated that famine was a reality in the North of Gaza.

As the Biden Administration works tirelessly to broker a hostage exchange and temporary ceasefire and withholds offensive weapons to Israel, Israel’s Defense Forces are poised to assault Rafah, the last refuge for over a million fleeing Gazans. Why aren’t ordinary American citizens marching in the streets in protest?

I imagine it is because we haven’t been able to separate the savagery Israel is inflicting on Palestinian civilians in Gaza, from a host of other critical issues. Is condemning the inhumanity of Netanyahu’s government intrinsically,

• An act of anti-Semitism?

• Opposition to the State of Israel itself.

• A show of indifference to Hamas’ brutal killing and kidnapping 1,200 Israeli men, women and children on October 7?

• An invitation to attack Jewish American students?

No, although it can and has become all of those things when we succumb to reactive tribalism. The immediate question before us, though, is a simple and urgent one. Is there any justification for the wholesale starvation and indiscriminate slaughter of our fellow human beings as a means of eradicating a malignant terrorist group like Hamas? Clearly, there is not.