Weapons and Wokeness: How The Israel Debate Got Hijacked

Section I: The Human Beings Buried Under the Hashtags

You’d never know it from the shouting, the hashtags, or the influencer hot takes — but there are actual people dying.

Kids.

Mothers.

Civilians caught between collapsing buildings and collapsing narratives.

But none of that matters anymore.

The moment a missile lands or a headline breaks, the war machine of outrage fires up:

• TikTokers scramble to produce reaction reels.
• Right-wing pundits race to defend Israel like it’s Alabama.
• Left-wing influencers leap in to turn Gaza into a metaphor for every Western grievance they’ve ever had.

And the people actually living — and dying — in this conflict?

They’re just set dressing now. Background noise. B-roll.

Because this isn’t about them anymore.

It’s about you — your brand, your platform, your tribe.

Your team has to be right. The other side has to be evil.

There is no middle. There is no nuance.

There is only content.

Both Sides Dehumanize — They Just Use Different Filters

On the right, the war becomes a moral crusade:

• “Israel has a right to defend itself” is said like a spell — no matter the context, cost, or civilian toll.
• Any critique is immediately labeled antisemitism.
• Dissent equals betrayal.

On the left, it becomes performance activism:

• TikTokers with ring lights and war paint explain a decades-long occupation like it’s a Netflix recap.
• Identity politics gets mapped over a warzone with all the accuracy of a broken compass.
• “From the river to the sea” becomes a TikTok trend — not a slogan with implications that matter.

It’s a nightmare viewed through funhouse mirrors.

The casualties are real — but the coverage is cosplay.

Nobody’s trying to understand.

They’re just trying to win.

This Isn’t Discourse — It’s Theater

Israel and Palestine aren’t even the main characters anymore.

The main characters are your uncle’s Facebook feed, your coworker’s Instagram stories, and whichever politician is trying to boost their polling numbers by picking a side with the most donations attached.

And as always — the truth gets buried right next to the bodies.

Section II: The AIPAC Machine vs the Campus Crusaders

This isn’t a debate anymore. It’s a proxy war.

And like any proxy war, the foot soldiers are loud, disposable, and mostly clueless — while the real power brokers remain comfortably insulated from the chaos they bankroll.

On one end, you have AIPAC — a billion-dollar behemoth of political influence.

On the other, you’ve got a loose constellation of TikTok influencers, campus protesters, and Instagram-minded radicals who wouldn’t last five minutes in a real historical discussion — but sure as hell know how to go viral.

Neither side is interested in truth.

They’re interested in dominance.

AIPAC: Lobbying Like It’s 1984

Let’s be clear: the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) isn’t just a lobby group. It’s a goddamn juggernaut.

They don’t just support Israel.

They buy silence, shape careers, and write the foreign policy script for both parties.

• Want to run for Congress? You better pass the loyalty test.
• Want to criticize Israeli settlements? Prepare for six figures of attack ads in your district.
• Want to propose a ceasefire? Enjoy being labeled antisemitic on national TV.

This isn’t hypothetical. AIPAC spent over $100 million in the 2022 and 2024 election cycles alone — backing candidates who pledge unconditional support to the Israeli state, regardless of its behavior.

The result?

Even as bombs fall on Rafah, even as settler violence explodes in the West Bank, even as far-right Israeli politicians publicly salivate over annexation — U.S. officials trip over themselves to defend “our ally.”

Because their donors demand it.

And in Washington, donor loyalty trumps human lives every time.

The Campus Left: Loud, Righteous, and Lost

But if you think the opposition has the moral high ground by default, think again.

The online left — particularly its Gen Z activist wing — has turned the Israeli-Palestinian conflict into a brand identity. A lifestyle. A viral cause.

It’s not about understanding a century of geopolitical trauma.

It’s about how many likes your protest photo gets.

It’s about performative rage, filtered through social capital and clout chasing.

Yes, many of them care. Some even do their homework.

But far too many treat this like an aesthetic — Palestinian flags in bios, aggressive slogans shouted in echo chambers, all while being utterly ignorant of the region’s complexity or history.

Criticizing Israel isn’t antisemitic.

But whitewashing Hamas as “freedom fighters” while ignoring their treatment of women, dissidents, and LGBTQ citizens isn’t “solidarity.”

It’s just the other side of the propaganda coin.

Two Extremes, One Common Enemy: Nuance

Here’s the part nobody wants to admit:

AIPAC and the clout-chasing campus left are mirror images of each other.

Both flatten complexity into talking points.

Both demonize dissent as betrayal.

Both elevate their ideological purity over real human suffering.

And worst of all?

Both sides are more invested in winning the argument than ending the war.

AIPAC doesn’t want peace — it wants power.

The online left doesn’t want resolution — it wants retribution.

And trapped in the crossfire are the families, the children, the grieving — whose voices are buried beneath hashtags and campaign donations.

Section III: “From the River to the Right-Wing Rally” — How Both Sides Twist the Slogans

Language used to mean something.

Now, it’s just ammunition.

In the Israel-Palestine debate, every word is a landmine. Every chant is dissected, decontextualized, and weaponized. And no phrase illustrates that better than the most controversial seven words in modern protest politics:

“From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”

To Palestinians, it’s a cry for liberation.

To Israelis, it’s a coded call for their erasure.

To the American political machine? It’s a fundraising opportunity.

Slogans as Simulacra

What began as a nationalist phrase among Arab resistance groups in the 20th century has now become a Rorschach test. A chant shouted at campus protests is interpreted by donors, pundits, and politicians as either a plea for human rights or a genocidal threat — depending entirely on who’s holding the mic.

The slogan has been:

• Misquoted by U.S. lawmakers, then held up as justification for more funding to Israel.
• Censored by universities, fearing lawsuits or donor backlash.
• Adopted by clueless Western protesters, many of whom don’t actually know what the “river” or the “sea” even refer to.

(For the record: it’s the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. If your activism doesn’t include a map, it’s probably just cosplay.)

The Right’s Outrage Machine: Manufactured Victimhood

Conservatives have seized on this slogan like vultures on a carcass.

To them, it’s proof that the left is antisemitic. That students are terrorists. That the country is falling apart under the weight of liberal rot. And once they’ve whipped up the outrage, they monetize it:

• Tucker Carlson’s replacement on Fox runs a monologue about “the genocidal left.”
• Think tanks like the Heritage Foundation crank out white papers warning of “rising antisemitism in higher education.”
• GOP lawmakers flood X and Truth Social with calls to defund colleges, prosecute student protesters, and criminalize speech.

It’s not about protecting Jewish people. It’s about exploiting a slogan to galvanize the base.

Because nothing raises campaign money quite like moral panic.

The Left’s Moral Blind Spots: Cheering for Fire

But the left isn’t innocent here either.

There is a willful ignorance — especially among young progressives — about the implications of the language they use. Too often, nuance gets sacrificed for the sake of righteousness.

When people shout “From the river to the sea” with zero understanding of its history — while simultaneously glorifying armed resistance movements that openly call for the destruction of the Israeli state — they don’t advance the cause of Palestinian freedom.

They dilute it. They sabotage it.

The slogan becomes a signal — not to allies, but to adversaries — that the movement is unserious, immature, and dangerously ignorant of both history and optics.

And worse, it gives bad-faith actors exactly what they need to shut the entire conversation down.

The Real Question Nobody Wants to Ask

Here’s the rub:

If we strip away the slogans, the hashtags, the tribal flags and TikTok theatrics — what’s left?

Do we actually want a solution that respects both Israeli and Palestinian humanity?

Or do we just want to keep yelling at each other while the bombs keep falling?

The truth is, both sides are more comfortable fighting over words than addressing reality.

Because words are easier.

Words don’t bleed.

Section IV: “Liberal Guilt, Conservative Calculations” — Why the Political Establishment Plays Both Sides

If there’s one thing both major American parties have mastered, it’s the art of pretending to care while doing absolutely nothing to change the status quo.

And nowhere is that clearer than in the political handling of Israel.

The Democrats: Conscience Without Consequences

For decades, the Democratic Party has walked a tightrope between appeasing its liberal base and maintaining unshakable support for Israel. They’ve talked the talk when it’s politically convenient:

• “We need a ceasefire.”
• “Palestinian lives matter.”
• “We support a two-state solution.”

But when it comes time to vote?

They greenlight military aid.

They fund the Iron Dome without hesitation.

They squash any resolution in Congress that even hints at holding Israel accountable.

Why?

Because AIPAC money doesn’t just fuel Republicans. It bankrolls centrist Democrats too. And despite the theatrics of “The Squad,” the party leadership has no appetite for confrontation with a powerful lobbying machine — especially one that can pour millions into primary challengers overnight.

Even Joe Biden, who once called himself a Zionist “even if I weren’t Jewish,” has backpedaled from soft criticisms of Netanyahu’s government when it became politically inconvenient.

So you end up with the worst kind of political doublethink:

• Performative empathy for Palestinian civilians.
• Unwavering material support for the government dropping the bombs.

It’s the policy equivalent of sending “thoughts and prayers” to Gaza — followed by a crate of JDAMs.

The Republicans: Fire and Fundraising

On the other side, Republicans don’t even pretend to care about nuance.

Their support for Israel is biblical, literal, and militarized. To them, Israel isn’t a strategic ally — it’s the frontline in a cosmic war between good and evil. Many in the GOP view the Jewish state through the lens of evangelical prophecy, not geopolitics.

That’s why:

• They cheer on Israeli expansionism as “God’s will.”
• They vilify any dissent as antisemitism.
• And they pump out fundraising emails every time a protest sign goes viral.

But behind the fire and brimstone? It’s all about leverage.

Republicans don’t just support Israel for religious reasons — they see it as a proxy for American dominance. An extension of the military-industrial complex. A convenient justification for endless defense budgets and permanent Middle East entanglement.

They want permanent war and permanent outrage because that’s what fuels their base — and their bank accounts.

Two Parties, One Policy

Here’s the dirty secret:

Despite all the noise, there is no meaningful difference between the parties when it comes to Israel.

Both Democrats and Republicans:

• Vote overwhelmingly for military aid.
• Refuse to condition funding on human rights compliance.
• Call any criticism of Israel “antisemitic” while ignoring actual antisemitism in their own ranks.
• And weaponize the debate for political gain, while doing nothing to actually solve the crisis.

This isn’t a debate. It’s a performance.

A bipartisan illusion of difference.

The left accuses the right of bigotry.

The right accuses the left of terrorism.

Meanwhile, the same bombs drop on the same civilians year after year — funded by both parties, signed off in bipartisan backrooms, and packaged as “security.”

The Collateral Damage: Reality

Caught in the middle of this partisan kabuki theater are actual human beings — both Israeli and Palestinian — who live under the shadow of a U.S.-funded status quo that rewards violence and punishes dissent.

And that’s the point.

Neither party wants peace.

Peace is unpredictable.

Peace doesn’t poll well.

Peace doesn’t pay.

Section V: “Follow the Influence” — From TikTok to Tel Aviv

If the battlefield used to be Capitol Hill, it’s now the algorithm. And when it comes to the discourse around Israel, both state actors and political operatives have figured out how to turn the internet into a weapon.

This isn’t just about hashtags and viral clips. It’s a full-spectrum influence war — and the casualties are truth, nuance, and the actual human beings caught in the crossfire.

The Hashtag Wars

Every time Gaza is bombed or an Israeli soldier is killed, the discourse on platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and X (formerly Twitter) turns into a digital civil war.

Activists flood the feed with graphic images of the aftermath. Pro-Israel influencers counter with narratives of self-defense and victimhood. And somewhere in between, paid operatives and coordinated bot networks from both sides start artificially boosting content to shift public perception.

It’s not accidental — it’s strategic.

• Pro-Palestinian accounts highlight ethnic cleansing, settler violence, and UN resolutions.
• Pro-Israel accounts hammer home rockets, hostage stories, and Holocaust trauma.
• American influencers virtue-signal or retreat into silence, afraid to alienate followers.

The result? A morality Rorschach test with no room for complexity. You’re either a genocide apologist or a Hamas sympathizer. Pick a side, post the flag emoji, and pray your follower count doesn’t drop.

This isn’t activism. It’s performance.

Digital Hasbara and the TikTok Battalion

Israel, to its credit, has long understood the power of media. From “Hasbara” (the state-sponsored effort to explain and justify Israeli policy) to modern influence campaigns, they’ve never been shy about managing perception.

But in the TikTok era, Hasbara got a glow-up.

Young, Western-friendly, English-speaking influencers are now flown to Israel on state-sponsored trips to post curated content: selfies on beaches, nightclub reels in Tel Aviv, “day in the life” vlogs of IDF soldiers. The goal? Normalize the state, humanize the uniform, and sanitize the occupation.

It’s propaganda with a ring light.

And it works.

These creators don’t show you checkpoints or demolished homes. They show you brunch.

And while some of them are well-meaning, most are willing participants in a sophisticated influence operation designed to overwrite the brutality of occupation with the aesthetics of a travel vlog.

Palestinian Digital Resistance — And the Shadow Ban Wall

On the other side, Palestinian activists fight an uphill battle — not just against occupation, but against the algorithm itself.

Time and again, Instagram and Facebook have been caught suppressing pro-Palestinian content. Posts disappear. Stories vanish. Entire accounts get demonetized or shadow-banned for violating “community standards,” even when all they’re posting is documentation of real-world violence.

Meta claims it’s a bug.

Critics call it censorship.

And either way, it’s a digital erasure of lived reality.

When you can’t protest on the ground, the internet becomes your last lifeline — and even that’s policed by platforms whose moderation decisions conveniently align with Western foreign policy.

AIPAC 2.0 — The Influence Industrial Complex

But it’s not just about the culture war online. The real money still moves offline — and it moves through a dense web of lobbying outfits, PACs, media influencers, and think tanks.

AIPAC is the obvious titan here, but it’s far from alone. There’s the Israeli-American Council, the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Christians United for Israel, and a rotating cast of social media-savvy operatives who frame any criticism of Israel as a personal attack on Jews themselves.

The result is a weaponized feedback loop:

• TikTok teens post slogans they half-understand.
• Cable news pundits rage about “woke antisemitism.”
• Politicians scramble to pledge more aid to prove their loyalty.
• Influencers get invited to Israel to film their brunch.
• And actual Palestinians disappear under the rubble, ignored.

The Battlefield Has Changed

This isn’t a war of bullets. It’s a war of narratives.

And in that war, truth is just another casualty.

Section VI: “Real People, Real Consequences” — What the Online Culture War Masks

While influencers posture and Congress plays political ping-pong with foreign aid bills, real people are bleeding out in rubble. The airstrikes aren’t metaphorical. The checkpoints aren’t TikTok metaphors. The bodies don’t trend.

This is what the endless outrage cycle deliberately hides: a brutal, decades-long conflict where lives are reduced to pawns in a political game — and those pawns are mostly invisible to the people who claim to be fighting for them.

A War Measured in Human Beings, Not Likes

For the average Palestinian family in Rafah or Jenin, none of the hashtags matter. Their daily reality is scarcity — of food, water, electricity, safety. Their children don’t know peace. They know drones. They know the whine of tear gas canisters and the sudden silence that comes before a missile hits.

Occupation is not an abstraction. It’s curfews, arrests without charges, homes bulldozed at 3 a.m., and fathers who never come back.

And on the Israeli side, real civilians live with trauma too — from rockets, from terror attacks, from decades of being told that they’re a tiny island surrounded by hate. They are taught to fear and dehumanize the other. And many do, even if unconsciously.

But the people who actually profit from this are rarely the ones picking up body parts after a bombing.

Politicians Don’t Bury the Dead

When the air raid sirens blare, AIPAC doesn’t answer the phone. Hamas doesn’t dig through the rubble for survivors. U.S. Senators don’t show up to hand out insulin when Gaza’s hospitals are out of power for the sixth straight day.

The people who keep this conflict alive don’t live inside it. They exploit it.

And in America, the worst offenders are the political figures who use Israel as a wedge issue — as a way to activate evangelical voters, fundraise off Jewish identity, or own the libs on cable news.

Meanwhile, those on the ground die alone, unmourned by the architects of their suffering.

The Human Toll of Endless Dehumanization

Dehumanization is the oil that keeps this war machine running.

• Palestinians are labeled “human animals.”
• Israelis are smeared as colonizers who deserve every rocket.
• Jewish identity is flattened into right-wing ideology.
• Arab identity is collapsed into “terrorist sympathizer.”

And so, empathy is slowly stripped away — replaced with caricature and slogan. By the time an actual atrocity occurs, most of the internet is already back to arguing about tone.

This isn’t a debate. It’s an erasure of humanity.

Children as Collateral

As of mid-2024, the death toll in Gaza from the latest Israeli operations crossed 30,000. Over 13,000 were children. That number should end every conversation. It should shock every conscience. But instead, it’s rationalized, defended, ignored — or countered with “well, Hamas hides behind civilians.”

Even if true, what society can stomach the mass killing of children as “regrettable but necessary”?

What society should?

Israel’s defenders don’t like to talk about those numbers. Neither do most Democrats. Meanwhile, parts of the American right openly call for even more bombing, more walls, more surveillance — and the full annexation of Palestinian land.

No hearings. No accountability. Just more weapons, more contracts, more blood.

Meanwhile, Back in Congress…

As Gaza starves, both parties race to push through another round of military aid — some $14+ billion — with bipartisan enthusiasm. The billboards show smiling American flags beside F-35s. The reality on the ground is incinerated families.

But it’s not just Gaza. Aid to Israel helps sustain a regional power that actively undermines any long-term solution — from sabotaging Iran diplomacy to destabilizing Lebanon and cozying up to authoritarian regimes.

America isn’t funding peace. It’s underwriting apartheid.

And every time a U.S. lawmaker says, “Israel has a right to defend itself,” it’s code for “We won’t be stopping this anytime soon.”

Section VII: “The War on Empathy” — And Why It’s Working

Empathy was one of the first casualties of the modern Israel-Palestine discourse. Not because people stopped caring, but because the machinery of outrage trained them not to.

When you can’t mourn one side’s dead without being accused of justifying the other’s, the natural instinct to care gets buried under a pile of disclaimers, deflections, and digital screaming matches. The ability to grieve — without qualifying, politicizing, or apologizing — has been systematically destroyed. And that destruction wasn’t an accident.

It was a feature.

Outrage Is More Profitable Than Empathy

The modern attention economy is engineered for emotional velocity — not reflection. A tweet mourning dead children can go viral, but only if it’s politically useful. A video of a crying father can briefly trend, then vanish in a sea of ragebait and meme warfare.

Caring too much gets you labeled a sympathizer, a traitor, a stooge.

And the platform algorithms encourage this, because viral hate is stickier than viral hope. TikTok, X, Instagram — none of them incentivize nuance. They reward performance. The loudest voice wins, not the most informed. And in that race to the rhetorical bottom, empathy simply can’t compete.

Both Sides Weaponize Victimhood

Israel has mastered the language of existential threat — a holdover from its legitimate trauma in the 20th century. Hamas exploits imagery of Palestinian suffering to rally support, often using civilian deaths to shame international actors into reacting. And in the U.S., Democrats walk a tightrope of vague statements, while Republicans wrap Israeli militarism in the language of God and Manifest Destiny.

Everyone wants to own the moral high ground. No one wants to share it.

That leaves everyday people with no emotional oxygen. If you say “children are dying,” someone shouts back “what about hostages?” or “what about Hamas rockets?” If you say “this level of bombing is unjustifiable,” someone accuses you of enabling antisemitism. If you post “Free Palestine,” you’re a terrorist sympathizer. If you post “I stand with Israel,” you’re a genocide apologist.

There’s no room left for human grief. Only tribal affiliation.

Digital Echo Chambers Kill Sympathy

Online, you’re rarely speaking to the other side. You’re speaking about them to your own camp. It’s not conversation — it’s performance. And in that environment, dehumanization becomes easy. Necessary, even.

People become avatars for ideology. And those avatars become enemies.

This isn’t unique to the Israel-Palestine conflict — we’ve seen it with Ukraine, with COVID, with U.S. elections. But the stakes here are uniquely visceral. Children are dying in real time while Twitter debates the optics. And because everyone’s locked into their chosen identity silo, the deaths just become another talking point.

Empathy short-circuits the algorithm. So the algorithm deletes it.

The Language of Human Rights Is Hollow Now

“Human rights” used to be a universal concept — the bare minimum standard of morality in global discourse. Now it’s become a partisan insult. Say “war crimes” and someone will accuse you of bias. Say “apartheid” and you’ll be branded either a hero or a heretic, depending on the timeline.

We’ve lost the ability to speak plainly about suffering.

This erosion isn’t accidental. It’s the result of decades of narrative management — from Hasbara media blitzes to progressive circles silencing critics of Palestinian governance. Every voice has its blind spot. Every activist has a price. Every major news outlet is beholden to advertisers, donors, or political gatekeepers.

And so, slowly, the space for human empathy shrinks to nothing.

When Empathy Dies, Policy Follows

This is the real danger: once empathy disappears, accountability follows.

When you can no longer feel outrage at 13,000 dead children — or when you feel it, but it’s quickly shouted down by “but Hamas!” — policy becomes easy. You can send more bombs. You can cut off aid. You can ignore the blockade. You can veto ceasefire resolutions.

And when you feel nothing, you vote for nothing. Or worse — you vote for more of the same.

Section VIII: The Only Way Forward Is Through the Lies We’ve Built

The way out isn’t peace talks. Not yet. The way out isn’t a two-state solution, or a ceasefire resolution, or another round of U.S. diplomats flying into Tel Aviv to “listen” and “condemn” and “urge restraint.”

The only way forward is to admit what we’ve done.

We — the United States, the West, the NGOs, the voters, the tech platforms, the donors, the influencers, the churches, the newsrooms, and yes, the activists — have spent decades building a scaffolding of narrative bullshit around this conflict. We’ve sanitized the crimes, dressed up the aggression in policy language, and substituted feelings for facts. We’ve turned a live military occupation into a moral Rorschach test for people on the internet. And every single party to this nightmare — from the Israeli far-right to Hamas to progressive NGOs — has used that scaffolding to climb higher.

There is no forward path until that whole structure comes down.

The Occupation Is Real. And It’s Not Just Physical.

The Israeli military occupation of the West Bank is not some abstract talking point. It’s not a metaphor. It’s checkpoints, home demolitions, settler violence, IDF raids, children detained without charge, and entire villages without electricity. It is a grinding, daily machinery of control. Gaza is even worse — a 17-year blockade, bombed infrastructure, no freedom of movement, and a population density that turns every airstrike into a war crime by default.

And yet, in the U.S., you can barely say “occupation” without being accused of antisemitism. You can’t say “apartheid” without some op-ed in The Atlantic calling you divisive. This rhetorical denial is itself a form of violence. It gaslights the lived reality of millions.

Israel has a right to exist. It does not have the right to endlessly colonize. There is no peace without dismantling that lie.

Hamas Is Not Freedom. And Palestinians Deserve Better.

The lie on the other side is just as grotesque: that Hamas is the Palestinian people — that its brutality is a justified response to occupation, that the only way to fight colonialism is to slaughter families in their homes.

No.

Hamas is a corrupt, authoritarian, fanatical death cult propped up by Iran and Qatar and fueled by its own war economy. It recruits child soldiers. It hides weapons in hospitals. It has executed political opponents and tortured critics. It brings catastrophe to its own people while enriching its senior leadership.

And yet American activists — desperate to support the oppressed — often blur the line between resisting occupation and endorsing armed extremism. That’s not solidarity. That’s abandonment.

Palestinians deserve more than hashtags and martyrdom. They deserve freedom from both occupation and their self-appointed saviors.

The U.S. Is Not an Honest Broker — It Never Was

Washington is not a neutral party. It never has been. Our government sends Israel billions in military aid, rushes to veto UN resolutions, and shields Israeli leaders from war crimes investigations — all while mouthing empty platitudes about “de-escalation.”

It is because of American complicity that the current genocide-level destruction is even possible.

Democrats wring their hands and send bombs. Republicans cheer it on and send checks. And through it all, the military-industrial complex gets paid, AIPAC writes the rules, and the Palestinian death toll climbs higher.

There is no path forward without reckoning with this hypocrisy.

The U.S. cannot broker peace until it stops funding war.

What “The Center” Refuses to Say Aloud

The supposed moderates — the New York Times readers, the NPR donors, the MSNBC voters — love to play both sides. They’ll condemn Hamas while politely questioning the “proportionality” of Israeli strikes. They’ll call for “restraint,” “dialogue,” and “respect for all life.” They’ll say the images are “tragic” and the situation “complex.”

What they won’t say is this: the current Israeli government is executing a long-standing plan of ethnic cleansing. The far-right in Israel has openly called for the mass displacement of Palestinians. Cabinet officials have used genocidal language on live TV. Settler violence has spiked dramatically, and the military is letting it happen.

It is not “complicated.” It is coordinated.

And silence — especially from the center — is not neutrality. It is participation.

The Road to Peace Starts With Brutal Honesty

There is no quick fix. No peace conference. No influencer-led movement that will undo decades of apartheid, rocket fire, trauma, propaganda, and mutual radicalization.

But the beginning of peace is this: brutal, relentless honesty.

Honesty about the occupation. Honesty about Hamas. Honesty about U.S. funding. Honesty about dead children, demolished homes, political cowardice, and the machinery of dehumanization that thrives on both sides of the aisle. Honesty about the fact that “Jewish safety” and “Palestinian liberation” have been falsely framed as mutually exclusive — when in reality, neither can exist without the other.

The future will be built by those who reject every lie — not just the ones that make them uncomfortable.

That future starts when we burn the scaffolding down.