When Two Truths Hurt at the Same Time

By David Gertner, Ph.D.

In recent months, the world has watched with growing concern the images emerging from Gaza. Starving children, emaciated bodies, and desperate mothers have filled international headlines, sparking outrage, protests, and calls for sanctions. The narrative is clear: Israel is to blame for the unfolding humanitarian tragedy. And yet, an essential part of the story is missing.

On October 7, 2023, the world also witnessed—with equal brutality—images of Israeli civilians slaughtered in their homes, burned, beheaded, raped, and kidnapped. Entire families were destroyed in a coordinated terrorist attack by Hamas, a group that continues to hold civilian hostages—including elderly people and children—in inhumane captivity, now for more than 660 days. Almost no one talks about them anymore.

The claim that people in Gaza are dying of hunger is grave and must be taken seriously. No military justification—however legitimate—can allow hunger to be used as a weapon of war. Blocking access to food and medical aid or hindering humanitarian deliveries violates the most basic principles of international law and human decency.

But the narrative dominating the headlines today—that of a monstrous Israel deliberately starving innocent people—becomes dangerous when it ignores the other side of the truth. When it silences the massacre that ignited this war. When it omits the cynical and criminal use of Palestinian civilians as human shields by Hamas. When it fails to mention the UN warehouses in Gaza filled with food and medicine that remain undistributed. When it doesn't explain why hundreds of aid trucks allowed in by Israel were looted or blocked by armed factions inside Gaza.

There are, therefore, two narratives in conflict. And perhaps both carry truth. Gaza is living through an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe. And Israel is fighting for its survival against an enemy that defies all norms of war and human dignity. Recognizing one form of suffering does not require denying the other.

Being Jewish and humanist, as I am, means holding this difficult tension: refusing to close our eyes to the suffering of others without relinquishing moral clarity and historical awareness. To those who ask us to express solidarity only with Palestinian victims, I ask: where was that empathy when Israeli civilians were slaughtered in October? And to those who urge us to deny the hunger in Gaza because it is the enemy's doing, I say: denying the other’s pain only perpetuates the cycle of dehumanization that brought us here.

We urgently need to move beyond the binary logic that splits the world into pure victims and absolute villains. Reality is far more complex. There are innocents in Gaza and innocents in Israel. Crimes have been committed on both sides and must be investigated. And there is an entire people—the Jewish people—who, despite not being the State of Israel, are too often held collectively responsible for its actions.

That generalization is unfair, dangerous, and—especially in dark times like these—profoundly antisemitic. What can we do in the face of it all? Seek accurate information. Resist the comfort of easy answers. Support neutral and transparent humanitarian efforts that alleviate civilian suffering—whether in Gaza or among Israeli hostages. And above all, uphold the ethics of listening: hearing the cry of every victim, even when the silence around us pushes us to choose sides. Because peace—if it is still possible—will not come from one narrative triumphing over the other, but from acknowledging that there is far too much pain on both sides. And that no cause, no ideology, no government has the right to turn that pain into a weapon.

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David Gertner, Ph.D., is a retired professor and author in the fields of international marketing, consumer behavior, and human rights. Born in Brazil to Eastern European Jewish parents, he lived for over three decades in the United States, where he taught at universities and published dozens of academic articles. He is the author of the forthcoming books “AI and Me: The Unlikely Companionship of Liora and David” and “The Shadow of Depression – Breaking the Silence, Finding the Light.” His current project, “Letters to Silence and to Time,” is a collection of philosophical essays on ethics, identity, and the human experience.