Reports surfaced today that President Trump warned Israel that the US will abandon Israel if the war continues. The UK, France and Canada warned Israel to resume humanitarian aid and assistance to humanitarian organizations, or suffer the consequences. Multiple reports of a blitz to recognize Palestine as a state.
There’s a moment, every Israeli communicator knows it, when the words just stop working.
Over the last few days, I’ve stood in front of several different audiences, all asking me one urgent question: What’s wrong with Israel’s public diplomacy efforts?
It’s a question that haunts our national psyche, every war I’ve lived through this question has been asked, especially in times like these. The answers came fast and sharp: The media is antisemetic. We don’t have enough skilled spokespeople. Our social media game is outdated. The pro-Palestinian camp is loud, aggressive, coordinated. We’re missing a national institutional communication mechanism, a conductor for the cacophony.
All true. All familiar. All tactical.
But I wasn’t there to talk tactics. I wanted to dig deeper. So I asked them something else. Something raw.
“How many of you believe humanitarian supplies should be provided to Gaza?”
In both rooms, about half the hands went up. Which means the other half stayed down.This wasn’t a poll in a war room or among hardliners. These were smart, engaged, deeply Israeli audiences. People who care. But for half of them, even in this moment of international scrutiny, the idea of sending food or medicine to the people of Gaza didn’t sit right.
Peter Lerner
I didn’t judge. I understood. October 7 changed us. We saw Gazans celebrating the massacre. We waited in vain for stories of heroism from the other side, just one family, one person, a rightous among nations, who tried to save a hostage. Instead, we got silence. Or worse.
So our hearts hardened.
In Hebrew, we have a saying: עניי עירך קודמים — “The poor of your own city come first.” And in times of war, that feels like an iron law.
But lately, I’ve been asking myself: What happens when that law becomes an excuse? What happens when it blinds us?
Let’s be brutally honest. The humanitarian crisis in Gaza is real. The suffering is deep and widespread. It’s in the UN reports, in the satellite images, in the eyes of aid workers, journalists, and yes, even reports from the defense establishment.
You can debate the scale, the blame, the distortions, the weaponisation of suffering, how Hamas has comandeered humanitarian supplies to prolong its war capabilities, but you cannot debate the human pain.
And the world is watching not just what we do, but how we do it.
Here’s the danger: When we stop seeing civilians as human beings, when our compassion gets drowned by our rage, we don’t just lose the moral high ground.
We lose something even more precious. We lose our ability to see ourselves.
I’ve spent a career defending Israel’s right to exist, to defend itself, to speak its truth. And I’ll continue doing that with every breath. But I also know this: Our story, the story of a people rising from trauma, building a democracy, thriving against odds, loses its power the moment we stop looking into the eyes of the other side.
No, I don’t mean looking away from Hamas. I mean beyond Hamas. Beyond the guns and tunnels and hate.
Because if we truly believe we are different, if we believe in the Jewish values of dignity, mercy, and justice, then we have to live them, even when it hurts.
Especially when it hurts.
This isn’t about appeasing international critics. It’s about protecting our soul. The public diplomacy crisis isn’t just about hashtags and headlines. It’s about the deeper story we’re telling, or failing to tell.
The story of a people who, even in the face of unspeakable evil, never stop being human. If we can’t show the world that we care about Palestinian suffering, not because we’re weak, not because we’re surrendering, but because we are who we say we are, then we shouldn’t be surprised when the world stops listening.
Cautionary tales don’t start with dramatic failures. They start with subtle shifts. A shrug here. A hand that doesn’t raise. A heart that closes.
And before you know it, the world sees us not as defenders of life, but as something else entirely.
We can’t afford that. Not strategically. Not morally. Not as Israelis. Not as Jews.
So yes, defend our people. Protect our citizens. Hunt down the killers. But don’t lose your eyes. Don’t lose your heart. Don’t lose your story.
Because that, in the end, is what the world will remember. And what we’ll have to live with.
- Lieutenant Colonel (R.) Peter Lerner is the Director General of International Relations of the Histadrut, he served for 25 years in the IDF as a spokesperson and a liaison officer to international organizations in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. X: @LTCPeterLerner
