There’s a kind of clarity that comes from telling half the story. It lets you feel morally grounded, righteously indignant, even heroic. And perhaps more importantly, it keeps you from feeling conflicted—something our contemporary political and emotional economies have little patience for. This is especially true in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, where omission has become not just a rhetorical strategy, but a kind of civic ritual. The facts you choose not to mention say more about your position than the ones you do.
Pro-Palestinian voices often fail to mention the October 7 attack, in which Israeli civilians were murdered with stunning brutality. Nor do they dwell on the disturbing fact that in Gaza and the West Bank, many cheered, very publicly. These are not easy facts to metabolize, especially when your central narrative rests on an image of a dispossessed and entirely innocent people. But skipping over these truths doesn’t make them disappear; it just hollows out the moral weight of your cause.
Conversely, pro-Israel commentators frequently omit the toll their government’s response has taken on Palestinian civilians. Not in vague terms—though vagueness is often the point—but in real numbers: the sheer, heartbreaking body count, the decimation of neighborhoods, hospitals, schools, sewage systems, the slow collapse of everything that sustains life. Even when these are acknowledged, they’re relegated to asterisks, footnotes, collateral. The war, we are told, is regrettable but necessary.
Omission allows people to remain ideologically pure while reality continues to rot beneath them. It lets you say “Hamas is evil” (true) and stop there, as if that moral judgment neatly resolves the suffering of a child buried under rubble. Or to say “Israel is an apartheid state” (contested, but plausible in some dimensions) and stop there, as if that erases the lived terror of kibbutz families huddling in safe rooms while militants sweep through their homes.
What gets omitted isn’t accidental. It’s curated for maximum moral effect, and minimum introspection. If you don’t acknowledge the suffering your “side” causes, you don’t have to grapple with the possibility that your worldview is incomplete. The other side’s guilt becomes a blank check for your own righteousness. It’s a seductive bargain. But it's intellectually dishonest, and, worse, strategically useless.
This isn’t some dispassionate plea for “both sides.” The asymmetries in power, governance, and suffering are real. Hamas remains a terrorist group, one that thrives on chaos and martyrdom. Israel is a flawed but functional democracy, albeit one increasingly veering into ethnonationalist authoritarianism. But acknowledging that complexity is not an act of betrayal; it’s a prerequisite for any meaningful engagement.
Instead, the omission game spawns performative pseudo-solutions. “Just release the hostages,” people shout, as if a desperate Palestinian father, huddled in a bombed-out school, has any leverage over militants holed up in tunnels. “End the occupation,” others respond, forgetting that Israel did, in fact, leave Gaza in 2005—only to find itself on the receiving end of rockets not long after. These statements feel good, sound morally resolute, and accomplish precisely nothing.
What’s more disturbing is that these rituals of evasion are not confined to the people on the ground, struggling with immediate fear and loss. They’re parroted by academics, pundits, diplomats, and celebrities in safer, more comfortable parts of the world. People with access to libraries, data, and historical memory choose to participate in a game of selective blindness. And while the people dying don’t have time to debate nuance, the people speaking on their behalf have no excuse not to.
In the end, the politics of omission is not just a moral failure—it’s a strategic dead end. It makes real peace impossible, and fake peace easy to manufacture. It feeds delusions, like the fantasy of Trump’s golden statues and resort plans, dreams brewed in the fever swamp of nihilistic theater. The conflict is already hellish. To dress it up in myths and slogans is not just irresponsible—it’s barbaric in its own way.
Telling the whole truth won’t end the war. But refusing to tell it ensures that the war will never truly end.
