Earlier this week, I opened an application on my phone and immediately saw it: The torso of a beheaded child. It took a moment to digest the image and realize what it was. My stomach plunged as it became clear. The video showed a man holding a small, dirtied torso up in the air, its ribs too prominent. Its head was missing. The man shook the child’s body towards the camera in what seemed to be a display of victory.
There is no denying a video like that. No forgetting. No words I could use here to capture its horror. Yet arguments are still being made to justify what it contains.
To be clear, the ongoing murder of Gazans, alongside rampant mistreatment and deprivation of aid, has been visible on the internet for months. So in one sense this video is nothing new. It confirms the ongoing brutalization of Palestinian people. It verifies—again—that we are witnessing a genocide at the hands of Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli Defense Force.
But to see children beheaded and shaken like trophies in a zone where they were corralled and promised safety lays bare the gruesomeness of this moment once more. It re-emphasizes these atrocities and our seeming inability to stop them. For many Americans, to know that our leadership, our tax dollars, and our bombs are aiding and abetting this terror is unforgivable. Joe Biden warned Israel against crossing a “red line,” and to learn this week that Rafah is not that line horrifies and shocks us anew.
In moments like this, our shock is sacred.
We must protect the part of our humanity that is shocked, the part that is disgusted, the part that mourns the death of that child who was taking refuge in a tent. Public narratives are shaped by those in power, by those who profit from weaponry and violence. War profiteers benefit when we become desensitized to death. So when the horror of this story is flattened and reduced in mainstream consciousness—and it will be—we must be willing to say what we see.
Saying what we see has become unnecessarily complicated. The majority of Americans support a permanent ceasefire in Gaza, but quietly. Since October, many have hesitated to speak their conviction against the ongoing killing of Gazans aloud. Eight months of hesitation and the resulting silence raises a question.
When something is so clearly wrong, why are we not able to talk about it?
For the past eight months, the reasons have multiplied: The situation feels too charged. People are hurt and scared on both sides. Many fear being called anti-Semitic. No one wants to be canceled or lose their jobs. Others avoid discussing a decades-old conflict they barely understand. Some do not want their compassion, their very humanity to be scorned and cast aside by the culture wars of us-versus-them.
Yet risking that compassion—and the action it inspires—is our only hope.
When we do not want others to suffer, we must be able to say so. Surely there is a way to agree that killing is unacceptable and that no one should be deprived of food and water. Speaking up about charged topics takes courage and clarity. Counterintuitively to this particular moment, it might also require listening.
To have a conversation that centers and moves toward moral grounding, multiple voices must be involved, which makes it hard. It helps to understand what the potential of such an exchange might be, which we can do by looking at the origin of the word itself. “Conversation” is rooted in the Latin “conversatio,” which combines the word “con,” or “together,” with the verb “versare,” or “to turn.”
Put another way, the word “conversation” comes from a Latin word that means “to turn together.”
Turning together towards what is right and good in the world is what many of us want, yet it feels impossible. We need a way to talk about the truth of what we see that can help us move towards one another rather than farther apart. The most difficult thing of all is that moving towards one another requires the willingness to hear.
When we say Gazans must not be murdered and the response is But the hostages!, The abuse of Israeli women!, the response is not to scream louder. Maybe the response is Yes, I hear you, and. We need space for multiple things to be true at once. Jewish people should not be terrorized, and Gazans should not be murdered. The safety of Jewish communities is important, and Gazan life must be held just as sacred.
Yes, I hear you, and.
Death-dealing, war-profiteering empires are hard enough to overcome without turning against each other at the personal level. In an era of screaming, canceling, and finding fault, it might feel easier to stay silent about the genocide of Palestinians. To accept the politicized narratives that tell us war and killing are necessary sometimes. To ignore the part of ourselves that might cry, scream, and rage over the needless loss of thousands upon thousands of Gazan babies, their mothers, their fathers.
Though slipping into uncomfortable silence is tempting in this era of little grace and no room for error, it only makes things worse. The way forward is to be clear about what is wrong and brave enough to say so—even in simple terms. By holding on to our compassion and finding ways to name what we actually see, we can resist the false narratives of those in power and destabilize those poised to profit from war.
To turn towards life, and away from killing together, we have to be open to hearing the pain and suffering of others, both historic and present, and simultaneously say no more death in Gaza. We can do both and we must. As we recognize shared moral ground—no killing, no starvation, no false promises of safety—maybe we can move towards one another in this moment of pain rather than apart. Only in that place can we strengthen our cries against death and destruction.
Thank you so much for hanging with me this spring during an academia and stress-induced silence! More updates soon, as well as some bonus offerings for the summer months to make up for lost time. I am delighted to be back in this space with you!
Most importantly, here is an incomplete list of ways to support Gazan life today: Listen to Palestinian voices. Call or email your senators to say no more killing with my tax dollars. Join protests and marches. And give to Pal Humanity, two amazing female doctors in Gaza treating people on the ground, and Operation Olive Branch, a grassroots-organizing effort providing funds directly to Palestinian families. Additional ideas are welcomed in the comments. That’s all until next time. As always, take care out there. <3LM
WE’RE ALL FRIENDS HERE is written by Lauren Maxwell. Can you help us grow? Send this to a friend and ask them to subscribe. Share it on Instagram and tag @lauren_only. If you enjoy this space, please consider becoming a paid subscriber to support more essays like this one. Thank you so much for being here!