Is empathy for all sides a radical act?

“A child is a child is a child: Compassion knows no borders – Israelis mourn all sides.”

This statement may not sound controversial to most readers of The Jewish Independent, but it evoked a huge uproar after it appeared as an advertisement on a public Egged bus in Jerusalem last week.

While it’s not clear who was behind the sign, the advertisement reflects a growing sentiment from a minority of Jewish Israelis who are horrified about the hunger and deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza.

Last Tuesday, thousands of protesters marched to the Kirya military headquarters in Tel Aviv, carrying bags of flour and photos of Gazan children who reportedly died from hunger over the course of war.

“We are holding photos of Gazan Palestinian children who died of starvation, who simply starved to death,” protest organiser Alon-Lee Green said during the march. “They died as Israel blocks aid to Gaza, we are here demanding to stop the starvation.”

While this view may be widely held by many in the West – including Australia who signed a statement together with 27 countries condemning Israel for the "drip feeding of aid" and "inhumane killing of civilians" in Gaza – it’s still a radical view in Israel.

The signatories, which included Germany, France and the UK, also acknowledged Israeli suffering saying, “The hostages cruelly held captive by Hamas since 7 October 2023 continue to suffer terribly. We condemn their continued detention and call for their immediate and unconditional release. A negotiated ceasefire offers the best hope of bringing them home and ending the agony of their families.”

While balanced, the statement was condemned by Israel’s foreign minister, reasoning that most Jewish Israelis don’t want such two-sided empathy – not from Western governments, and not on Egged buses.

Shai Glick, CEO of the far-right organisation B’Tsalmo, demanded the immediate removal of what he called a "provocative campaign" from the Egged company. “How is a soldier who lost his friends supposed to feel when faced with a sign that portrays his enemies as innocent children?” asked Glick.

Glick sent a strongly worded letter to the management of Egged, demanding the immediate removal of “an inciting and offensive campaign against IDF soldiers and the Israeli public”.

“At a time when the State of Israel is still recovering from the events of October 7 — a day that will be remembered as a modern Holocaust — signs of this nature cross every moral line. Comparing terrorists who use children as human shields to IDF soldiers who act with unparalleled morality is a serious moral distortion.”

Making a bizarre equation between the architects of the Holocaust and starving children in Gaza, Glick questioned: “Would anyone dare to hang a sign in Israel that says ‘A Nazi child is a child’? How is a soldier supposed to feel boarding such a bus? How would a bereaved mother whose family member fell in Gaza feel when confronted with an ad that portrays our enemies as innocent, blurring the basic distinction between good and evil?”

As a result of pressure from B’tsalmo, Egged did indeed remove the sign two days after it was approved and ran on the Jerusalem bus.

On the other side of the border, after decades of Hamas dehumanisation of Jews and Israelis, this month Rami Aman from the Gaza Youth Committee launched a campaign called “We Live Together, We Die Together”, signalling a bold departure from entrenched narratives of division. Their campaign, featuring young people from Gaza holding photos of several Israeli children killed by Hamas on October 7, drew much attention across the media.

While there are many more pressing stories that will dominate the media, this Egged bus controversy touches on something much deeper happening in Israeli society between those who can open their eyes to Gaza and those for whom such images are too hard to see.

In times of war, the most radical act is often the simplest: to insist on the humanity of every child. To say, without hesitation or qualification as do the Gaza Youth Committee and the people behind this Egged ad, that a child is a child — whether in Kibbutz Be'eri or in Khan Younis — is not a betrayal of one’s people, but a commitment to a deeper form of solidarity that does not stop at borders.

Those who had the ad removed may believe they are protecting Israeli morale, but what they are really shielding us from is our conscience.

When we allow ourselves to look away from the suffering of Palestinian children, we don’t just dehumanise them — we dehumanise ourselves. The road to peace does not begin with slogans or ceasefires; it begins with the courage to care.

If we, Israelis and Palestinians, are ever to end this war, we must first end the war on empathy.