War through our eyes and theirs

Staggering death and destruction have overturned millions of Israeli and Palestinian lives in the flesh, touching nearly every family. To make matters even worse, trauma-by-media is extending the fear and dehumanization of the war to millions more, and most of us are binging on only part of the story. We’re seeing two entirely different wars.  

When our Israeli friends turn on the TV or social media, fallen soldiers lead the news. Poignant obituaries describe loved ones and dreams left behind. Red alerts of incoming rockets interrupt programs. Attacks in the north warn ominously of escalation.  

October 7th footage continues to play on an endless loop. New, even more horrific details continue to emerge. Survivors and hostage families tell their stories while standing in the rubble of their burned-down homes. 

Talking heads ask: How could the worst scenes in Jewish history replay here? For a week, suspense-filled hostage handovers were a nightly TV drama in Israel. Viewers watched in tears as families reunited. Mothers and children ran into each other’s arms, crying and hugging, as kids stepped off the bus from weeks in captivity.  Israeli reports from Gaza share the soldier’s perspective. 

Reports emphasize Hamas’ vast tunnels and arms, that it hides in hospitals and steals aid. A reporter will describe careful, methodical military progress in general terms and share scenes of a soldier treating an injured child or helping an elderly woman. All of these things are true.  And yet, our Palestinian friends see a different war entirely. 

The devastation in Gaza bleeds from their screens. Mothers and fathers carry tiny bodies out of the rubble in small white shrouds with red stains. A six year-old kneels down to kiss his dead sister goodbye. Posts memorialize a young woman who was about to start her career with so much promise. Palestinians watch tragedy strike a familiar face as Al-Jazeera’s Gaza bureau chief learns on TV that his wife, daughter, son, and grandchild have been killed in an airstrike. Cameras follow him to the hospital, where he weeps over their bodies. Within weeks, two more strikes kill his cameraman and then yet another son. 

For Palestinians, the scenes of displacement are also their worst family histories brought back to life. Teeming lines of refugees pass tanks and soldiers, marching to the unknown. People line up for hours for a jug of clean water. Hungry, displaced children dart in and out of makeshift plastic tents as muddy winter rains wash through.  Just as Israelis keep one eye on the north, Palestinians stay tuned to a violent and combustible West Bank. They watch long army caravans snake through Palestinian neighborhoods. They see videos of settler vigilantes chasing families from their homes and soldiers kicking or humiliating detainees.  All of these things are true, as well. Each side sees very little of the other’s suffering. They often don’t see the most troubling images from Gaza and October 7th, respectively. 

Much of the media on each side tracks the injured, killed, and attacks -- but almost exclusively on their side alone. Some even question whether the little news that makes it across the line is true or fake.  Of course, some voices -- the most extreme ones -- do break through. Palestinians hear Israeli far-right ministers call for a new Nakba. Israelis hear Hamas promise to repeat October 7th again and again. From the other side, every Israeli is Ben-Gvir and every Palestinian is Hamas. “They,” it seems, are all a threat. Our bubbles -- in real life and in the media -- dramatically affect how we see the war, ourselves, and each other. 

Without seeing the full October 7th picture, Palestinians were stunned by how much global support Israel received at the start. And without fully seeing the human devastation in Gaza, Israelis can’t understand how so many now criticize the impact of the Israeli response.  Both sides expect the other to recognize its substantial pain and trauma. Many have asked: Does the other side condemn what was done in their names? Our bubbles conspire against us as they push us even farther apart. 

The suffering we don’t see is empathy we can’t feel.  While it’s understandable how we got here, it’s critical that we self-reflect. Knowledge is power. What we don’t see can definitely hurt us. Half-realities and dehumanization fog our decision making -- in battle and beyond. 

They pull us into dangerous blind spots, where we can lose sight of our values, our intentions, and ourselves. They can shrink the space for diplomacy. They can rob our leaders of both the permission and the pressure to find an exit toward a more secure and stable future. Regardless of whether you consider the millions of people on the “other side” to be adversaries or potential partners, it’s important to know what they see. It affects what they think and how they act. How can we hope to navigate such a complex situation -- from war to what follows -- without the full picture?  We can and must correct this. Neither politicians nor the media will save us from this information swamp. But as individuals we can do our part. With the swipe of a finger, we can choose to see “them” and they can choose to see “us.” It's not easy to watch. 

But the power, and responsibility, is literally in our hands. So is the chance to shape the conversation itself. Every click, like, and repost either builds the walls higher or helps to chip them away. The other side has equally moving, tragic, heroic, and inspiring stories if only we see them. There are voices of reason, nuance, and moderation if only we amplify them. There are partners if only we seek them. Fateful decisions lie in the days ahead. Getting them right will take herculean efforts to rise above so much of human nature and also the forces that have deepened this conflict at every turn. It's not too late to climb out of the echo chambers, struggle to open our eyes and our hearts even a little, and search for the paths and partners we’ll need to avoid landing in this awful place again.

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Avi Meyerstein is the founder and president of the Alliance for Middle East Peace (ALLMEP), a coalition of 160+ Israeli-Palestinian peacebuilding organizations. Avraham Spraragen is an ALLMEP research assistant.