The US is turning a blind eye to death and devastation — it isn’t the first time

Palestinians hold out pans to receive food from a charity distribution point in Gaza City. Photo by Getty Images

In 1942, as European Jews were being herded into cattle cars that transported them to their death at Auschwitz, the U.S. State Department quietly buried a memo describing the mass extermination of Jews. As the death trains rolled on, the U.S. government stayed silent. It took nearly two years before President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered creation of an agency to try to rescue European Jews. But by then, millions had already been slaughtered.

We are now hearing echoes of that silence — this time in Gaza. As Israeli forces continue their brutal campaign, with tens of thousands of Palestinians dead, the populace living in squalor after being forced from their homes, and with starvation spreading, the U.S. political establishment has largely looked away, unwilling to confront Benjamin Netanyahu for what some are calling genocide.

This is a historically unique and morally fraught juxtaposition: While the U.S. government during the Holocaust doomed countless Jews with its callous, and often antisemitic, indifference to their plight, a similar American indifference is enabling Netanyahu and his right-wing coalition partners to continue their devastation of Gazan life.

A complex web of political, historical and psychological factors has been exploited by Netanyahu to justify the massacre of an estimated 59,000 Palestinians — and likely many more — in a war that began with claims of protecting Israel from terrorist attacks, but increasingly resembles an ethnic cleansing campaign to permanently depopulate the Gaza Strip.

And as the massacres continue, U.S. complicity deepens with weapons deliveries to Netanyahu and by letting the Israeli leader do whatever he wants.

Eight decades ago, a similar indifference to the plight of the persecuted pervaded in the halls of power in Washington, D.C., and across the U.S. – as European Jews were being sent to Nazi death camps, and as American officials resisted relaxing strict immigration quotas that were barring Jews from emigrating to the U.S.

American inaction as Jews were being slaughtered is one of the most shameful chapters in U.S. history, exposing antisemitism among everyday Americans and within the political class.

In the summer of 1942 Eduard Schulte, a German industrialist with access to secrets of the SS leadership, passed word to the Geneva-based representative of the World Jewish Congress, Gerhart Riegner, about “a plan to exterminate all Jews from Germany and German controlled areas in Europe.” But the warning was buried by U.S. State Department officials who were opposed to loosening emigration restrictions for the endangered Jews, an attitude at least partly fueled by antisemitism within State and other agencies of the U.S. government. An exception was the U.S. Treasury Department, which discovered that State officials had suppressed reports about the mass killing of Jews and actively obstructed rescue efforts and told FDR about it.

And now, eight decades later, America’s commitment to humanitarian principles is once again being tested. And the nation is not handling the challenge well.

America’s mainstream politicians were quick to condemn Hamas’ massacre of 1,200 people in the cross-border attacks on Oct. 7, 2023 and reaffirmed their commitment to back Israel in its never-ending struggle to fend off forces that want the Jewish state wiped off the map. But outrage over the way Netanyahu has conducted the war in Gaza has been either muted or cautious, to avoid appearing to sympathize with Palestinians over Israelis.

The murder of 6 million Jews during the Holocaust has been indelibly etched into the world’s collective conscience. This is just and it is good. But it’s also something Netanyahu is not averse to cynically using as a weapon to make American politicians think twice before criticizing his policies. This can be seen across the political spectrum.

Soon after the Oct. 7 Hamas atrocities on Israelis, President Joe Biden rushed to Tel Aviv, where Netanyahu was waiting at the airport. As Biden came out of Air Force One, he gave a warm embrace to the Israeli leader and patted him on the back, as if to comfort him. As Israel’s campaign in Gaza grew ever-more destructive, Biden acknowledged that “innocents have been killed”  but added “it’s the price of waging a war.” He continued arms shipments even as humanitarian conditions worsened. In his final days as president, Biden welcomed a ceasefire-hostage deal, saying “it is long past time for the fighting to end,” but stopped short of condemning Israel’s conduct.

Kamala Harris was more pointed than Biden in her criticism of Netanyahu’s Gaza war. In an August 2024 speech she called the suffering in Gaza “heartbreaking” and said “so many innocent lives lost.” She pledged to work toward a ceasefire and “dignity, security, freedom and self-determination” for Palestinians. A month earlier she said “I will not be silent” about the suffering in Gaza, but Harris did not call for suspending arms shipments or placing conditions on aid to Israel — a key demand from pro-Palestinian advocates.

As the civilian death toll in Gaza mounts, including more than 1,000 killed in the past three months while seeking food aid, American public support for how Netanyahu is conducting the war has been eroding. A CNN poll found that just 23% of Americans view Israel’s actions as fully justified, down 27 points from a poll taken shortly after Hamas’ October 7 attacks. Younger adults are especially critical, with 61% saying Israel has used too much military force and more than half saying the U.S. is providing Netanyahu too much military aid for his war in Gaza.  The polling reveals a growing disconnect between public sentiment and the stance of mainstream politicians, especially Republicans.

Bernie Sanders has galvanized a generational shift in public opinion, drawing standing ovations from tens of thousands of young supporters at rallies and condemning Israel’s Gaza campaign as an “all-out barbaric war of annihilation.” He’s called Netanyahu a war criminal, denounced the use of starvation as a weapon, and demanded an immediate end to U.S. complicity in what he terms a manmade humanitarian nightmare.

What America does about Gaza is ultimately shaped by the relationship between Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu. So far, the Israeli leader has shown a knack for getting what he wants from the American president by playing to his vanity. During Netanyahu’s July 2025 visit to Washington — his third in Trump’s second term — he handed Trump a letter nominating him for a Nobel Peace Prize. Trump looked like a child on Christmas morning. “Thank you very much. This I didn’t know. Wow,” Trump told Netanyahu. “Coming from you, in particular, this is very meaningful. Thank you very much, Bibi.”

Netanyahu has figured Trump out — and even when the president leans toward de-escalation, his desire for praise often leaves policy in Netanyahu’s hands.

So what, exactly, is Trump’s policy toward Gaza? It may boil down to Trump’s self-image as a savvy judge of hot possibilities for real estate. Trump has proposed turning Gaza into the “Riviera of the Middle East,” clearing 50 million tons of rubble, and populating it with “the world’s people” — while relocating Palestinians to unspecified “beautiful areas.” Of course this smacks of ethnic cleansing, even if the language is dressed up to sound otherwise.

In the end, what America does may depend less on strategic interests than on whether Netanyahu can keep flattering an autocratic narcissist who sees diplomacy as a business deal and tragedy as a developer’s teardown.