Stephanie Joyce
There is a point in any prolonged conflict when the extraordinary starts becoming ordinary.
Another destroyed home.
Another child killed.
Another hospital reduced to rubble.
Another place of worship damaged.
Another headline we scroll past because we’ve become accustomed to seeing it.
That normalization may be one of the most dangerous things happening right now.
Recently, the president of Ireland put that idea directly in front of the president of the United States.
When a country says no
During Donald Trump’s visit to Dublin, Irish President Catherine Connolly told him that she had conveyed the “strong view of the Irish people” that the “normalisation of war and genocide can never be accepted.” She also emphasized Ireland’s commitment to the United Nations, peacekeeping and peaceful resolution, saying that the Irish people would support those working to build peace in places suffering horrific war and violence.
Whatever someone’s politics, there is something important in that principle:
We should not become desensitized to human suffering simply because it happens repeatedly.
And that is bigger than Ireland, Israel, Palestine or any single government.
It is a question of what happens to us when violence becomes background noise.
Because normalization doesn’t happen all at once.
It happens one headline at a time.
Judaism is not Zionism
And documented reality also requires us to recognize something that often gets lost in this conversation:
Judaism and Zionism are not interchangeable.
There are Jewish communities and organizations that explicitly oppose Zionism for political, ethical or theological reasons. Jewish Voice for Peace notes that Jewish opposition to Zionism has existed throughout the history of the movement and includes ultra-Orthodox Jews who oppose Jewish political sovereignty before the messianic era.
That matters because criticizing a government is not the same thing as condemning an entire people or faith.
It also means we can hold two truths simultaneously:
October 7 was horrific.
And Palestinian civilians do not lose their humanity because Hamas committed atrocities.
Condemning Hamas does not require accepting every action taken by the Israeli government afterward.
And criticizing Israeli government policy does not mean hatred of Jewish people.
Those distinctions aren’t semantic.
They are essential if we want to have an honest conversation without turning an entire population into a political abstraction.
What we know about October 7
October 7 also raises legitimate questions about intelligence and accountability.
Israel received warnings about Hamas.
Yes. Documented.
Israel experienced an extraordinary intelligence and security failure and a delayed or inadequate response.
Yes. Documented.
The Israeli government deliberately ordered its forces to stand down so Hamas could carry out October 7.
I have not found credible evidence establishing this.
Israeli military investigations have themselves documented significant failures. A 2025 IDF expert review identified failures in intelligence assessment, preparedness, organizational culture, understanding Hamas’s plans and decision-making on the night of October 7. The review also concluded that information had accumulated before and during the attack that, if properly analyzed, could have warranted a significant warning.
The IDF’s earlier investigation into the battle at Kibbutz Be’eri likewise found that forces were not prepared for the scale of the infiltration, struggled to establish an accurate picture of what was happening, and experienced serious command-and-control failures during the initial hours.
Those failures deserve scrutiny.
But documented intelligence and operational failures are not the same thing as proof that the attack was deliberately allowed to happen.
That distinction matters.
We can demand answers about warnings, preparedness, intelligence failures, command decisions and accountability without turning an unproven theory into established fact.
What the record actually says
The legal question around Gaza is also no longer simply a social-media argument.
On September 16, 2025, the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory concluded that Israeli authorities had committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. The Commission identified four acts it said met the definition of genocide under the Genocide Convention and cited evidence it considered relevant to genocidal intent.
Israel rejected the finding.
And there is another important distinction: the Commission’s finding is not the same thing as a final judgment from the International Court of Justice. The separate case brought by South Africa remains ongoing.
Those facts belong in the same sentence.
A serious international finding.
A government that categorically disputes it.
And an international legal proceeding that has not yet reached its final judgment.
That is what an evidence-based discussion looks like.
It’s not really about “them”
And the Irish president’s message becomes even more important when we widen the lens.
The normalization of mass suffering isn’t unique to Gaza.
It appears in Sudan.
In eastern Congo.
In Ukraine.
In countless places where civilians become statistics in conflicts that continue long after the rest of the world has stopped paying attention.
The details of each conflict are different. The histories are different. The political actors are different.
But the human consequence is remarkably familiar:
people become abstractions.
We stop seeing a mother.
We see a demographic.
We stop seeing a child.
We see a casualty figure.
We stop seeing a family.
We see “collateral damage.”
And eventually, we stop asking whether what we’re witnessing should be acceptable at all.
The uncomfortable part
There is another reason this conversation is so difficult.
The history of Israel and Palestine cannot be reduced to a single sentence.
The Holocaust was real.
Jewish persecution was real.
The Palestinian displacement known as the Nakba was real.
The creation of Israel was real.
The wars that followed were real.
October 7 was real.
The suffering of Palestinian civilians is real.
And the historical grievances of both peoples are real.
Acknowledging one does not require erasing another.
That is uncomfortable because simple narratives are emotionally easier.
But resisting normalization requires resisting oversimplification, too.
If we only allow ourselves to see the suffering of “our side,” we have already accepted the logic of toxic tribalism—one of the ways toxic masculinity can reinforce a culture where empathy is treated as weakness and compassion becomes conditional on whose suffering we’re willing to recognize.
What resisting normalization actually looks like
It looks like an Irish president telling a sitting American president that the normalization of war and genocide cannot be accepted.
It looks like Jewish people insisting that their faith cannot be reduced to the policies of a government.
It looks like demanding evidence before repeating an extraordinary claim.
It looks like acknowledging October 7 without using it to erase Palestinian humanity.
It looks like acknowledging Palestinian suffering without erasing Israeli victims.
It looks like allowing an international finding to be examined seriously while also acknowledging the government’s rejection of that finding and the separate legal process still underway.
And it looks like refusing to become numb.
Because once we become comfortable watching children die, families displaced, hospitals destroyed and sacred spaces erased, something in us changes.
We stop seeing people.
We see sides.
We see tribes.
We see talking points.
And eventually, we stop asking whether what we’re witnessing is acceptable.
So perhaps the question isn’t:
“Whose side are you on?”
Perhaps the better question is:
“What happens to our humanity when suffering becomes normal?”
Ireland’s president offered one answer yesterday:
It should never become normal.
And maybe that’s the line worth holding.
Not against Jewish people.
Not against Palestinian people.
Not against Muslims.
Not against Christians.
Not against Israelis.
Not against Palestinians.
Not against one political party.
Against the normalization of human suffering.
Because human rights cannot depend on which flag is flying over the person being harmed.
And if we want peace, we have to resist becoming comfortable with war.
If we want truth, we have to resist propaganda — including propaganda that agrees with us.
And if we want to remain human, we have to resist becoming comfortable with genocide.
There is a point in any prolonged conflict when the extraordinary starts becoming ordinary.
Another destroyed home.
Another child killed.
Another hospital reduced to rubble.
Another place of worship damaged.
Another headline we scroll past because we’ve become accustomed to seeing it.
That normalization may be one of the most dangerous things happening right now.
Recently, the president of Ireland put that idea directly in front of the president of the United States.
When a country says no
During Donald Trump’s visit to Dublin, Irish President Catherine Connolly told him that she had conveyed the “strong view of the Irish people” that the “normalisation of war and genocide can never be accepted.” She also emphasized Ireland’s commitment to the United Nations, peacekeeping and peaceful resolution, saying that the Irish people would support those working to build peace in places suffering horrific war and violence.
Whatever someone’s politics, there is something important in that principle:
We should not become desensitized to human suffering simply because it happens repeatedly.
And that is bigger than Ireland, Israel, Palestine or any single government.
It is a question of what happens to us when violence becomes background noise.
Because normalization doesn’t happen all at once.
It happens one headline at a time.
Judaism is not Zionism
And documented reality also requires us to recognize something that often gets lost in this conversation:
Judaism and Zionism are not interchangeable.
There are Jewish communities and organizations that explicitly oppose Zionism for political, ethical or theological reasons. Jewish Voice for Peace notes that Jewish opposition to Zionism has existed throughout the history of the movement and includes ultra-Orthodox Jews who oppose Jewish political sovereignty before the messianic era.
That matters because criticizing a government is not the same thing as condemning an entire people or faith.
It also means we can hold two truths simultaneously:
October 7 was horrific.
And Palestinian civilians do not lose their humanity because Hamas committed atrocities.
Condemning Hamas does not require accepting every action taken by the Israeli government afterward.
And criticizing Israeli government policy does not mean hatred of Jewish people.
Those distinctions aren’t semantic.
They are essential if we want to have an honest conversation without turning an entire population into a political abstraction.
What we know about October 7
October 7 also raises legitimate questions about intelligence and accountability.
Israel received warnings about Hamas.
Yes. Documented.
Israel experienced an extraordinary intelligence and security failure and a delayed or inadequate response.
Yes. Documented.
The Israeli government deliberately ordered its forces to stand down so Hamas could carry out October 7.
I have not found credible evidence establishing this.
Israeli military investigations have themselves documented significant failures. A 2025 IDF expert review identified failures in intelligence assessment, preparedness, organizational culture, understanding Hamas’s plans and decision-making on the night of October 7. The review also concluded that information had accumulated before and during the attack that, if properly analyzed, could have warranted a significant warning.
The IDF’s earlier investigation into the battle at Kibbutz Be’eri likewise found that forces were not prepared for the scale of the infiltration, struggled to establish an accurate picture of what was happening, and experienced serious command-and-control failures during the initial hours.
Those failures deserve scrutiny.
But documented intelligence and operational failures are not the same thing as proof that the attack was deliberately allowed to happen.
That distinction matters.
We can demand answers about warnings, preparedness, intelligence failures, command decisions and accountability without turning an unproven theory into established fact.
What the record actually says
The legal question around Gaza is also no longer simply a social-media argument.
On September 16, 2025, the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory concluded that Israeli authorities had committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. The Commission identified four acts it said met the definition of genocide under the Genocide Convention and cited evidence it considered relevant to genocidal intent.
Israel rejected the finding.
And there is another important distinction: the Commission’s finding is not the same thing as a final judgment from the International Court of Justice. The separate case brought by South Africa remains ongoing.
Those facts belong in the same sentence.
A serious international finding.
A government that categorically disputes it.
And an international legal proceeding that has not yet reached its final judgment.
That is what an evidence-based discussion looks like.
It’s not really about “them”
And the Irish president’s message becomes even more important when we widen the lens.
The normalization of mass suffering isn’t unique to Gaza.
It appears in Sudan.
In eastern Congo.
In Ukraine.
In countless places where civilians become statistics in conflicts that continue long after the rest of the world has stopped paying attention.
The details of each conflict are different. The histories are different. The political actors are different.
But the human consequence is remarkably familiar:
people become abstractions.
We stop seeing a mother.
We see a demographic.
We stop seeing a child.
We see a casualty figure.
We stop seeing a family.
We see “collateral damage.”
And eventually, we stop asking whether what we’re witnessing should be acceptable at all.
The uncomfortable part
There is another reason this conversation is so difficult.
The history of Israel and Palestine cannot be reduced to a single sentence.
The Holocaust was real.
Jewish persecution was real.
The Palestinian displacement known as the Nakba was real.
The creation of Israel was real.
The wars that followed were real.
October 7 was real.
The suffering of Palestinian civilians is real.
And the historical grievances of both peoples are real.
Acknowledging one does not require erasing another.
That is uncomfortable because simple narratives are emotionally easier.
But resisting normalization requires resisting oversimplification, too.
If we only allow ourselves to see the suffering of “our side,” we have already accepted the logic of toxic tribalism—one of the ways toxic masculinity can reinforce a culture where empathy is treated as weakness and compassion becomes conditional on whose suffering we’re willing to recognize.
What resisting normalization actually looks like
It looks like an Irish president telling a sitting American president that the normalization of war and genocide cannot be accepted.
It looks like Jewish people insisting that their faith cannot be reduced to the policies of a government.
It looks like demanding evidence before repeating an extraordinary claim.
It looks like acknowledging October 7 without using it to erase Palestinian humanity.
It looks like acknowledging Palestinian suffering without erasing Israeli victims.
It looks like allowing an international finding to be examined seriously while also acknowledging the government’s rejection of that finding and the separate legal process still underway.
And it looks like refusing to become numb.
Because once we become comfortable watching children die, families displaced, hospitals destroyed and sacred spaces erased, something in us changes.
We stop seeing people.
We see sides.
We see tribes.
We see talking points.
And eventually, we stop asking whether what we’re witnessing is acceptable.
So perhaps the question isn’t:
“Whose side are you on?”
Perhaps the better question is:
“What happens to our humanity when suffering becomes normal?”
Ireland’s president offered one answer yesterday:
It should never become normal.
And maybe that’s the line worth holding.
Not against Jewish people.
Not against Palestinian people.
Not against Muslims.
Not against Christians.
Not against Israelis.
Not against Palestinians.
Not against one political party.
Against the normalization of human suffering.
Because human rights cannot depend on which flag is flying over the person being harmed.
And if we want peace, we have to resist becoming comfortable with war.
If we want truth, we have to resist propaganda — including propaganda that agrees with us.
And if we want to remain human, we have to resist becoming comfortable with genocide.
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