Twin fictions in American discourse about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

Adam Boehler, Trump’s special envoy for hostage affairs, publicly said two things on Sunday morning that aren’t allowed.

Speaking with CNN’s Jake Tapper about direct negotiations between the U.S. and Hamas, Boehler explained, “Look, they don’t have horns growing out of their head. They’re actually guys like us; they’re pretty nice guys.”

Then he went further: “We’re the United States. We’re not an agent of Israel. We have specific interests at play.” By late afternoon, Boehler had issued a clarification, posting on social media that “Hamas is a terrorist organization that has murdered thousands of innocent people. They are BY DEFINITION BAD people.”

It wasn’t enough. Recent reporting suggests he’s been sidelined from negotiations.

For 17 months, American and Israeli policymakers have described the war in Gaza and the protests against it in language rooted in twin fictions. The first fiction is that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not complicated. Members of Hamas are “definitionally antisemitic murderers,” as Tapper put it, whereas Israel is a democracy fighting for its survival.

The second fiction is that pro-Palestinian protests are antisemitic, and “Anti-Zionism is antisemitism.” Deviations sometimes occur, but these descriptions tend to snap back. Antiwar rallies, including some organized by groups like Jewish Voice for Peace, are deemed “support for terror.” Now, it appears that students associated with pro-Palestinian protests are going to be rounded up. According to President Trump, former Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil, who is a green card holder and committed no identifiable crime, was “the first of many to come.”

This kind of messaging, in word and action, supports bipartisan U.S. policy that is unique in history. No other country receives as much U.S. support, or receives support as unconditionally, as Israel. As this support increases, so do efforts to police speech that would undermine it.

In the first 40 days of the new Trump administration, as DOGE sought to dismantle much of the federal government, the U.S. committed nearly $12 billion in aid to Israel. That’s roughly $300 million per day — much of it authorized with emergency powers to avoid the need for congressional approval. Meanwhile, former defenders of free speech, in academia and in public office, are blurring what should be a very sharp line between criticism of Israeli policy and criticism of Jewish people.

This messaging also seeks to undermine critical thinking, which has long been in short supply on this topic.

Hamas is a dangerous, autocratic organization that has committed grievous acts of terrorism. Those acts should be condemned, and the group should have no place in Palestinian governance.

But Hamas does not fight Israel because it is antisemitic. As the group’s founder put it shortly before his assassination in 2004, “We don’t hate the Jews and fight them because they are Jews. ... But if my brother, who has the same religion and parents as me, if he takes my home and expels me from my land, I will fight him. So, when a Jew takes my home and expels me, I will fight him as well. ... We only want them to give us our rights.”

This is not a defense of Hamas. It is an explanation from Hamas for why it fights.

Uncomfortable truths exist about Israel too. The nation is seen in the West as democratic, but its democracy is strictly limited. Israeli Arab citizens can vote, but they do not have all the same rights as Jewish citizens. In the West Bank and Gaza, Israel is autocratic. Jewish settlers vote and live under civil law. Palestinians cannot vote and live under military law, where the conviction rate is 95 percent. Palestinian freedom of movement is controlled and Palestinian homes are routinely demolished.

Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, B’Tselem (Israel’s leading human rights group) and others have described this as “apartheid.” Unfortunately, they are right.

A week before Boehler’s CNN interview, Israel again suspended all humanitarian aid to Gaza. On the day of the interview itself, Israel cut off Gaza’s electricity. This in the wake of at least tens of thousands killed, more than 100,000 injured, millions displaced and Gaza’s infrastructure destroyed.

It all recalls another interview, this one with former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak. Reflecting on what he would have done if he were Palestinian, Barak remarked, “I was [once] new enough to politics to tell the truth, that if I were born Palestinian, I probably would have joined one of the terror organizations.”

Barak didn’t have horns growing out of his head, but he understood the kinds of tragedies that lead to terrorism, not just those that result from it. To prevent both kinds, speech about difficult topics should be encouraged and protected, not threatened and policed.

Seth Cantey is an associate professor of politics and serves as head of the Middle East and South Asia studies program at Washington and Lee University.

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