As someone deeply involved in global Israeli humanitarian missions, I know the value of compassion. I have helped deliver Israeli aid to disaster zones.
I have seen the power of Jewish giving when the lives of those affected by natural disasters hang in the balance.
However, compassion without wisdom can be lethal. That is why I am deeply disappointed that some Jewish organizations in the United States are donating money to Gaza – even while Hamas holds our hostages and our own soldiers are left in pain, trauma, and poverty.
Right now, thousands of Israeli soldiers are struggling with catastrophic wounds. More than 16,000 have been injured since October 7, and projections suggest Israel could see 100,000 wounded by 2030.
Many have lost limbs and urgently need prosthetics. Others are living with post-traumatic stress disorder that threatens their lives long after they leave the battlefield.
PTSD diagnoses have surged by more than 100 percent since October 7. Suicide among veterans is surging. There is a six-month waitlist for treatment. Meanwhile, countless reservists who left their jobs to defend Israel now face frozen incomes.
I personally know veterans abroad who are suddenly homeless because their retainers from the Foreign Ministry and Defense Ministry were cut off the moment they put on a uniform.
Recent data paints a depressing, sobering picture.
A Maccabi Healthcare Services survey found that half of Israelis are now experiencing severe sleep disturbances, anxiety, depression, and fatigue following Operation Rising Lion with Iran and the war in Gaza.
This is not just numbers on a page. It is the human face of sacrifice – men and women who risked everything so that Israel could live. Yet, while our soldiers beg for therapy and housing, and while their families struggle to pay rent, American Jewish dollars are flowing into Gaza?
Perhaps the most dangerous consequence of sending aid to Gaza is strategic. It weakens our negotiating position with Hamas at the very moment that hostages’ lives hang in the balance.
I know this from experience. In 2002, when the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem was seized by armed terrorists, I took part in the negotiations.
The terrorists eventually released Christian clergy and hostages not because we offered them food or comfort – but because we announced to the world that “all military options are now open.”
Only then did they back down. We did not feed the terrorists. We did not reward their violence. We made them surrender.
Contrast that with today: Israel is now ordering 100,000 reservists into Gaza, yet at the same time, we are funneling food and aid into Hamas’s backyard.
What message does that send?
We are losing the PR war and feeding into the Gaza narrative
If Gazans – or Hamas – want food, let them surrender. The United States did not feed the Nazis or the Japanese during World War II. Why are we weakening ourselves by sustaining an enemy whose charter explicitly calls for the murder of every Jew and Christian?
Why are we allowing a double standard to be forced upon us by our enemies’ propaganda?
Some may argue that providing humanitarian aid is a way to encourage better behavior – what psychologists call “behavior modification.” That works in classrooms, perhaps, or in parenting. But it does not work with Hamas.
Their ideology is not hunger-driven. It is hate-driven.
Feeding an Islamic terrorist organization or the population that shields it does not moderate its aims. On the contrary, it signals weakness, prolongs the hostage crisis, and fuels their professional propaganda from Gaza, Iran, and Qatar.
Just ask one question: Who is winning the PR war – the battle for public opinion? We do not own the narrative. They do. And feeding Gaza will only help their highly effective, professional psychological warfare.
This is why Israel must act now to redirect aid funding.
Every shekel, every dollar, must go to Israeli veterans and their families.
Fund Israeli soldiers, reservists, and veterans, not our enemies
We must provide immediate prosthetics and rehabilitation care for the wounded. Comprehensive PTSD and trauma treatment for soldiers and civilians alike.
Housing support in Israel and abroad to stop the rising tide of veteran homelessness. Financial relief for reservists whose incomes have been frozen while they serve.
Do we really think that the few shekels they receive from National Insurance will support them and their families?
At the same time, Jewish communities abroad should refocus their philanthropy. Do not write checks that end up strengthening Hamas’s hand. Instead, back campaigns that directly support our soldiers.
One example is Help IDF Veterans Facing Homelessness, which provides immediate assistance to those who defended Israel and now desperately need our defense in return.
Our society is in collective trauma.
To heal, we must prioritize our own – our hostages, our soldiers, our veterans, and our families. Humanitarian instincts are noble, but they must be disciplined by reality. Aid that strengthens our enemies is not humanitarianism. It is self-destruction.
Israel must place Israelis first. Place our hostages first. Place our veterans first. Only then can we stand strong enough to face those who seek our destruction – and prevail.
The writer is president of Leyden Communications Israel, a crisis communications, public affairs, and digital PR organization confronting antisemitism, with offices in New York and Ra’anana. He has served as an officer in the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit, as a senior media and cross-cultural communications consultant to the Foreign Ministry, and as director of Israel Humanitarian Aid.