Two small coffins return home, carrying the bodies of Israeli children who had barely begun to live. The world watches, some in agony, many in silence. Their deaths — part of a larger, unrelenting storm of violence — will not be etched into history as a turning point, nor will they prompt the kind of global outcry reserved for other tragedies. Instead, they will become yet another moment in which humanity failed to rise in unison against an unspeakable wrong.
The images of their return to Israel should shake us to our core. They should force us to confront not only the brutality of their deaths but also the moral vacuum that allows such horrors to be met with indifference. When the killing of children no longer provokes outrage — when the world’s response is muted, conditional or absent altogether — it speaks to something deeply broken in our collective conscience.
There was a time when the murder of children, regardless of circumstance, was universally condemned. There was a time when we did not ask what flag they were born under before deciding whether their deaths were worth mourning. There was a time when the idea of children being slaughtered in their homes, at a festival, in a war zone or in a school would bring us together in sorrow and anger. But today, the moral clarity that once guided us seems eroded by political narratives, selective empathy and a deep-seated fear of taking a stand.
What does this silence tell our children?
It tells them that their safety is not guaranteed, that their suffering may not be acknowledged, and that the world picks and chooses which lives to grieve based on convenience rather than conscience. It tells them that justice is conditional, that evil can thrive in the absence of enough people willing to call it by its name. It tells them that some deaths will be protested with marches and speeches while others will be met with quiet rationalization or, worse, with celebrations.
This is not just about these two boys. It is about every child caught in conflicts not of their making, in a world that has lost its moral compass. It is about the families left to grieve alone, surrounded by a global audience that prefers to look away. It is about the long-term consequences of teaching an entire generation that human life is only valuable if the right people mourn it.
The silence surrounding these deaths is not accidental. It is cultivated. It is born out of a reluctance to acknowledge suffering that does not fit neatly into a preferred narrative. It is maintained by the fear of being accused of taking the wrong side, as if the murder of children is ever a matter of political debate rather than a fundamental moral failing. It is sustained by a growing desensitization to violence, in which people scroll past the images of devastation as if they are just another piece of content in an endless feed of distraction.
But silence is a choice. And it is one that carries consequences.
When we fail to speak out, we teach our children that injustice can be ignored. When we fail to condemn brutality, we normalize it. When we refuse to see the humanity in all victims, we diminish our own. And when we allow the deaths of two young boys to pass with barely a whisper of outrage, we set a precedent for the world they will inherit — one in which life is cheap, justice is selective and silence is complicit.
The return of these children in their small, final vessels is not just an Israeli tragedy. It is a global one. It should shake every parent, every teacher, every leader, every person who still believes in a world where children are not pawns in the hands of those who see violence as a means to an end. It should force us to ask what kind of future we are building when we allow innocence to be slaughtered without consequence.
For the sake of these boys, and for the sake of every child who deserves to grow up in a world where their lives matter, we must break the silence. We must reject the idea that mourning is a partisan act. We must demand a world where the death of a child is met with universal grief and unrelenting resolve to prevent the next one.
Because if we do not, the lesson we leave behind will be one of indifference, and that may be the greatest tragedy of all.
Laurence Bolotin has worked in higher education and the Jewish community for 20 years. He is the former Evelyn R. Greene executive director and a current board member of the American Jewish Committee in Chicago as well as the former CEO and a current board member for Zeta Beta Tau fraternity.
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