Israel is starving the people of Gaza, and a few individuals in power have decided they care — with caveats. At the New York Times, columnist Ross Douthat admits that “Israel’s warmaking at this moment is unjust,” though not before he blames Hamas alone for a “willingness to accept famine” and for thwarting a cease-fire. In Douthat’s world, the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu bears no responsibility for either outcome; it’s as if the famine had sprung out of a void. Barack Obama posted on X that “aid must be permitted to reach people in Gaza,” an impersonal plea addressed to no one in particular. Hillary Clinton said much the same, posting, “The full flow of humanitarian assistance must be restored immediately.” Others were a little sharper. Senator Amy Klobuchar applauded Netanyahu when he spoke to Congress last year. Now she says that she met with him in July to argue for more aid and the end of Palestinian “displacement,” though she “never got a good answer.”

The price of flour is so high in Gaza that even the Free Press almost seems concerned. Although it declared the famine a “myth” in May, a new piece says that “a real hunger crisis” could happen — a tiny crack in a forbidding edifice. The website was founded by Bari Weiss, who got her start by falsely accusing Columbia University professors of antisemitic bias, and its content is uniformly Zionist. If the Free Press concedes reality, in some small and reluctant manner, then professional opinion is shifting indeed — but to what extent, and toward what end, is still unclear. Empathy of the Free Press is limited by ideological contortions: A........

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