When images Trump ideology

For the most television-conscious president in history, television images of dying children in Gaza are forcing a reckoning

Three weeks ago, when Donald Trump hosted Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House, the two men exchanged pleasantries and blamed Hamas for blocking ceasefire negotiations. The president barely mentioned what humanitarian organizations were already calling an unfolding starvation crisis in Gaza.

On Monday, standing beside British Prime Minister Keir Starmer in Scotland, Trump was asked whether he agreed with Netanyahu's weekend assertion that "there is no starvation in Gaza," Trump’s response was unequivocal: "Based on television, I would say not particularly, because those children look very hungry."

For a president who built his political brand on unwavering support for Israel, the break was stunning. More importantly, it reveals how Trump's most human instinct — his visceral reaction to images of suffering — is colliding with both his political movement and his diplomatic relationships in ways that could reshape American Middle East policy.

Expert assessment

The gravity of Gaza's crisis received authoritative confirmation Tuesday when the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification — the world's leading body on hunger assessment - declared that the "worst-case scenario of famine" is unfolding in Gaza, with "mounting evidence shows that widespread starvation, malnutrition, and disease are driving a rise in hunger-related deaths."

The IPC serves as the primary mechanism used by the international community to determine whether famine conditions exist, bringing together experts from organizations worldwide using a five-phase index measuring food security. Phase 5 marks catastrophe or famine, requiring that at least 20% of households have extreme lack of food, 30% of children suffer from acute malnutrition, and two adults or four children per 10,000 people die daily from hunger.

According to the IPC's latest assessment, the entire Gaza territory is classified in the "Emergency" stage of Phase 4, while at least 22% of the population is considered to be in Phase 5. Most alarmingly, "malnutrition has been rising rapidly in the first half of July and has reached the famine threshold in Gaza City."

The MAGA foreign fracture deepens

This isn't the first time Trump has found himself at odds with his own movement over foreign policy. As I wrote last month, Ukraine became "the ultimate foreign policy test case for whether Donald Trump leads his movement or follows it." Then it was criticism about US and Israeli strikes on Iran from Trump supporters, including Tucker Carlson.

Steve Bannon, still influential within Trump's inner circle, told POLITICO Playbook Tuesday that the shift is generational and irreversible: "It seems that for the under-30-year-old MAGA base, Israel has almost no support, and Netanyahu's attempt to save himself politically by dragging America in deeper to another Middle East war has turned off a large swath of older MAGA diehards."

Now Gaza has become the latest major foreign policy fault line. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, typically Trump's most loyal defender, posted on social media: "It's the most truthful and easiest thing to say that Oct 7th in Israel was horrific and all hostages must be returned, but so is the genocide, humanitarian crisis, and starvation happening in Gaza."

The power of imagery

Trump's evolution isn't being driven by ideology, but optics. The president appears genuinely bothered by clips of starving children that he saw in the news. For the most television-conscious president in American history, the visual evidence of Gaza's humanitarian catastrophe has proven impossible to dismiss.

This isn't unprecedented for Trump. In 2017, images of chemical weapons victims prompted him to launch Tomahawk missiles at Syria, overriding his previous opposition to Middle East interventions. His reaction to Gaza follows the same pattern: when confronted with undeniable visual evidence of human suffering, Trump's instincts override his political calculations.

"That's real starvation stuff, I see it, and you can't fake that," Trump said Monday. "We have to get the kids fed."

The Israeli non-denial denial

Trump's acknowledgment of starvation stands in stark contrast to Israel's sustained denial campaign. Even as Netanyahu's government announced emergency humanitarian measures — airdrops, tactical pauses, restored power to water treatment plants — Israeli officials continue insisting no crisis exists.

Israeli Ambassador Yechiel Leiter exemplified this contradiction on Tuesday, telling CNN, "There is no large scale starvation. There's a starvation. There certainly isn't a policy of starvation."

When pressed about horrific images from Gaza, Leiter deflected: "Many of them are in service of Hamas propaganda and some of them are doctored in AI but there is definitely a crisis in Gaza."

The semantic gymnastics are remarkable.

The Israeli denial becomes even more difficult to sustain when prominent Israeli human rights organizations are reaching conclusions their own government won't acknowledge. On Monday, B'Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights-Israel released reports concluding that Israel's actions in Gaza constitute genocide — marking the first time Israeli groups have leveled such accusations against their own state. The organizations argued that Israel's war tactics go far beyond what is necessary to dismantle Hamas as a fighting force.

"Based on a careful legal analysis of the facts, we state with a heavy heart this is a genocide," Guy Shalev, executive director of Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, told reporters in Jerusalem. In a 79-page report released Monday groups documented what they called "coordinated, deliberate action to destroy Palestinian society in the Gaza strip," including systematic destruction of healthcare infrastructure, denial of access to food, and blocking of medical evacuations.

Leiter's response was predictably dismissive, telling CNN "They're on the far, far left, the extreme left. They're affiliated with anti Israel organizations around the world, and we absolutely condemn these reports, which are fallacious." Yet when Israeli human rights organizations — operating within Israeli society and subject to Israeli law — conclude their government is committing genocide, simply labeling them as fringe leftists doesn't address the substance of their documented findings. It becomes harder to dismiss international criticism as antisemitic bias or Hamas propaganda when the criticism is coming from inside Israel itself.

Congressional pressure mounts

Trump's shift comes amid growing bipartisan unease on Capitol Hill. Forty Senate Democrats signed a letter Tuesday to Secretary of State Marco Rubo calling the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation a failure that has "contributed to an unacceptable and mounting civilian death toll around the organization's sites."

More significantly, the letter included four prominent Jewish senators — Chuck Schumer, Adam Schiff, Jacky Rosen, and Brian Schatz — signaling that criticism of Israeli policy no longer carries the political risks it once did.

Sen. Angus King went further, declaring in a statement on his website he will not vote for additional Israeli aid "as long as there are starving children in Gaza that have been caused by Israel's action or inaction regarding humanitarian relief."

The shift reflects changing American public opinion. A Quinnipiac poll in June found Republican support for Israel dropped 14 points in the past year, from 78% to 64%. Among all Americans, Israel now rates just 50 on a favorability scale — the lowest since polling began in 1978.

The aid bottleneck

Despite Israeli denials, the crisis stems from deliberate policy choices. After ending the latest ceasefire in March, Israel completely cut off food, medicine, fuel and other supplies to Gaza for two and a half months. Officials explicitly said this was to pressure Hamas to release hostages — political coercion through humanitarian deprivation.

When international pressure forced a policy change in May, Israel created the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a U.S.-backed distribution system that humanitarian groups have refused to cooperate with due to safety concerns. Since GHF operations began, nearly 800 Palestinians have been killed near its distribution sites, according to UN figures.

The World Food Program documented other systematic obstacles: Israel approves only 76 of 138 requested aid convoys. Approved trucks wait up to 46 hours for travel permission. Spare parts and approved drivers remain scarce. The result: only 85 trucks per day reach Gaza, well below the 120 minimum required for basic needs.

Trump's response

Recognizing the crisis, Trump announced plans for American-led "food centers" in Gaza, working with Britain and other European partners. The approach represents a significant shift from his previous hands-off stance and aligns him with countries that have been far more critical of Israeli policies.

"We're going to set up food centers where people can walk in and no boundaries," Trump said. "We're not going to have fences. They see the food. It's all there, but nobody's at it because they have fences set up that nobody can even get it."

Details on these supposed food centers have yet to be revealed, but diplomats tell me the U.S. is now working with European and Arab countries, UN agencies and José Andrés' World Central Kitchen to deliver food aid. Efforts are underway to establish humanitarian corridors that would allow trucks to enter safely and ensure aid reaches civilians.

The broader implications

For decades, unconditional support for Israel has been a bipartisan article of faith. Trump's willingness to publicly contradict the Israeli prime minister is another data point suggesting those days may be ending.

The shift also highlights Trump's fundamental approach to foreign policy: personal rather than ideological. Unlike his predecessors, who often subordinated emotional responses to strategic calculations, Trump allows images of suffering to drive policy changes. This makes him simultaneously more unpredictable and more responsive to humanitarian crises.

Whether this leads to sustained pressure on Israel or merely tactical adjustments remains unclear. But Trump's public acknowledgment that children are starving in Gaza has crossed a rhetorical line that even Democratic presidents rarely approached.

For Palestinians facing mass hunger, Trump's shift offers hope that American power might finally be used to alleviate their suffering rather than enable it. For Netanyahu, it represents a dangerous erosion of the automatic American support that has allowed Israeli policies to proceed without meaningful constraint.

The most television-conscious president in history has been moved by television images of dying children. In Gaza's humanitarian catastrophe, that may prove to be the most important political development in years.