At around 3:00 a.m. Jerusalem time on June 13, 2025, I was jolted awake by a siren that echoed throughout the walls of the Old City. “It’s probably a Houthi missile,” I originally thought. Once I received an alarm on my phone and realized that Israel launched an unprovoked attack on Iran, I nearly broke down internally at the thought of a regional war beginning here.
I’m writing this article in the Palestinian city of Bethlehem. Most nights, I wake up to the sight and sound of missiles flying over my head. It’s almost become a routine to wake up and go downstairs to my homemade “bunker.” Since Israel first launched its war on Iran, the West Bank has been put on lockdown. The checkpoints are sporadically open, restricting my access to bomb shelters in Jerusalem. Yet, my situation doesn’t even come close to the experiences of ordinary Palestinians, many of whom are barred from entering Israel proper (even to seek a bomb shelter). Yes, that’s right. Although Israel subjects the West Bank to a brutal occupation, there are no bomb shelters here. Plus, Israel won’t intercept missiles to defend the Palestinians living in the West Bank. So, if a missile falls short (as a Houthi missile did recently near Hebron), anyone residing in the West Bank could easily be injured or assassinated. Even if I did fully desire to evacuate, Israel’s airspace is indefinitely closed. It’s hard not to feel trapped here.
“I go to bed every night thinking it could be my last,” said my friend recently. I don’t merely feel trapped. I also feel betrayed by the U.S. government. Even though the U.S. Intelligence Community has perpetually found that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon, U.S. President Donald Trump tacitly approved of Israel’s unprovoked attack in advance. Ever since the war began, not only has Trump lauded Israel’s attacks throughout Iran, but Trump has also stated that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s Supreme Leader, is an “easy target” that the U.S.-Israel alliance won’t murder “for now.” Moreover, Trump explained that the United States has “complete and total control of the skies over Iran.” Unfortunately, the United States is deeply involved in Israel’s current war with Iran. American air defense systems and a Navy destroyer ship recently assisted Israel in shooting down Iranian missiles. In addition, the U.S. military is sending warplanes to the Middle East. Currently, the Trump administration is contemplating striking Iran. Trump knows that these actions escalate the current war, but he doesn’t care. Unsurprisingly, Trump appears to be the textbook example of the “interventionalists” that he criticized in Riyadh last month.
I’m definitely not the only one who feels betrayed by the U.S. government. 53% of Trump voters (and 60% of Americans) said that the U.S. should not be involved in the current Israel-Iran war. Yet, the voices of the American public don’t seem to ever inhibit the actions of establishment warhawks. Following Israel’s initial strikes throughout Iran, U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham tweeted: “Game on.” Do these warmongers really think that war is just a game? Do they actually believe that regime change is a simple, harmless activity? The evidence all points to the affirmative. Over the past few decades, U.S.-led military intervention has invariably led to disastrous consequences, but that hasn’t shifted establishment foreign policy.
As Scott Horton explained during Freedom Fest 2025: “In the last 25 years, in the name of spreading democracy and freedom, the U.S. completely destroyed Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Libya, Mali, Syria, Iraq again, Yemen and major parts of Pakistan and Ukraine, killing and getting killed upwards of four million people, displacing 40 million more and spreading terrorism and chaos in reaction all across the Middle East, Central Asia, North and Eastern Africa and now Eastern Europe as well.”
If warhawks from both the Republican and Democrat party heard missiles on a daily basis like I do, I’m sure they would sing a different tune. Yet, ivory tower privilege shields warmongers from understanding the true consequences of war. If Trump continues to escalate the Israel-Iran war, I will most certainly observe more missiles falling from the skies around Bethlehem. If the U.S.-Israel alliance genuinely cared about preserving human life, they wouldn’t make everyone in the region a potential human shield in order to achieve military goals. I turn 20 in early July, and I’m most certainly spending my birthday in Israel/Palestine. President Trump, please don’t let this birthday be my last.
Richard McDaniel is an undergraduate political science student at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities. A stern libertarian with a passion for defending free speech and understanding international relations, Richard is most invested in researching why a two-state settlement was never reached in the Israel-Palestine conflict.
