Broken Morning

Thoughts on Broken Morning

Before you watch our video; Broken Morning, I want to offer a word of context. The song and the conditions that brought it to life deserve it:

This was the first song I had written since I was 17 years old. I wrote it in the summer of 2014, after seeing cell phone video from inside Gaza during the war that year. It was the first time I had seen, in such an immediate and personal way, what it looked and felt like for civilians; ordinary people to be caught inside a war zone.

I also want to acknowledge something important. At the time I wrote the song, I did not fully understand the immediate events that helped lead to that war, including the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers in the West Bank by Hamas operatives. That horror mattered, and still matters. Jewish and Israeli fear, grief, trauma, and vulnerability are real, and they must never be dismissed or minimized.

At the same time, the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank is also real, profound, and ongoing. The song was born from witnessing the human cost of war — especially the suffering of ordinary people who have no power over the decisions, ideologies, armed movements, governments, and retaliatory violence that shape their lives.

The song and video are troubling, and they are meant to be. But they are not intended as a statement of hatred or blame toward any people. They are meant as a lament.

The people of Gaza, the people of the West Bank, the people of Israel, and Jewish communities more broadly have been caught for far too long in a history shaped by fear, violence, occupation, extremism, antisemitism, displacement, political failure, and the actions of leaders and armed movements that deepen the suffering of ordinary people. That includes Hamas and Hezbollah, the influence of Iran, the policies of Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing government, the actions of the Israeli military, and the broader reality of occupation and settlement expansion — which many Israelis themselves oppose.

Since the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023, the situation has grown even more devastating. The attacks inflicted horrific trauma on Israelis and Jewish communities around the world, while the war that followed has brought catastrophic suffering to Palestinians in Gaza. Conditions in the West Bank have also worsened terribly, with escalating settler violence, displacement, home demolitions, and deepening fear among Palestinian communities.

The Palestinian people need and deserve a home, dignity, safety, and a future. The people of Israel also need and deserve safety, dignity, and a future free from terrorism, rockets, hostage-taking, and the constant fear of annihilation. Actions by Hamas and Hezbollah continue to create fear, hatred, and tragedy for Palestinians, Lebanese, Israelis, and Jews more broadly, while occupation, settlement violence, and collective punishment continue to deepen Palestinian suffering and despair.

I have profound empathy for the people of Gaza, the West Bank, the people of Israel, and for the horrific history they have carried over time, are living through now, and may still be forced to carry into the future. I grieve the trauma, fear, loss, and suffering that so many have endured and continue to endure.

Broken Morning is an attempt to bear witness — not to simplify a tragedy, not to excuse violence, and not to assign collective blame, but to acknowledge the terrible human cost of it. I share it as part of the larger work of Seven Generations Innovation because I believe art can help us face painful realities with honesty, compassion, moral clarity, and a deeper commitment to resolution rather than endless retaliation.