Just when I thought that debate on the Israel-Gaza war could not sink more deeply into inhumanity, a member of Congress lowered the bar. Earlier this week, Rep. Brian Mast, R-Fla., compared Palestinian civilians to Nazis.

In a debate on limits for humanitarian aid to Gaza, Mast said, “I would encourage the other side to not so lightly throw around the idea of ‘innocent Palestinian civilians,’ as is frequently said. I don’t think we would so lightly throw around the term ‘innocent Nazi civilians’ during World War II.”

The cruelty inherent in those remarks is unconscionable. How did we come to the place where a congressman could engage in such utterances without shame or consequence?

Can we talk about Gaza? Can we acknowledge the pain and loss on both sides of this devastating conflict? It should be possible to condemn the savagery of Hamas while also mourning the civilian casualties caused by Israel’s retaliation. Nearly a month ago, Hamas terrorists stormed into northern Israel and butchered more than 1,000 people, including children, and took more than 250 hostages. Israeli retaliation was inevitable, and, by some estimates, nearly 10,000 people have been killed in Gaza, including more than 3,600 children.

All of that is horrifying. All of it. Families are mourning throughout Israel and Palestine and here in the U.S., as well. Can’t we acknowledge the pain, the misery, the grief without apologizing for terrorists or condemning civilians?

Instead, college campuses across the country have been roiled by students who defend Hamas, supporting its savagery. Jewish students have reported increased episodes of threats and harassment as antisemitism finds fuel. On the other side of this ugly divide, a 6-year-old Palestinian-American child in Illinois was stabbed 26 times by his landlord, who was angry about “what was going on in the Middle East.” The child’s mother could not attend his funeral because she was hospitalized, recovering from her own stab wounds.

Some of the hostility toward Palestinians is amplified by conservative Christian churches, many of which view Israel as territory God gave to Jews.

In this awful climate, even advocating for a cease-fire has become contentious, with many supporters of Israel claiming that would only aid Hamas, which has embedded its fighters throughout the densely populated Gaza Strip. President Joe Biden, seeking to walk a silk thread, won’t use the term “cease-fire,” instead calling for a “pause.”

Whatever nomenclature is applied, people of conscience — politicians, rabbis, imams, preachers and layfolk — need to apply pressure to get humanitarian aid into Gaza and to get civilians out. That means opposing the foolishness of Rep. Mast, who has proposed an amendment to a bill imposing sanctions on those who support terrorists such as Hamas; he wants to strip any provisions that would allow humanitarian aid into Gaza, including food and medicine. Well, that’s not so surprising since he sees no innocents there.

Cynthia Tucker won the Pulitzer Prize for commentary in 2007. She can be reached at cynthia@cynthiatucker.com.