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The Mythical Gaza Famine

(JNS) Jonathan S. Tobin - Reports in the New York Times and the Washington Post in recent months have routinely noted that Palestinians are starving. Indeed, the notion that there was a genuine shortage of food in Gaza motivated President Joe Biden to order the U.S. Armed Forces to construct a floating pier and anchor it alongside the Gazan shoreline to facilitate the flow of vital supplies to those in need. On the strength of these allegations, the International Criminal Court has requested warrants for the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, largely because of the claim that they are committing war crimes by deliberately starving the Palestinians. But what if there is no famine? The UN's own Famine Review Committee admitted in a June 4 report that the claims about not enough food being sent into Gaza were untrue. Faulty data was being used to justify claims of a Gaza famine. If there are food distribution problems in Gaza - and, obviously, an area of an ongoing military conflict set off by Hamas's Oct. 7 attacks on Israel is going to experience disruptions - it is not due to a shortage of food. The amount of items being shipped into Gaza from Israel is, as studies show, clearly sufficient to feed the people of Gaza. Israel's efforts to keep aid flowing into Gaza are unprecedented in the history of armed conflict. It is a given that warring powers are not responsible for feeding their enemies, especially people under the control of hostile combatants. Even the U.S. has acknowledged that few of the supplies that had entered Gaza via the floating pier had reached their intended recipients. In wartime, food distribution networks are inevitably disrupted. But if Palestinians are suffering, then it's nothing short of libelous to blame Israel for it. From the start of the war, armed Hamas operatives have hijacked most of the deliveries. In addition, gangs of smugglers - most of which are likely affiliated with the various terrorist movements - have also commandeered aid shipments. Then why are so many media outlets, international organizations and the Biden administration still talking about starvation and putting the onus on Israel for this largely fictional catastrophe? Inflating the predicament of Palestinians in Gaza into a famine must be seen as the latest in a long list of falsehoods that have been flung at the Jewish state since Oct. 7 by the anti-Israel media chorus that has faithfully repeated every lie spread by the Hamas propaganda machine. Every death and all of the privations suffered by Palestinian Arabs since Oct. 7 is the responsibility of the Hamas terrorists who started this war. The claim that Israel is starving the Palestinians should be seen for what it is: a 21st-century blood libel.
2024-06-23 00:00:00
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