In a recent interview with Adv. Mark Oppenheimer, Brooke Goldstein of the Lawfare Project and the End Jew Hatred Movement, dismantled what she calls the “false accusation that Israel, the Jewish state, is intentionally starving the Palestinian civilian population”.
Starvation in Gaza has dominated news headlines, with one in three people going days without food according to a warning issued by the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF). [aljazeera.com]
Reports explicitly point the finger at Israel, claiming they are “‘engineering chaos and massacres’ in the Gaza Strip by continuing to block aid deliveries and opening fire on starving Palestinians seeking desperately needed food supplies”.[aljazeera.com]
‘Inciting hatred against Jews’
Goldstein argues that this narrative is a modern-day “blood libel,” a psychological tool used to “whip up the frenzy” and incite hatred against the Jewish people. She contends that the true culprits behind any food shortages are not Israel, but rather Hamas and the United Nations (UN).
According to Goldstein, the starvation narrative is a “blood libel” on its face, driven by a disturbing lack of media scrutiny. She points to a retracted UN report that falsely claimed 14 000 children were going to imminently die in Gaza as an example of this misinformation.
Goldstein further alleges that the UN is complicit in the crisis by “refusing to distribute” food aid. She questions why “600 trucks with food [are] sitting in Gaza” and “thousands of food crates that are sitting rotting in the sun” are not being distributed, and who, therefore, is truly responsible for a potential famine.
Famine to hit in September
The Guardian, however, reports that the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), an organisation which provides analysis on food insecurity, “has not yet classified any parts of Gaza as facing famine,” but notes that “one in three Palestinians in Gaza are experiencing ‘catastrophic’ levels of hunger” and warns that “famine is projected to hit northern Gaza by September”. [theguardian.com]
A UN News article notes that the UN World Food Programme (WFP) has provided “food and nutrition assistance to more than one million people since the conflict began”. [news.un.org]
Goldstein also places blame on Hamas, stating that “Hamas is in control of the food distribution within Gaza”. She claims there are “videos of Hamas stealing aid” and “warehouses of food being controlled by Hamas”. She concludes by stating that “the whole world is pinpoint focused on these pictures, these pictures of these emaciated sickly children, because they’re being used to blame Israel,” when the real goal is to “prop up a terrorist organisation and ensure its survival”.
