Jonathan S. Tobin
JNS, June 19, 2024
“… even the Times is burying information that undermines the famine claim inside other articles meant to buttress allegations against Israel. The newspaper wrote that there is no shortage of food in northern Gaza, the very place where it had previously asserted that famine was imminent.”
Part of the accepted narrative about the war in the Gaza Strip is that the Palestinians there are enduring abject hunger. In May, the head of the U.N. World Food Program claimed that there was a “full-blown famine” in northern Gaza. 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 both 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?
As it turns out, the U.N.’s own Famine Review Committee admitted in a report that the claims about not enough food being sent into Gaza were untrue. What’s more, this allegation, which is at the heart of the equally widespread big lie that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians, is a matter of sleight of hand bookkeeping. It seems to be largely based on the fact that the number of trucks that are delivering supplies, which flow into Gaza from Israel to feed the Palestinians every day, were being undercounted with private-sector food trucks not being counted as well as other deliveries. A pertinent fact that should also be pointed out is that before Oct. 7, daily supplies of food, fuel and other material were trucked into Gaza from Israel, which gives the lie to the much-cited accusation that the Jewish state blockaded the Strip. Egypt, however, has continued to close off its border to it. … [To read the full article, click here]