I don’t know what the technical definition of famine is. I am not sure it is very important.  To me at least. What I do know is that what is happening in Gaza is horrible. No matter what Israel or its shield, the United States, says, what is happening in Gaza is horrible and to permit it to continue is incomprehensible. No civilized society should permit it to continue. To continue to support Israel in implementing what is going on is unconscionable or a civilized society.

Of course, both Israel and its main supporter claim it is not famine and is caused by Hamas and not them. They were both outraged at those who said otherwise. But Hamas is all but destroyed. It has always been a pipsqueak compared to Israel, but after nearly 2 years of war it is much less than that. It is completely helpless in the face of the Israeli assault. This can no longer be blamed on Hamas with any credibility. It is no longer a threat and it has been punished enough. There is no point to any more death.

For the first time, since the war in Gaza which started nearly 2 years ago the international organization that monitors and categorizes hunger crises around the world has declared that parts of Gaza are in famine.

As Nick Schifrin, a highly respected reporter for the Public Broadcasting Corporation in the United States said, “The experts group is called the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, or IPC. And it’s concluded that, after 22 months of war, the half-a-million people living around Gaza City face famine.” Think about that for a moment. In Gaza 500,000 people are in the midst of famine while nearby is food brought by humanitarian organizations that Israel refuses to allow into the country! Israel would rather let the people including men, women, and children,  all starve than allow food to come in to the country. This is a moral outrage created by people who receive billions in aid from the United States.  This is a disgrace that will haunt Israel and its unwavering ally, the United States, forever.

As Amna Nawaz, PBS News Hour host said,

“The U.N.-backed group of international experts said today that half-a-million people in Gaza, one-quarter of the population, are facing — quote — “catastrophic conditions characterized by starvation, destitution and death.” And they warned that famine would spread within weeks without a cease-fire and a massive infusion of humanitarian aid into Gaza.”

In other words, unless aid is allowed in things will get even worse.

Tom Fletcher the United Nations Emergency Relief Coordinator and United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs said this:

“It is a famine; the Gaza famine. It is a famine that we could have prevented if we had been allowed. Yet food stacks up at borders because of systematic obstruction by Israel. It is a famine within a few hundred meters of food.”

In fact, all members of the United Nations Security Council, except the United States said that Gaza was experiencing famine.

Does it really matter whether this is technically a famine or not? Does it matter whether this is a war crime or not?

What matter is that this must stop. Now.

A good and respected friend of mine told me that to some extent Israel has been treating Palestinians with more “kindness” than their Arab “friends”. I don’t know if that is true, but I do know that using the word “kindness” to describe Israeli actions against Palestinians is a form of obscenity.

Whether Israelis actions do or not meet the standard of “genocide” in international law is not really the issue. What is important is that the Israeli response to a horrific attack has also been massive, continual, and indeed horrific.

Hamas is also is not innocent. Their actions too might have been genocidal. No matter what they should release the hostages. Palestinians and their supporters should be demanding the hostages be released.

An Israeli article in Israeli newspaper Haaretz  cited a well-regarded Israeli and international scholar, Nir Hasson has said, the number of Palestinian deaths in the war is much higher than figures by Hamas Ministry of Health’s (controlled by Hamas) which put the Palestinian deaths at over 57,000. He says its much closer to 100,000 and when you include related deaths caused by starvation and disease might even surpass that number.

As Fareed Zakaria said “at this level of 5% of the population this may be the worst case of war time death in the twentieth century.” Even the article critiquing this analysis said the death toll is “undoubtedly catastrophic and intolerable.” Isn’t that bad enough?

Fareed Zakaria, always a level headed commentator not given to hyperbole has called it “staggeringly high.” According to the UN, 1.9 million of Gaza’s 2.1 million people have been displaced by that war. It is difficult to think what bad description would be excessive in the circumstances. Just as hard as trying to think how possibly the word “kindness” could apply to the actions of Israel.

I don’t know if Israel is committing genocide or not, but it sure does look like. As the saying goes, ‘If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck maybe it’s a duck.  That’s sort of how I feel about it.

Most knowledgeable people say Israel has killed more than 50,000 Palestinians in Gaza. At least 17,000 of those are children. Those are not Gaza fighters. 33,000 children have been injured. Many of those are now amputees. Scarred foe life.

What can possibly justify that? Israeli’s keep attacking hospitals, schools, residential complexes. They always say they are targeting Hamas.  But they make it clear, to attack one member of Hamas it doesn’t matter how many civilians or children are attacked too.  Is that good enough. That is reckless behavior.  Behavior of bullies. We are big and powerful and we can do it. We don’t care who gets hurt. That’s their attitude.

Then there is starvation which is rising precipitously. That is a direct result of Israeli policies. 50% of all children in Gaza are now suffering from severe malnutrition. And Canada and its western allies keep supporting Israel against Hamas even though it already has a massive superiority in weaponry.

Genocide scholar Omer Bartov claims Israelis are guilty of genocide, even though few specific statements have been made by Israeli leaders confirming a genocidal intent. First, he points out, most regimes that carry out genocide do not publicize it. Political leaders rarely make genocidal intent clear in their statements. If you look for such evidence you will never find genocide.

As Bartov said, “they don’t say we are carrying out genocide.”^[1] Even Adolf Hitler made few such statements, he pointed out.  Leaders are almost always more circumspect than that. It is very rare that intent can be seen. It is inferred from facts on the ground. As Bartov explained, even in the case of Hitler that intent was clearly inferred from such facts even though he made few statements making it clear. There is no written order where he said, “Let’s carry out genocide.”

Is intent also clear in the case of Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders? Israeli supporters say the claims are ridiculous. Are they? In the case of the Israeli Minister of Defense saying they are “human animals” or “we won’t give them water.”  Or we won’t give them electricity. Such statements are incitement to his soldiers to carry out an act of genocide. The Israeli’s mobilized 300,000 reservists and sent them to Gaza and they heard what he had said. They knew what they were being called to do by their leaders. The Minster was saying to his soldiers these are not human beings, and we should not treat them like human beings.

For a long time Omer Bartov the genocide scholar there was insufficient evidence of genocide.  He has changed his mind on account of the accumulating evidence that is genocide.

Bartov also pointed out how Netanyahu recently said Israel wanted to get rid of Palestinians from Gaza and they were looking for other countries to take them in, “that is an international crime.”

Hamas should also release the hostages. There is not justification for their actions. It also might be genocidal. They just don’t have the claws that Israel has.

Genocide or not, the actions of Israel are horrendous. We shouldn’t be supporting that.

Genocide scholar Omer Bartov  on a recent television show, explained that we tend to think genocide must look like it did in Nazi Germany. That is not the case. We need to look at how “genocide” is defined in international law. The Convention on Genocide defines ‘genocide” as follows:

“The intent to destroy in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group as such:

• killing members of the group;
• causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
• deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part…”

As Bartov said, “it does not necessitate the killing of all the people…it is the intent to destroy the group as a group. ”This is the legal definition. Of course, as Bartov pointed out to say killing 50,000 or 100,000 Palestinians including 17,000 children is not genocide is also morally horrifying. He also said, “If you remove a group from a territory and you make it impossible for it to reconstitute itself and you do that by starving it, by bombing it, by destroying everything there, that can and in my opinion does, conform to the definition of genocide.”

I know that many Israelis’, many Americans, and many Canadians take the position that Israel is just defending itself after a horrific attack. There is no doubt it was a horrific attack. But even when attacked, in their defence an attacked nation must act with some constraints. It cannot do whatever it wants to do in its own defence. The Israeli’s say Hamas attacked with genocidal intent when it attacked Israel and so far it has killed about 2% of the number of people Israel has killed in this battle. Bartov said,

“The attack by Hamas was a war crime, a crime against humanity, and could be described as a genocidal attack especially when you relate it to the Hamas Charter and there is no way to argue against that. That does not mean that the country responding to it may respond it to it by carrying out crimes against humanity, war crimes, and genocide. Nor justify a massacre. A massacre does not justify a massacre. A Genocide does not justify a genocide.”

Bartov, also thinks it is a scandal that a country that was created by the international community as a direct consequence to crimes against humanity, war crimes, and acts of genocide is now committing those acts itself. And that is no reason for us to deny what it is doing.