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| Palestinian child suffering from severe malnutrition (CNN) |
The images of emaciated children lying on their deathbeds
for lack of food are difficult to watch. They are heartrending. For quite some
time now, the news media has been focusing on these images and strongly
implying that Israel is to blame. That not enough food is being distributed by
GHF (Gaza Humanitarian Foundation), and that when Palestinians arrive en masse
to receive aid, they are fired upon, Either by the IDF or by armed GHF
volunteers.
Pictures - or in this case, videos - don’t lie. There are
people starving in Gaza. The only questions are: how many, and who is
responsible?
Those questions are being answered daily by a media that
regurgitates what they are told by the Hamas-run Health Ministry, NGO
volunteers, and UN staff. All of whom report that Gaza is entering the early
stages of a famine caused by Israel. (Totally ignoring what Israel tells them.)
That narrative is being bought hook, line, and sinker by anyone who has
witnessed the daily scenes: Israel’s continued airstrikes, groups of
Palestinians groveling for food and receiving meager amounts - if any at all -
and media images of starving children, either on the brink of death or already
gone, their bodies looking like skeletons covered in a thin layer of skin.
At this point, it almost doesn’t matter how you feel about
Israel or whether you think their war is justified. What matters are those
images: people starving to death. That’s what’s being broadcast. That it is at
the hands of Israel - is being sold by the media as the sole truth. It’s hard
to argue with those images.
Even the president is convinced. He told reporters....
..that Israel bears “a lot of responsibility” for the
crisis, rebuking Netanyahu, who had claimed earlier that day that “there is no
starvation in Gaza.”
Asked whether he agreed with that assessment, Trump
responded:
“I don’t know. Based on television, I would say not
particularly, because those children look very hungry.”
He later added:
“We can save a lot of people—I mean, some of those kids.
That’s real starvation; I see it, and you can’t fake tat. So we’re going to be
even more involved.”
‘Based on Television.’
EXACTLY!
To be honest, I tend to believe that much of what is seen on
television is presented to make starvation look far more widespread than it
actually is. One has to wonder, for example, why so many of the parents of
these starving children appear to be so well-fed.
However, as the president said, the ones who are starving
are not faking it. They are truly starving. And there’s no doubt that it’s
because of the ongoing war. (That being said, I can guarantee that not a single
Hamas terrorist is starving.)
This is where I fault the prime minister.
Even if he’s right that there is no general starvation among
Palestinians, making that claim while such harrowing images are being broadcast
is simply unwise. Blaming Hamas - as he does - is correct. But denying
starvation altogether, in the face of a massively successful PR campaign to the
contrary by the Hamas-run Health Ministry, their willing collaborators in the
UN, and various NGOs, makes Israel look like it's deliberately starving the
entire population while simultaneously denying it – despite the clear
‘evidence’ and could not care less. ‘Evidence’ so convincing that even Israel’s
greatest ally of all time in the White House seems to believe it.
Thankfully, the prime minister has since ordered a
10-hour-a-day pause in fighting to allow the entry of hundreds of food trucks.
Israel has also begun airdropping food packages in coordination with Jordan and
the UAE.
The fear that Hamas will commandeer all that food and resell
it at exorbitant prices to its own people in order to fund terrorism is
legitimate. But the negative PR of not allowing food in for that
reason is overwhelming and can’t be ignored.
There are only so many times you can point to Hamas as the
cause of starvation while the media overwhelms that narrative with those
harrowing images and continually blaming it on Israel - before the Jewish state
is seen as the vilest nation on earth and its leader is seen as a monster. If
it isn’t already the case in some circles.
Meanwhile, the hostages have been all but forgotten.
Hamas continues to win the PR war while holding Jewish
hostages for nearly two years. And yet Israel is the villain?
Israel is being blamed for everything that has happened -
and is happening in Gaza. That is how a world whose treatment of the Jewish
people throughout its sordid history has been – shall we say - less than
honorable - is reacting. And that is how the knee jerk liberal
media is spinning it. As have a number of left leaning Jews in academia,
politics, and other prominent public positions. As if Hamas has nothing to
do with Palestinian suffering. Nope. It’s all Israel. It’s all Netanyahu.
Israel should not have attacked Gaza, critics say, because
too many civilians would be killed. But they did - and that is what
happened.
So, what should Israel have done? Emptied their prisons?
That wouldn't have solved anything. Maybe they should have just handed over
their country to Hamas? Then not a single Palestinian would have been killed.
Not a single Palestinian child would have starved. Because if there is no
Jewish state, there is no Jewish problem.
As long as the Jews hold onto a single inch of ‘Palestinian land’ there will be bloodshed. And if the world has their way, Israel will never be able to do anything about it.
