Is there famine in Gaza?

Among the many prisms of depression since Hamas invaded Israel six months ago have been the distortions and gaps in the press coverage.

I refer not to the anti-Semitism, the blatant hatred of Israel. I can’t change that. I find it more disturbing to witness the subtle expressions of hostility, the sins of omission and commission that pass, precisely for not being blatant. These, I can call attention to and we can all object to those who publish them.

Even in such an esteemed publication as the Wall Street Journal I read earlier in the week a reference to the West Bank before 1967 as Palestinian land.

This is an anachronism.

A Palestinian identity, separate from the larger Arab nation, did not emerge as a cultural and political identity until after the Six Day War of 1967, which freed the West Bank and Gaza of Jordanian control and freed its residents to pursue their own identity.

Even on the level of the political and intellectual elite, the founders of the Palestinian Liberation Organization did not refer in their founding charter to a distinct Palestinian identity unambiguously. The charter makes references to Palestine and to Palestinians, but equally so to Palestinians as “Arab nationals,” to Palestine as an “indivisible part of the Arab homeland,” to the “Zionist aggression against the Arab homeland,” and so forth — hardly a ringing affirmation of a distinctly Palestinian identity.

It becomes a tautology to observe that there can be no unambiguous Palestinian land before 1967 if there were no unambiguous Palestinian identity before 1967. Yet, the WSJ says there was.

The WSJ also referred to an archipelago of cities, towns and small outposts built up on the West Bank “after 1967.” This is true only in the sense that the Bush administration’s successful surge in Iraq in 2007 came after 9/11 in 2001 —six years later!

Not a single settlement was built in Samaria before 1974 — seven years after 1967 — because, after 1967, Israel was waiting for an Arab leader to step forward and negotiate for peace in the area. No Arab peace partner stepped forward. Even so, Israel referred to the West Bank as “the administered territories,” pointedly eschewing the term, “the new territories.” By 1974, some Israelis said: well, if Arabs don’t want to govern the territory, let us return to this segment of our ancestral homeland.

All these facts are obscured by the WSJ’s reference to Israeli settlements “on what had been Palestinian land.”

Ignorance of history fills the reporting on the Israel-Arab and Israel-Palestinian conflicts. It is ignorance with an anti-Israel innuendo: you know, the Palestinian land that Israel stole.

The perverse brilliance of the mistakes in media coverage of Israel since Oct. 7 is that they are simple to state, but complicated to untangle. By the time the mistakes are unraveled, Israel loses. A related example: Is there famine in Gaza?

There certainly is, if I believe the reports I read. And why shouldn’t I believe what I read? And isn’t it horrible if there is famine in Gaza? And if there is, isn’t it clear that Israel is at fault?

Begin with whether I should believe what I read. To me, “famine” means: no food. When I first read this, I said to myself: this is horrible.

I first read last December that Gaza was on the verge of famine. Now, in April, I am still reading: Gaza is on the verge of famine. What happened in the intervening four months? Can an area be “on the verge” for four months?

Similarly, can hospitals in Gaza be “running out of fuel” since Oct. 17? Can one be “running out” for six months? Did the hospitals actually run out? If so, why wasn’t this reported? Were the hospitals resupplied? If so, why wasn’t this reported? And if they were resupplied, by whom? Were the hospitals ever “running out?” I don’t know the answers to these questions, but I do know that the reporting — that the hospitals are “running out of fuel” for months — harms Israel, and often seems calculated to harm Israel.

Back to the apparently promiscuous invocation of “on the verge of famine,” which shapes the narrative that media construct about Israel.

While I’m reading about the famine, I also now read this week that Hamas has lowered food prices in Gaza, except that Gazans don’t have money to buy it. But wait, I thought there was no food in Gaza. Then I read that Israel killed (mistakenly) aid workers from World Central Kitchen in Gaza. But wait. Aid workers? How could there be no food in Gaza if aid workers are providing food? And the aid workers are not only from WCK. They are also from Anera, a Palestinian aid agency.

I also read that Israel killed 200 aid workers. Put aside, for the moment, whether this is accurate or, even if it is, whether these workers were part of Hamas like many UNRWA employees were part of Hamas — put all that aside for another opportunity in order to focus on this:

If 200 aid workers were killed, that means that there were hundreds and hundreds of more aid workers. But wait. I thought Gaza was “on the verge of famine.” Given all this contradictory information — lower food prices, famine, hundreds of aid workers, etc. — I don’t know what to believe about famine in Gaza.

There is more contradictory information. I have read that Israel was withholding food from Gaza, but when I saw the numbers this week, I learned that Israel has delivered more than 374,540 tons of humanitarian supplies to Gaza since Oct. 7.

All this contradictory information doesn’t get out equally, only Gaza being “on the verge of famine” or “hospitals running out of fuel.” All this generates hostility toward Israel and fortifies the narrative of Israel as bad as, or worse than, Hamas.

My point in all this is not to say that there is, or is not, famine in Gaza, and certainly not to be horrified if there is. And I certainly hope there is not. No, my point is different. My point is about the media coverage — the narrative. The way “Gaza on the verge of famine” is repeated again and again, with contradictory news dribbling out sporadically as hostility to Israel builds dramatically. You know, the Israel that stole all that pre-1967 Palestinian land.

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