Palestine: How to Live with Hunger

The welfare argument cannot be heard anymore, now that one in two Gaza and West Bank households is "food insecure" or in danger of becoming so, as a UN report recently revealed. Not that it changed anything for the Israeli expansionists: once that colonialist argument became obsolete, the supporters of the occupation switched to other excuses. That's the nice thing about the politics of the occupation: the support for it is based on excuses, not reasons. Whenever one excuse fails, Israel's propaganda machine offers another.

It's interesting to observe, however, how Israelis nowadays cope with what used to be such a popular excuse. Having claimed the occupation ameliorated Palestinian life, Israelis now have to face hunger and starvation at their doorstep. How do they live with it?

Starvation Cannot Be Overlooked

Israelis, of course, are human beings. As such, they are seldom indifferent to human suffering. The other week, for example, James Morris, retiring from the United Nations World Food Program, was quoted saying 18,000 children worldwide were starving to death every day. These words, on Israel's popular Hebrew Web site Ynet (Feb. 17), attracted 100 compassionate readers' replies. Many of them simply showed their deep sympathy: "It breaks one's heart," "Terrible," "Inconceivable figure, incredible," "How can one put to bed a hungry child?" to quote just a few. Several readers even asked where one could donate. Others recalled the extreme inequality behind the figures: "Looks like a billion hungry people don't bother the 5 billion who are not," or, "At the same time, the world's richest swim in their money." Some readers tried to imagine faces behind the figures: "The world doesn't care about black people." Several comments mentioned the role of the media: "This topic doesn't get 10% of the media coverage given to some forgotten wars." Still others tried a deeper analysis, with comments like "Cruel, materialistic world will soon pay the price," or, "Result of capitalism which leads to social and environmental crises," or even, "All this while the Americans pour $100 billion a year on wars." This was the overwhelming tone of the Israeli reactions to world hunger: human sensitivity, compassion, and empathy, even with some critical political analysis.

Palestinian Plight

A word about the Palestinian plight. The Palestinian territories haven't suffered an earthquake, tsunami, famine, or any other natural disaster in the recent decades. Their constantly deteriorating economic situation is 100-percent man-made. As the UN and many other reports state, the main causes for the poverty are political: namely, Israeli-imposed closures, and the international and Israeli boycott of the PA. The PA is the biggest employer in the Palestinian territories. Boycotting it to the extent of its being unable to pay wages, in a society crushed by years of Israeli military and economic oppression, inevitably leads to massive poverty. In other words, Israel and the international community are punishing the Palestinian population with hunger for democratically electing the "wrong" party, Hamas. A punishment of biblical dimensions, as suits the Holy Land, with PM Olmert and Condoleezza Rice playing Jehovah.

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