Road to Famine: Israeli Law Prof. Neve Gordon on Israel’s History of Weaponizing Food Access in Gaza DemocracyNow!, April 4, 2024 https://www.democracynow.org/2024/4/4/neve_gordon_israel_palestine_hunger_gaza . . . NEVE GORDON: ... We’re seeing destruction, and we’re seeing massive displacement, in an area that’s already food-insecure. And then we’re seeing Israel obstructing aid from entering Gaza. So, on average, in the past six months, 112 trucks have been entering per day, while before October 7th, 500 trucks were entering each day. We’re seeing consistent attacks on aid workers, as you mentioned in the previous item, with, on average, one aid worker being killed every day. And we’re seeing the destruction of one-third of the agricultural land in the Gaza Strip, 20% of the greenhouses and 70% of the fishing vessels in the Gaza Strip, so no internal food can be produced in the Gaza Strip. And as you mentioned earlier, what we’re witnessing, and what Reem and Khuloud have just expressed, is the most horrific situation a parent can experience, is their children dying in front of them of famine. . . . Then comes 2005, Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, the movement of its soldiers to the fence, the beginning use of the drones over the Gaza skies. And after Hamas wins in democratic elections in the Gaza Strip, we see the implementation of a blockade, where Israel basically blocks the Gaza Strip and monitors very carefully what enters and what exits. It further destroys more agricultural land. And then it creates — the Ministry of Defense, with the Ministry of Health, creates lists of items that can enter the Gaza Strip and items that cannot enter. So, flour and baby formula can enter, but chocolate and certain kinds of pastas cannot enter. And Israel begins to monitor the calorie intake of the population and creates what’s called — it called a “humanitarian minimum.” “We will allow,” Israel says, “a humanitarian minimum to aid to enter the Gaza Strip,” leaving the population regularly in a situation of food insecurity and controlling and managing the population through food insecurity. And every time there is a cycle of violence — and there’s been five major cycle of violence since 2008 until today — Israel closes off all of the borders, and what had been a food insecurity before the cycle of violence drops dramatically, and we see incidents of malnutrition and so forth. . . . *NERMEEN SHAIKH:* And, Professor Neve Gordon, you make the case in your article <https://www.nybooks.com/online/2024/03/30/the-road-to-famine-in-gaza/> that — and this is perhaps one of the most surprising things — that Israel has made no attempt to conceal its policy of restricting food to Gaza. You cite Sara Roy’s earlier piece <https://www.nybooks.com/online/2023/12/19/the-long-war-on-gaza/> in *The New York Review of Books*, quoting her citation of a cable sent from the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv to the secretary of state on November 3rd, 2008. The cable reads, “As part of their overall embargo plan against Gaza, Israeli officials have confirmed to [embassy officials] on multiple occasions that they intend to keep the Gazan economy on the brink of collapse without quite pushing it over the edge.” So, if you could elaborate on that and what you understand the justification of that to be, and why they were so — why they would be so disclosive about it to the Americans? . . . NEVE GORDON: ... And it is not shy in doing so. It is basically asserting its control and letting the Palestinians in Gaza know who is the lord of the land, and letting the American counterparts also know who is the lord of the land. And through this, we see a situation where the economics — the major reason for the food insecurity in the Gaza Strip before this war was indeed the blockade. But the blockade, what it does, it strangles the Gaza Strip economically. So, a year before the war, we have a GDP per capita in the Gaza Strip of about $1,000 per person, while in Israel it’s $52,000. ...
And the message was clear from the beginning: “We control you. If you do not bow down, then we will hit you harder.” And that’s what Israel has been doing for years in the Gaza Strip. And that’s what it’s been — and the Americans have been watching. Americans have been seeing this happen. And the Americans have not said anything to Israel in this sense and not stopped Israel’s actions. ... . . . *Israel Is Wielding Starvation as a Weapon of War* by Amy Goodman and Denis Monahan, DNow!, April 4 https://www.democracynow.org/2024/4/4/israel_is_wielding_starvation_as_a On Thu, Apr 4, 2024 at 2:20 PM Charles Keener via groups.io <ckeener20005= [email protected]> wrote: > > As the world reels from the World Central Kitchen attack in which seven > aid workers in Gaza were struck and killed by three separate Israeli > missiles while delivering aid for starving Palestinians, we speak with > prominent Israeli scholar Neve Gordon about Israel’s history of weaponizing > food access in the Gaza Strip via the destruction of Palestinian > agricultural land, labor restrictions and blockade, “controlling and > managing the population through food insecurity.” Neve Gordon is a > professor of human rights law and author of multiple books on Israel’s > occupation of Palestine whose latest essay for *The New York Review of > Books* is titled “The Road to Famine in Gaza.” Now as aid deliveries dry > up amid fears of further attacks on humanitarian workers, Gordon emphasizes > that “Israel has been controlling the food basket and using it as a weapon > since the beginning of the occupation until today.” > > Road to Famine: Israeli Law Prof. Neve Gordon on Israel’s History of > Weaponizing Food Access in Gaza | Democracy Now! > <https://www.democracynow.org/2024/4/4/neve_gordon_israel_palestine_hunger_gaza> > > The Road to Famine: Israel’s History of Using Food Access as Weapon in Gaza > > As the world reels from the World Central Kitchen attack in which seven > aid workers in Gaza were struck and kill... > > <https://www.democracynow.org/2024/4/4/neve_gordon_israel_palestine_hunger_gaza> > > > The Road to Famine in Gaza | Neve Gordon | The New York Review of Books > (nybooks.com) > <https://www.nybooks.com/online/2024/03/30/the-road-to-famine-in-gaza/> > > The Road to Famine in Gaza | Neve Gordon > > Muna Haddad > > In the days that followed Hamas’s heinous October 7 attack on military > bases, kibbutzim, towns, and the Nova mus... > <https://www.nybooks.com/online/2024/03/30/the-road-to-famine-in-gaza/> > > > -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#29793): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/29793 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/105336776/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. #4 Do not exceed five posts a day. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/8674936/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
