Gaza’s Missing Famine

How did Israel become, per a Jerusalem Post headline, a “toxic brand?” Reasons abound for how Democrats, their socialist wing, and some on the right made scapegoating the Jewish state part of the Democratic Party. Changed demographics, collegiate indoctrination, and foreign interference come to mind. The Gaza war reignited the world’s oldest hatred. Yet at the heart of it is not the suffering of Arabs but Israel’s “guilt.”It is difficult to listen without cringing to United Nations statements in the months and years since Hamas attempted, on October 7, 2023, to annihilate all Israeli Jews. The world body did more than any to inverse that day’s atrocities. Predictions of imminent “famine” in Gaza, for one, were ubiquitous. The alleged man-made starving of the Strip’s Arab population never materialized, but the warnings kept coming. Now a new report, issued last week by the UN Children’s Fund, finds that 0.6 percent of children in Gaza are suffering from acute malnutrition. That’s slightly worse than Germany or Britain, where 0.5 percent of children starve. Gaza is better than Finland’s 1.6 percent. In the strip’s neighboring Egypt 3.3 percent of children are malnourished. Iran clocks at 4.3 percent and Yemen at 16.8 percent. None of those ever made the New York Times’ front page.That a now infamous Times photo in fact depicted a child suffering from “existing health problems,” rather than, as originally stated, malnutrition, is beside the point. As in any war, Gazans, including children, suffer tremendously. The Jews-is-news meme, though, turned Gaza into an avatar of Israel’s alleged evil. On America’s streets, in academia, the press, and Congress an idea — Israel, uniquely, is beyond the pale — became received wisdom.The Israeli government is not “aligned with U.S. national security objectives,” Senator Chris Murphy claimed on NBC Sunday. Did any other pilots fly alongside Americans in the Iran war? Senator Chris Van Hollen calls on Ambassador Mike Huckabee to resign because he is an “apologist for the extremist government in Israel.” We wonder if the senator has heard of Ambassador Tom Barrack, who is known across the Mideast as Ankara’s man at Washington. Unlike their Socialist allies, Democrats like Messrs. Murphy and Van Hollen claim to support Israel, but not the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Yet in contrast to some of the countries with which these solons do side, Israelis can choose their leaders. We’d hazard that General Gadi Eisenkot, if he wins the October 27 election, will mostly stick with the war policies these Israel detractors disparage.That is because the global assault on the Jewish state is based on much fiction, misunderstanding of the realities Israel faces, and the real threat to the citizens of America’s most reliable Mideast ally. Some detractors say they don’t hate Jews, just Zionists. Others claim to love Israel, but not Mr. Netanyahu. Yet no serious Israeli premiership candidate is running on, say, promoting a Palestinian state, which is a must on the American left. Will the assault on the Jewish state, then, end if a new government is formed at Jerusalem? We doubt it. Following October 7, erroneous assumptions are deeply ingrained in too many quarters. The problem is less what Israel is doing and more how its enemies portray its battle to thrive in a hostile environment. Gaza, meanwhile, will suffer as long as hatred persists, regardless of the unprecedented global aid it gets with Israel’s assistance.

Gaza’s Missing Famine

Gaza’s Missing Famine

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