Antony Blinken was asked yesterday at a State Department press briefing if he agreed with the EU’s Josep Borrell that Israel was using starvation as a weapon in Gaza, and he gave this answer:
What we’ve seen in terms of food as well as other supplies, going to your – the second part of your question, is of course the Israelis have been not only allowing food in, they have been working to make sure that it gets in and gets to people who need it. We’ve seen throughout this process, first, the opening of Rafah back in October. After my first visit to Israel, many hours of discussion, Rafah opened. Assistance began to get in. We went back some weeks later. We got agreement to open Kerem Shalom. During the first pause, the hostage pause, one week, the amount of assistance that was then going in doubled during that period of time
Since then, we’ve pressed them on doing things like getting flour in from Ashdod; I mentioned that a short while ago. The flour that is now getting into Gaza is enough to produce bread to last for six months in Gaza. We have a new opening that was just put in place that will facilitate more assistance going in. And of course, I talked about the maritime corridor that we’re building. We’ve been doing air drops. The bottom line is food is getting in, but it’s insufficient. That’s why we’re talking about doing everything possible to maximize not only what gets in but what gets to people.
If the occupying power of a territory deprives the population of basic necessities and objects indispensable for survival for five months but occasionally lets in a trickle of aid, they are still collectively punishing the population and deliberately starving them. The evidence that the Israeli government has been blocking the delivery of humanitarian aid is also overwhelming. Refugees International released a report on this last week:
Despite its claims to be facilitating humanitarian aid, research and analysis by Refugees International shows that Israeli conduct has consistently and groundlessly impeded aid operations within Gaza, blocked legitimate relief operations, and resisted implementing measures that would genuinely enhance the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza.
Blinken talks about “doing everything possible to maximize” what gets to the people of Gaza, but it is obvious that our government isn’t doing that. Instead our government settles for dangerous and ineffective stunts and token aid deliveries that cannot prevent or mitigate the famine that is already happening. The executive director of Doctors Without Borders USA had this to say in response to the president’s announcement of the building of a temporary pier:
The US plan for a temporary pier in Gaza to increase the flow of humanitarian aid is a glaring distraction from the real problem: Israel’s indiscriminate and disproportionate military campaign and punishing siege. The food, water, and medical supplies so desperately needed by people in Gaza are sitting just across the border. Israel needs to facilitate rather than block the flow of supplies. This is not a logistics problem; it is a political problem. Rather than look to the US military to build a work-around, the US should insist on immediate humanitarian access using the roads and entry points that already exist.
Read the rest of the article at Eunomia
Daniel Larison is a contributing editor for Antiwar.com and maintains his own site at Eunomia. He is former senior editor at The American Conservative. He has been published in the New York Times Book Review, Dallas Morning News, World Politics Review, Politico Magazine, Orthodox Life, Front Porch Republic, The American Scene, and Culture11, and was a columnist for The Week. He holds a PhD in history from the University of Chicago, and resides in Lancaster, PA. Follow him on Twitter.
Mar 7, 2024 Unprecedented War Crimes: Eyewitness Truth in Gaza Hospitals w/ Dr. Thaer Ahmad
Having just returned from nearly a month treating the wounded in Gaza, emergency physician Dr. Thaer Ahmad talks with Abby Martin about the abduction/torture of doctors and hospitals under constant siege.
https://youtu.be/REnN_dLtrLA?si=VxJfxjjmTpZTnjYg
To be or not to be, Oh ISRAHELL?…
A liar with straight face.
No one seems to get that these people in the administration CAN NOT and DO NOT WANT TO do the things everyone is saying they need to do.
First they CAN NOT – because the Israel lobby holds their jobs in their hands – and no human being is going to trash his livelihood – i.e., his survival – and more importantly, his status in society – which is the same thing – just to help someone else. That’s not human nature. Look at human history. It just doesn’t happen.
Humans are hierarchical primates. The alphas hold their position by being absolutely ruthless to the betas to the point of killing females and children. The alpha chimpanzee upon assuming control of the group rips apart all the young sired by the earlier alpha. So imagining Blinken gives a rat’s ass about dead Palestinian children is just delusional. He care infinitely more about his station in life as Secretary of State of a nuclear power.
Second, they DO NOT WANT – because they are already supportive of Israel and are basically white racist imperialists to begin with, just like the Israelis. What part of “Blinken is Jewish” don’t you people get? His father was Donald M. Blinken, a co-founder of the investment bank Warburg Pincus and later served as the U.S. ambassador to Hungary. Do you see the white racist imperialism embedded in that family history?
People need to stop saying “what needs to be done” – because it’s not going to be done. What “needs to be done” is Israel militarily destroyed by the Axis of Resistance and all Zionists driven out of Palestine – or killed.
Another day closer to plausible Genocide becoming an actual finding of Genocide.
Starvation as a method of warfare is a war crime under human rights law, humanitarian law, the Rome Statue of the ICC, and in the irony of all ironies under the UNSC’s unanimous Resolution 2417 (2018) through which, without the veto, Blinken might be asked if the US agreed with the sanctions the SC levied against it.
A fantastic, though technically not impossible, strawman. The US created the never written, ever changing to it’s advantage Rules-Based-International-Order, or Rules for Thee Not We to the global majority, is coming to it’s end and if the new order delivers justice there will be consequences for the US’s complicity in Genocide. With an eye on that future distance is what EU Parliament President Josep Borrell put between it and the US last week telling the UNSC Israel is creating the humanitarian crisis and using starvation as warfare.
It doesn’t appear our“allies” are going to go down with Genocide Joe & Company. But we will.
“Starvation as a method of warfare is a war crime under human rights law, humanitarian law, the Rome Statue of the ICC, and…under the UNSC’s unanimous Resolution 2417 (2018)”
Hm!
1/ “Adopting Resolution 2417 (2018), Security Council Strongly Condemns Starving of Civilians, Unlawfully Denying Humanitarian Access as Warfare Tactics”
https://press.un.org/en/2018/sc13354.doc.htm
2/ Follow-up to yesterday’s UN charge re Israel deliberately restricting aid:
“Israel’s restrictions to Gaza aid may be war crime, says UN rights office” (Reuters, 3/19 – today)
“Israeli ‘Use of Starvation’ as Weapon in Gaza Would Be ‘War Crime’: UN Rights Chief” (Commondreams, 3/19)
What don’t you understand?
Living in an alternative and make believe US reality.