Gaza on the Brink of Famine
The Atlantic, Alan Taylor
The United Nations is warning that famine in Gaza is “almost inevitable.” Palestinians living in Gaza are struggling with extreme shortages of food, clean water, and medicine. Several countries, including Jordan, France, Egypt, the U.S., the United Arab Emirates, and now Germany, are coordinating airdrops of humanitarian aid to help alleviate the crisis, and the U.S. military is working to a build a temporary port on Gaza’s coastline to bring in additional aid. Critics have pointed out that airdrops and a temporary pier are insufficient, dangerous, and haphazard operations compared with ensuring a steady and reliable supply of aid delivered by trucks, which might be achieved by a cease-fire agreement. Gathered below are recent images from the growing crisis in the Gaza Strip.
You figure out what to say. I believe it is time for Israel to stop.
Biden should use U.S. aid and weapons resupply as leverage to get Gaza humanitarian relief and to halt the indiscriminate bombing of civilian areas, but he won’t. It’s a blind spot.
@Jack,
I don’t think Biden has much leverage with weapons shipments. He can stipulate how the ones we ship can be used, but Israel can make the weapons it needs in house.
Perhaps but they do seem to rely on our shipments. I don’t know why we don’t let them do it on their own if they can.
oh, boy, here i go again
first, I think Biden has been trying to moderate the Israeli reponse. maybe proving weapons is the only leverage he has. i can think of no reason America would have to encourage more hate in the middle east. what history i have read seems to me to bear me out, unless you think it is all lies.
second, before the latest Hamas terror attack you might have convinced me that Netanyahu was a bad guy. But first and least, when I have heard Netanyahu talk about defending Israel he has made sense to me. That does not mean I agree with the present stage of Israel response to Hamas. But
third: Israel’s response to Hamas is pure, deep, human nature. And you would respond the same if you were hurt and you had power to reply. “Humanitarian values” are a new thing under the sun and a very hard sell to people who have been attacked or feel threatened. Call it racism if you want, Israel did not invent it. Neither did America. It’s been with us a long time.
As far as I know the first person to point out that it was self defeating was someone you don’t want to hear about. Neither did his countymen. It’s been a long time coming. Advocate it. Practice it. But don’t be surprised when you “demand” it, and the other guy says, wait until i kill this guy who attacked my kids.
typo
providing not proving
Biden could say: ‘Stop, this is the 21st century’!
In the middle ages if the fort/castle refused to surrender the attacker if successful could put everyone to the sword. Pope said so!
US could cut spare parts for Boeing and Lockheed aircraft! Could stop shipping guidance kits for certain bombs. Could cut off the annual aid.
US is aiding the medieval carnage.
While the ratio of innocent dead to Hamas dead is massive!
Schumer is at wits’ end!
The only thing that distinguishes the Israeli/Hamas violence from an “ordinary” criminal act requiring police action is the size of it. If a criminal had taken people hostage and was demanding something/anything, ordinary police action would not be to destroy the building where the hostages were being held. There might be SWAT teams in place to try to rescue the hostages, or ransom paid, or efforts to sneak into the building and engage the hostage takers. Here, it seems clear, the Israelis are assuming that all residents of Gaza are complicit with Hamas and therefore do not deserve protection. It reminds me of Mayor Rizzo in Philadelphia, years ago, authorizing the bombing of tenement buildings where some of the residents had shot at and killed or injured police officers. Rizzo was roundly and properly criticized for pronouncing the guilt of all of the residents. Israel, in this instance, is Rizzo. It has decided that the lives of its military are more important than the lives of the Palestinians and therefore are not willing to engage in street fighting. I agree it’s a human response. Not all human responses are right or appropriate. Its response should not be aided by the United States in my opinion.
I think the “street fighting” idea is a bit off-base. In almost no situation is a force with longer-range firepower going to close on an enemy without that range but with good short-range capability. Hamas understands this and stays in close connection with large groups of non-combatants to stay Israel’s hand at least a little. Except in a few tactical situations there were not going to be close contact pitched battles. It’s much more a matter of how much Israel is going to respect human shields. So far the tentative answer is they respect it a lot, but less than in past conflicts. If Israel actually was using the weaponry they have indiscriminately, the Gaza casualties would be way, way higher…hundreds of thousands dead.
Just like the Sơn Mỹ Massacre in 1968. You may know it as My Lai. You do not get to murder people indiscriminately because you think they look like VietCong or Hamas.
Jackd
probably my opinion too. but not Israel’s opinion. Meanwhile both the US and Israel have to consider the overall strategic probable results of whatever action they take. As far as I have been able to tell, this never places much weight on humanitarian values. Closest it comes to that is it’s effect on political opinions that may affect future strategic situation. I don’t like it and never have. But soldiers and their leaders have to be very practical. Sometimes the humanatarian course would be the best… but i wouldn’t count on the soldiers seeing it that way.
.
Rizzo was not in the same situation. He was killing his own people. And I wouldn’t be too confident about the SWAT team not shooting you in all the excitement.
All I am saying is don’t expect anybody to be as humanitarian as they say they like to think they are, not even you or me. “Being human” is not a moral choice, no more than a lion or an avalanch.
to try to put it another way, in the back of their brains the Israelis are trying to exterminate a nest of predators who have killed one of their children. they do not discriminate between the innocent and the guilty. They, we, never have. Putin is right in accusing us of the same crimes he is committing. But that does not mean we can or should ignore the crimes he is committing. No, I didn’t change the subject.
For what it is worth, I have opposed all of Americas wars since Vietnam. They were stupid as well as inhumane. But it was the inhumanity that i felt, i only learned they were stupid later. We have a duty..both moral and self interested..to prevent “our” wars. But I don’t think we are in a position to feel morally superior to other people who are fighting, or think they are fighting, for their lives. Israel has lived with terrorism for 80 years. It is futile to say ‘oo started it.
I don’t like it either. How do you feel about Egypt and Jordan and lebanon opening their doors to the Palestinians until a “two state solution” looks like it would work?
They won’t do it, fearing correctly that Israel would never let the Palestinians reenter Gaza. That’s the same reason Jordan refused Palestinian refugees in 1948. by the way, I doubt Rizzo felt he was killing his own people, whatever we might think. I still see a similarity.
similarity, of course, but what about the differences?
and how “humanitarian” is the “won’t let them” policy of egypt etc?
i think i have nothing more to say. i don’t want to argue about what israel is doing. just pointed out that it’s pretty basic “human nature.” and i have some doubt about progressives using it as an excuse to sit by and let Biden lose to Trump.
and it is also exactly what Hamas expected and intended.
I couldn’t agree more about the progressives.
Air drops are insufficient – WSJ
(The WSJ article is behind a paywall.)
Airdrops and sea routes are no alternative to aid delivery by land
Amnesty Int’l – March 13