Famines are always man-made. This fact has been recognised at least as far back as the Victorian era; famines are never merely about a lack of access to food - they're about the active withholding of access to food, from one group of people, by another. And no famine in history has been more obviously manufactured than Israel's famine in Gaza, in which thousands of tonnes of food sit hundreds of meters away from scenes like this: There are literally tens of thousands of trucks waiting to get food into Gaza. One phone call from Donald Trump could get them in. One order from Netanyahu could get them in. Israel, the US, and Israel's 'allies' (a better word would be accomplices ) in Europe, have chosen every day since October 9th 2023 to withhold food and water from an entire population. And this isn't the first time for Israel. Back in 2005, Israel launched Operation 'First Rain' on the people of Gaza. As the Israeli-British historian Ilan Pappé writes: ...
"A land without people, for a people without a land": this was the dream for Israel, advocated for by Zionists as far back as the late 1800s. This single statement encapsulates the inherently genocidal logic (and the counterintuitive justification) used to construct a state of Israel on Palestinian territory. The land was populated by hundreds of thousands of people before the first European settlers moved there; very much not a "land without people". And as for the "people without a land", not only did most Jewish people have no interest at all in the creation of an Israeli state, many were actively opposed to it: the Jewish people, more than many other ethnic groups worldwide, knew first-hand where ethnonationalism leads, and wanted no part in it. On these two lies - that Palestine was "without people", and that it should become a Jewish ethno-state - Europe (led by Britain) founded the state of Israel. That state will use any means necessary ...