The Trump administration has made famine denialism the official policy of the United States:
The US rejected a United Nations-backed report that declared a famine in Gaza, breaking with other members of the UN Security Council as it denied that Israel was engaged in a “policy of starvation” in the enclave as part of the war with Hamas.
The U.S. position is unsurprising, but it is despicable. Denying the famine in Gaza is another black mark on our country’s reputation. The administration’s dismissive response to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC)’s Famine Review Committee report is a disgrace. It is another ugly element of an indefensible policy of unconditional support for a genocidal regime.
The Famine Review Committee has been closely following the man-made humanitarian disaster in Gaza since the beginning. As they put it in the report’s executive summary, “Never before has the Committee had to return so many times to the same crisis, a stark reflection of how suffering has not only persisted but intensified and spread until famine has begun to emerge.” The famine is “entirely man-made,” and there is no question about who is responsible for it. This is Israel’s man-made atrocity famine.
The IPC does not reach its conclusions lightly, and if anything they are overly cautious in their analysis. There was famine in Gaza well before they made their declaration, but they wouldn’t make that call until they were sure. They have still been sounding the alarm for the last year and a half about the approaching famine to no avail. The same governments that now dismiss the declaration ignored all those warnings as Gaza was driven into famine by Israel.
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Daniel Larison is a weekly columnist 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.
