Peace Starts with Our Shared Humanity

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

Last week I listened to Ron Dermer, Israel's Minister of Strategic Affairs, give an interview in which he said basically that there was no starvation occurring in Gaza and that stories which said otherwise were just being circulated to make Israel look bad.  Dermer spoke rapidly and kept talking over the person trying to conduct the interview, much like a caricature of a used car salesman who didn't want to give his customers time to think about the lemon of a deal he was trying to sell them.  Ron Dermer was  also peddling a lemon.

People are starving in Gaza, and the whole world knows it.  The old, infirm, and the young are especially at risk.  The situation was bad when Dermer was rattling off his carefully packaged propaganda, and it is dire today.

The World Central Kitchen, an international food charity program founded and run by celebrity chef Jose Andres, one of the finest humans ever to walk the earth, has served over 42 million meals to the refugees in Gaza since the war between Israel and Hamas began on October 7th of last year.  The work of Chef Andres and his many volunteers has been the most significant factor in staving off a mass starvation of the populace, but Israel seems to regard humanitarian operations, especially hospitals, as suspect and they continue to be targets of Israeli military operations.

This week the feeding operations also became targets.  Seven staff members of the World Central Kitchen were killed in a convoy carrying food from a supply warehouse to a feeding center in a trip that had been organized with the Israeli military and was proceeding across a "deconflicted zone" on routes that had been coordinated with Israeli Defense Forces - and it clearly marked vehicles.  The small convoy was attacked three times over a distance of more than a mile-and-a-half as wounded survivors struggled to escape.  Three of the seven dead were Brits and one was a Canadian-American dual citizen.

Great Britain and the Untied States have both provided weapons to Israel in the current war effort.

Israel described the deadly attack on third-party humanitarian workers as "unintended," but again the convoy was following a prescribed route with he knowledge of the Israelis, they were in vehicles that were clearly marked, and the attack happened three times over a distance of more than a mile-and-a-half.  The attackers just would not stop.

President Biden telephoned Chef Andres and offered his condolences over the deaths of the charity's workers, but thoughts and prayers won't put food in a child's belly, or bring back the heroes who placed themselves in harm's way to serve humanity.

The assault on the civilian food charity has had a chilling effect on humanitarian efforts in the war zone.  The World Central Kitchen has suspended its operations in Gaza.  Starvation was happening before, even as Ron Dermer lied about it, and it will be far worse now.  (Could that have been the ultimate objective of the attack?)

Chef Andres posted this on X (Twitter):

"The Israeli government needs to stop this indiscriminate killing.  It needs to stop restricting humanitarian aid, stop killing civilians and aid workers, and stop using food as a weapon.   No more innocent lives lost.  Peace starts with our shared humanity.  It needs to start now."

Amen.