It’s Wrong, Wrong Wrong

by B Nimri Aziz. May 2025 Carried by Counterpunch

“Starving children”, if you didn’t deduce the urgent it. (No illustrations necessary.)

Emaciated spindly-legged youngsters is easy to imagine – far easier than dealing with those who pull the triggers and their accomplices furnishing the bombs. Easy to share with a neighbor, or a relative. Certainly far easier than wondering about the meaning of ‘Nakba’, about where the occupants of Gaza originated, and why they are confined within 141 square miles, heavily reliant on outside aid, mistreated and dehumanized by their colonizers.

Gazans’ staggering suffering, with no escape from daily, deadly military assaults is, everyone knows, not new. Which is part of the problem of finding ways to end it. For months United Nations agencies, unable to stem the human and physical collapse of civil life have called for a halt to the attacks on Palestinians, especially on children. They repeat evidence of wanton, merciless, pounding, update the toll of 400 dead healthcare professionals, destruction of hospitals, the mounting toll of untreated wounded and hungry. All, it seems, to deaf ears. The call, “Before it’s too late!”; “Before it’s too late!” was implored months ago. Aid administrators, doctors, educators, poets and novelists, celebrity musicians, journalists, religious figures and the young each desperately sought ways to stir humanity into action. Those few politicians who spoke out – Clare Daly, Irish MEP who lost her 2024 reelection bid; Ione Belarra, Spain’s Minister for Social Justice who was fired; discharged British PM Jeremy Corbyn who was ousted on a spurious charge of antisemitism; South African Minister Nelani Pandor who, like erstwhile British MP George Galloway­, failed to be reelected – remain vocal, although now out of office. Among our news organizations, persistent calls for justice and an end to genocide were confined to slivers of outlets managed by a dwindling number of the most daring and dexterous independent journalists and commentators. Even some of those important voices, Richard Medhurst’s for example, have been stilled or weakened.

            Twenty-five years ago, a similar, although rather belatedly, plea rose to address willful starvation and deaths of masses of children— Iraqi children. Those calls appeared not at the time of America’s 2003 invasion of the country but during the thirteen preceding years. Iraqi casualties resulted from a stealthily murderous economic blockade. After years of silence, those calls for lifting the embargo still didn’t stop the punishing policy. (It should be noted the United Nations itself endorsed that blockade. The dying went on.) In contrast to the widely broadcast Israeli bombardments of Gaza, Iraqi children’s deaths were hardly noticed. But what both aggressors had in common was a similarly effective rationalization; a single terrifying word snuffed out any sympathetic thoughts. Those days it was ‘Saddam’; today it’s ‘Hamas’.

Compared to the silent slaughter of Iraqis, Gazan casualties have reached a higher level over a shorter period. Yet, even with undeniably massive destruction and suffering witnessed across the globe arousing millions of us to call for an end to the genocide, that opposition has seemed awesomely ineffective. Few will dispute that the freewheeling Israeli extermination apparatus is possible because of the Zionist state’s practiced, massive PR machinery. It has been directed against international legal institutions, spineless American educators, United Nations agencies themselves, vocal students, elected leaders, and not least, the global media. All oiled by a newly energized, highly potent tool – the charge of antisemitism.

In mid-May this year, an unexpected shift in public opinion seemed to be underway. Statements by a few European leaders and commentaries in major British and U.S. newspapers – opinion makers who had been in complete accord with Israel’s 18 months of smashing, killing, disabling and terrorizing – called for an end to ‘their friend’s’ genocidal policy. So swiftly did Israel counter with a double-pronged strategy that those appeals and Israel’s response seem coordinated. First, Israel appeared to make a concession—it would allow ‘some’ aid into Gaza under limited conditions and military oversight. Simultaneously the Israeli military would increase its presence on the ground and step-up attacks “to eliminate Hamas”.

That qualified ‘aid’ Israel proposed is worth reviewing. It is, as described even in the pro-Israel journal The Economist, ‘a shadowy international foundation’. A joint Israel-American endeavor, the scheme to address charges that Israel is starving Gazans is a distribution mechanism run by themselves, replacing all other aid agencies. Acting with alarming speed, sidestepping established, experienced international organizations like UNICEF, MSF and Oxfam and overriding the well-founded objections and suspicions of their administrators, this new Israeli-U.S. operation is the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).

Some aspects of GHF’s management are not secret. But few journalists have properly scrutinized it. Thus, we again turn to independent journalists to reveal at least some disturbing aspects of its character. Caitlin Johnston, drawing on reports by Jeremy Scahill, Robert Inlakash and Glenn Greenwald are among a handful of surviving journalists critical of Israel willing to examine its nefariousness. Inlakash exposes how Israeli tentacles are wrapped around this newly registered NGO. He quotes an American involved in the scheme saying “is an Israeli plan”. He points to its blatantly militarized operation with the U.S., presumably the chief funder of GHF “outsourcing protection of ‘aid zones’ to U.S.-based private military firms, some of which have direct ties to Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer. GHF, Inlakash notes, “is headed by former U.S. CIA operatives, marines and mercenaries tied to Israeli intelligence that together will control aid operations”. Aid, we learn, “will be distributed directly to families at militarized ‘Secure Aid Distribution Sites’,” reportedly in southern Gaza. While Israeli officials said the army will not enter the aid compounds, they will maintain full control over surrounding areas and access routes. It’s a thorough military operation in every respect. (You may recall other doomed plans (also bypassing the U.N. agencies) to feed Gaza in the early days of the siege. The flawed and failed U.S. military-built floating pier on the Gazan coast, was never functional and was eventually dismantled. Then came airdrops whose loads fell on and killed Gazans rushing to retrieve them. (That ill-managed ‘gift’ was quickly discontinued too.)

Critics, primarily NGO aid administrators who have worked in Gaza, pointed out many flaws of the GHF distribution plan, warning that Israel could use the handouts to discriminate between groups, divide communities, and infiltrate a desperate population by paying favors for food. (People dying and desperate may be more vulnerable to manipulation.)

The second prong of the Israeli reply to the international plea is a defiant announcement that Israel is set for a dramatic military escalation on Gaza. The Israeli prime minister assures us, says Glenn Greenwald, the slaughter will go on, with the IDF moving deeper into the strip to “control the entire territory, to prevent Hamas taking control” of aid. Netanyahu’s declaration is augmented by his finance minister’s assurance that “we are destroying everything in Gaza and the world isn’t stopping us”.

For repeated pleas from the hearts and conscience of the world, Israel reiterates its enduring rationale. Zionism’s incorrigible lust haunts all of us.

Last week marked the five-year anniversary of the undeniably merciless death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. From that injustice grew The Black Lives Matter movement that would have ramifications worldwide, but especially across the USA. A year ago in February, six-year-old Hind Rajab was murdered. The sole survivor of an Israeli attack on a car holding several of her family members, she was able to use a phone to call for help. Ambulance personnel rushing to recuse her were murdered. When Rajab’s body was eventually recovered, it was riddled with bullets. Her story helped galvanize protests against Israel, and her name has become a symbol of resistance.