Symbolic Gestures Won't Save Starving Children

by: Harley Schlanger

As a United Nations conference on "Implementation of a Two-State Solution" convened in New York on July 28-29, U.K. Prime Minister Starmer told an emergency Cabinet meeting that "now was the right time to move" to a two-state solution. After expressing concern over the "appalling situation in Gaza", he declared he was prepared to recognize Palestine as an independent state at the U.N. General Assembly session, which opens September 9 in New York City.

Starmer's pledge followed a similar declaration by French President Macron on July 24, who wrote, “True to its historic commitment to a just and lasting peace in the Middle East, I have decided that France will recognize the State of Palestine." He said he will formally announce the move at the U.N. in September. Macron added, “The urgency today is to end the war in Gaza and to provide aid to the civilian population....The French people want peace in the Middle East. It is up to us, the French, together with the Israelis, the Palestinians, and our European and international partners, to demonstrate that it is possible.”

Perhaps the two leaders hoped that no one would notice that their response to the "urgency" of the plight of the besieged and starving Palestinians gives Israel's genocidal regime six more weeks to continue the killing. The response by Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shows that he will not be deterred from pursuing a "final solution" to the "Palestinian problem" by the empty rhetoric from the two. He insisted that his government intends to complete the job, which in the eyes of much of the world means continuing the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. He denounced Starmer for "appeasement...of jihadist terrorism," saying recognition of an independent Palestine "rewards Hamas's monstrous terrorism and punishes its victims," while warning that a "jihadist state on Israel's border today will threaten Britain tomorrow."

Netanyahu's defiance of world opinion received de facto support by the Trump administration's rejection of adopting a two-state solution at the U.N. event. A spokesperson for the State Department dismissed the event as "an unproductive and ill-timed conference," a "publicity stunt" which interferes with "delicate diplomatic efforts to end the conflict." With the commitment of the U.S. to continue military and financial aid to Israel, while providing a diplomatic cover to genocide, the grandstanding of Macron and Starmer will have little effect.

A Taboo Is Broken in Israel

As much of the world has been focused on the brutal annihilation of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, and the publicly-announced intent of the Netanyahu regime's band of Greater Israel fanatics to complete the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, the silence from within Israel, with notable exceptions, has been deafening. This has been in part due to media censorship, which has prevented video evidence of starving children dying in their emaciated parents' arms, and of Israel Defense Forces (IDF) mowing down hungry Palestinians attracted to "food distribution sites" turned into killing fields, from being seen by Israelis. The images that do get transmitted via social media are condemned by the government as fabrications, utilizing AI technology.
This is reinforced by charges that those pointing to atrocities committed by the IDF are anti-semites and Hamas apologists, and endless repetition that the attack by Hamas on October 7 was brutal and unprovoked, and that Israel's ruthless military campaign -- including the cut-off of humanitarian aid to Palestinians and plans for mass "transfer" -- is necessary to prevent a new Holocaust from being carried out against Jews in Israel.

Until the last days, the majority of the Israeli public has seemed content to ignore the murderous policy conducted in the name of guaranteeing their security. Haaretz columnist Gideon Levy has been one of the exceptions, a voice of conscience piercing the silence, slamming the insensitivity in the face of such horrors by pointing out, for example, that while a child starved to death in Gaza, a cooking show was drawing large audiences on local television.

But as the scope and scale of the killing has been breaking through the censorship regime internationally, there is a visible shift underway in Israel. Haretz columnist Levy, an IDF veteran, who was an aide and spokesman for Labor Party leader Shimon Peres from 1978 to 1982, has taken the lead, challenging the taboo against labelling mass murder by the unhinged Zionist fanatics around Netanyahu as "genocide".

On July 27, under the headline "Denying Gaza's Starvation Is No Less Vile Than Denying the Holocaust", he wrote of the "despicable wave of denial [which] has been sweeping through Israel.... It is prevalent among many swaths of the public, shared by almost all media outlets.

"With the onset of deliberate deadly starvation, there was no alternative but to turn to denial, no less loathsome than denial of the Holocaust."

He continues, challenging the widely-held belief in Israel that the Jews have an exemption from the charge of genocide, as having suffered as unique victims of the Nazi Holocaust. He charged that the silence is evident in Israel's history, with violence against Palestinians a part of the record: "Denial has accompanied Israel since the days of the first Nakba, in 1948, which never happened and was only conceived in the imagination of Israel-haters. It continued during all the years of occupation and apartheid."

Levy sharp polemics provided similar clarity in his devastating put-down of an apologist for Netanyahu who expressed pride in the "morality" he claimed has been displayed by the regime in its rampages in Gaza, on a July 25 podcast of Piers Morgan. Levy countered, "To be proud of slaughtering 20,000 children, this is not human. I'm really sorry. Only the Nazis spoke like this."

He then addressed the excuse given that support for ethnic cleansing is found only among the extremists in the settler's movement in the Netanyahu government. "Unfortunately, the problem is not Smotrich", referring to one of the most extreme voices calling for removal of Palestinians from Israel. "The problem is Israeli society, which is either supporting or quite passive and apathetic. Smotrich is the face of Israel."

He concluded by asking, "Can you believe that a Jew, a human being can be proud of starvation, of mass murder, of genocide...I remain speechless....To be proud of what we are doing... How can a human being get those words out of his mouth? This is not human. Only the Nazis spoke like this, only the Nazis were proud of mass killings and genocides."

He returned to this theme in his July 30 Haaretz column, in the face of the determination of the regime to push ahead, writing that "the time has come to call the horror by its name -- its full name is genocide, the extermination of a people....It did not begin now; it began in 1948," referring to the murderous assault on Palestinians which led to the "transfer" of 750,000 from their homes.

Levy's expression of righteous anger is being echoed by others in Israel. On July 28, two leading Israeli civil rights groups held a press conference to denounce the government's brutal policy. B'Tselem and the Israel chapter of Physicians for Human Rights demanded an end to the policy of deliberate starvation, which they identified as a commitment to "ethnic cleansing." And on July 30, a group of 31 prominent Israelis released a statement to the {Guardian} calling for a permanent ceasefire and accountability for starvation, demanding that the international community impose "crippling sanctions" on Israel. In the U.S., the Reform movement, the largest denomination of American Jews, demanded an end to the killing and called the blockage of food and humanitarian aid by Israel's government "indefensible."

Even President Trump reacted to this shift following a meeting with Starmer in Scotland on July 28. On a rare occasion when he disagreed with Netanyahu, who denied his policy is to starve Palestinians, Trump said, “That’s real starvation, I see it, and you can’t fake that.” He added that he will tell Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel to ensure that food gets to people who need it. “I want to make sure they get the food, every ounce of food,” he said.

Unfortunately, as in the case of Macron and Starmer, whose recent statements are a hollow attempt to escape the charge of complicity in genocide, Trump failed to take action which could reverse the deepening tragedy. This would necessarily include a cut-off of military, financial, and political support to Netanyahu, that Israel provide massive humanitarian aid, end the occupation, and recognize an independent Palestinian state, to be supported by economic aid, to allow for the construction of necessary infrastructure, including LaRouche's Oasis Plan.