by YZF | 2025-10-03 15:55:33+00:00
My other reply got flagged, please read it. But to add:

This specific article is not "criticism". The headline claims Israeli actions caused famine in Gaza. The title, and the article, completely ignores other actors like the government of Gaza (aka Hamas).

"How Israeli actions caused famine in Gaza, visualized" -> is basically a lie. The truth is that Israeli actions contributed to the food situation in the Gaza strip. The cause is obviously the war. The cause of the war is obviously Hamas. The entire article rests solely on a report by a UN organization. The UN is not unbiased. It is openly anti-Israel.

The reporting is completely one sided. It is not news. It is agenda. CNN's agenda is anti-Israel. There is no mention of the UN leaving food on the border to rot and not deliver it. There is little to no mention of the UN's refusal to cooperate with Israeli initiatives to distribute food (and generally refuse to cooperate with Israel on anything).

At best the authors don't understand the idea that correlation doesn't equal causation. I would say the authors and CNN's goal is simply to attack Israel for political reasons.

I think Israel's decision to block aid around the end of February was stupid and a mistake. It is far from clear that decision is a war crime. Israel claims there was plenty of food in Gaza that was delivered during the ceasefire and ofcourse also claims that Hamas has plenty of food in its tunnels. Egypt also at times contributed to the condition in the Gaza strip by blocking aid and preventing refugees from leaving. The actual responsibility for the well being of Palestinian citizens in Palestinian controlled areas (which Gaza city still is) is on their government. That government has a choice to stop the war, it has a choice to distribute the food it controls to its citizens. Ignoring that in any article basically tells us what we need to know. Israel does have responsibilities under international law but is being held to impossible standards that are not applied to any other country. The media intentionally creates an artificial separation between "Hamas" and "Palestinians" where in fact we are talking about combatants and non-combatants of the same non-state or state-like actor (Gaza). Israel is responsible, to the same degree any other country would be, to take steps to allow non-combatants to leave battle areas and to not target them. Israel has asked all non-combatant population to evict the Northern Gaza strip a long time ago. The food situation is worse in that area. So Israel arguably has done what international law requires it to do with respect to non-combatants. Is Israel perfect? no. Is it worse than most western countries? I don't think so, and there's plenty of comparisons we can make. Can we criticize Israel? Definitely!

In terms of contribution to antisemitism, there is a large number of people who will read the title as "How Jew actions caused famine in Gaza". That is literally the conversation on some social media. Just because you haven't seen that doesn't change it. This means there should be more sensitivity and better accuracy and context.

Being Jewish is also not a religion by the way. It's an ethnicity as well. I'm sure you know this but just to remind others. The Jewish people are also known as Israelites and the word Israel is sometimes used as a synonym for Jewish.