How misguided can you get? Donating food to Gaza is like donating coal to Newcastle

So why do they do it?

‘Standing Together’ sounds nice. It sounds positive. It’s a good name for an Israeli NGO, right?

And sending food to the poor starving innocent civilians in Gaza who are having to rotate among changing battle grounds? What could be more humane and important than that? However, I suggest that food donation campaigns such as that initiated by Standing Together have other than humanitarian purposes.

A cynical leadership of Standing Together

I have no doubt that the leaders of Standing Together know all of what I will present in this article. They know that, while food may have been scarce for a while, it certainly has not been for a long time. Even international agencies grudgingly admit there is no famine in Gaza. A more complete examination of the gaps in published data can be found here. In fact, the amount of humanitarian aid that passes into Gaza would provide 40% more calories per person per day than the recommended humanitarian aid standards if Hamas was not stealing it.

If the problem is not the amount of food passing into Gaza and Standing Together is making a huge publicized campaign of getting a few more trucks of aid into the Strip beyond what already goes through, then it calls into question the true purpose of their campaign.

I suggest it is not to satisfy a real need in Gaza but to satisfy the need for Israeli Arabs and their Jewish partners to pretend that Israel is committing the war crime of starving Gazans. That is a political goal and not a humanitarian one. And it constitutes part of a propaganda war I do not know if citizens of any other democratic country would wage against themselves when fighting enemies who want to dismantle the entire state.

Now let us look into the topic in detail.

First: Standing Together on themselves

Here is how they introduce their campaigns to donate food to Gazans, interspersed with my editorial comments in italics.

All of us, Palestinians and Jews across Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank, have endured unprecedented violence, loss, and trauma.

More correctly: (Palestinian) Arabs across Israel, Gaza, and the so-called West Bank and Jews across Israel, in both Judea-Samaria and within the Green Line…. Furthermore, it is only since the late 1990s that Arabs in Israel began referring to themselves as Palestinians but that is the subject of an entirely separate article, such as here.

We have been deeply hurt by the loss of life across the land, both from Hamas’ horrific October 7th attack and Israel’s harsh and indiscriminate retaliation on Gaza in the months following the attack.

Israel’s harsh and indiscriminate retaliation on Gaza? I suggest the leadership at Standing Together educate themselves by reading at least one expert in civilian warfare, such as John Spencer. And here it seems they are making some kind of equivalence between Hamas’ violation of an existing ceasefire, invasion of Israel, and commision of unspeakable atrocities with the IDF response to prevent future atrocities and to get back as many of our hostages as possible. Bothsidesism at its most cynical.

Every person killed and taken hostage in this horrific reality is a tragedy, and the highest prices for this deadly war have been paid by ordinary civilians. Since October 7th Gaza has faced unrelenting bombardment and a catastrophic humanitarian crisis.

The highest price paid by ordinary civilians. Yes. But it is obvious that they are referring to the Gazans. A whole treatise could be written about who is causing the non-Hamas Gazans to suffer and it is not Israel.

In the Occupied West Bank, …

And here we see their political orientation. Enough said about that.

We have been seeing, throughout the war, that Hamas steals the humanitarian goods for its own use and then sells some of the surplus at exhorbitant prices — food that was intended to have been freely provided to the population. Let us listen to one Gazan who spoke with an Israeli army officer:

There are also multiple videos showing Hamas shooting at civilians, men, women, and children, who try to get food off the trucks because they know it is not going to go to them. But that does not deter Standing Together from accusing Israel of deliberately starving the Gazans and suggesting that their donations are what is needed.

Here is one video from their food-for-Gaza campaign in which the speaker explains that thousands of Palestinian and Jewish citizens of Israel have been collecting food as part of their “humanitarian relief campaign to the starved civilians in the Gaza Strip.” He says it is not only aimed at relieving the “dire situation of the starved civilians” in Gaza but also for sending a political message to the government “that the policy of deliberate starvation is a war crime and we oppose it. … and that our Jewish Arab solidarity is stronger than the racism and extremism of his [Bibi’s] government.”

It is always easier to accuse the government of racism and extremism rather than to deal with what is really happening. But that, too, is a topic that is beyond the scope of this article.

What I find interesting is evidence of Gazan resourcefulness when faced with the war conditions. For example, recycling an oil can into a makeshift oven,

or revitalizing traditional pottery ovens

(I could only wish that such resourcefulness and initiative could have served to build up a thriving society and not a thriving terrorist network beneath the earth’s surface.)

Let us look at the Standing Together claim of deliberate starvation of the Gazan population. Gaza watcher since 2018, Imshin shows us scenes Gazans post themselves for themselves when they are not posting propaganda for foreign consumption.

For example, this one, uploaded on Tiktok, about which Imshin writes:

While shopping in wartime Gaza, Jihad and his friend buy cakes and slushies to eat in the street. As they walk along, we see undamaged buildings, cars, a clothes store and stalls filled with fresh vegetables.

Perhaps you think this is not really from Gaza. That was what at least one commenter questioned. Jehad Murad, who uploaded the video answered: “The angle of view shows the rose without thorns.” Another commenter wrote: “You have disgraced us, man!” And Murad responded with three laugh emojis.

Here is a video that shows the rose and the thorns. Watch to see Sara and a friend going to a restaurant, you can see the menu and what they ordered, and as they walk along the street afterward, you can see the destruction all around. In describing her video, Sara writes that after 10 months of war, she decided to have a good day. Some commenters remarked that they wish the north was as fortunate as the south of Gaza and others prayed for the end of the war.

Imshin deciphers the menu for us:

Appetizer: Yogurt for 4 shekels ($1.07). Then on to the shawarma restaurant. The menu is hand-written. Main courses 20-30 shekels ($5.37-$8.06). Salads 3-10 shekels ($0.81-$2.69). Then to another place for dessert - basbousa and knaffeh and then slushies to cool down.

I suggest you follow her “X” account to keep up-to-date with what Gazans post about Gaza.

Just for fun, let’s look at a video of a food market in Gaza from June this year:

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