In my recent review of the Channel4 “documentary” about the doctors of Gaza, I noted:
“[T[he nagging question is: how was this child allowed to starve when the doctor is so well fed and healthy and the women in the background could – I don’t mean to fat-shame – stand to lose more than a few pounds? A single child does not get into this state surrounded by chubby adults – unless it is allowed to. I can only suppose that this child has some sort of medical condition unrelated to nutrition. Alternative theories are too horrible to contemplate. But it clearly is not an aid blockade.”
Sinking even lower is the Daily Express. This is their front page:
This unfortunate child clearly has a serious medical issue. But he is not starving because of lack of food. The adult holding him clearly has a more than healthy weight. He is a prop in a sick propaganda scheme. It is shameful.
But it is more shameful that a British newspaper indulges in what appears to be a modern version of the blood libel. It is this sort of narrative that the Hamas-controlled Gaza Ministry of Health has been drip-feeding western media from the start of the war Hamas started on October 7th 2023.
This is based on an ancient prejudice, a conspiracy theory if you like, holding that Jews kill children for ritualistic reasons. In modern times it is more coded, suggesting Jews provoke wars which result in the “suffering of innocents”, or deliberately target children, or institutions linked to children like schools and paediatric hospitals. Or – most recently – images as above depicting the children as starving to death, reminiscent of the images from the Ethiopian famine that provoked Bob Geldof to launch “Live Aid“.
I was disappointed to see an approving repost by British journalist, James Bloodworth, who sneered: “When you’ve lost the daily express …”
The implication is, I suppose, that the “war crimes” of Israel are so great that even the right-leaning Express can’t ignore them.
Even Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, has bought into this. Today, calling for the recognition of a ‘Palestinian State’, he emoted: “Starving children searching hopelessly for food in the rubble. Family members shot dead by Israeli soldiers as they search for aid…”
Israel certainly is losing the propaganda war chiefly because, I think, the suffering of Jews is subconsciously viewed as “deserved” for the same reason blood libels are so effective. Whether they acknowledge it or not, many otherwise ‘good people’ like to think the worst of Jews and ascribe absolutely everything they do to malice. Even an existential fight for survival is viewed as ‘malicious’ when undertaken by Jews. But I am no psychoanalyst, so I will leave it there. Why did Hamas start a war and take hostages when it knew this is what the outcome would be? The answer is not a big reach: because it created precisely the opportunity they wanted. The real frontline fighters are not the armed wing of Hamas, they are the media officers at their so-called Health Ministry. Their daily salvos are more damaging to Israel than rockets.
What I will offer is a recommendation to watch an excellent video on the subject of this fake famine from an Israeli youtuber:
Any journalist can watch endless footage coming out of Gaza showing well-fed people. Why don’t they ask themselves how this handful of children can be starving when others around them are not? Is it too much to ask that journalists ask questions before pumping out this fiction? There are plenty of wide-angle images of civilians in Gaza in the news every single day. None show incidental cases of starvation. The only ones that do are specifically posed close ups. The reason is obvious!
