While we are constantly told in the media about an impending “food crisis” in Gaza — which crisis is largely the result not of an absence of food but of the maldistribution of food aid, much of which is seized by Hamas for the benefit of its own operatives, their extended families, and the clans to which they belong — we hear far less about the many-times larger humanitarian crisis in Sudan. A report on the media’s selective sympathy can be found here: “War Crimes, Millions Starving & Ethnic Cleansing… Where Is the Media Outrage?,” by Rachel O’Donoghue, HonestReporting, March 11, 2024:
On March 6, the United Nations warned that a current conflict that has already killed and displaced millions of people risks triggering “the world’s worst hunger crisis.”
Some of the statement’s key points include:
- “A staggering 14 million children are in desperate need of lifesaving assistance”
- “Millions of lives and the peace and stability of an entire region are at stake”
- “Across the war-torn country, 18 million people are acutely food insecure and five million now face starvation”
- “Restricted in their movements by ongoing violence and interference from warring parties and severely underfunded, humanitarian aid workers can barely help those in need”
- “Humanitarian assistance was further disrupted after the authorities revoked permits for cross-border truck convoys”
Less than 24 hours later on March 7, the United Nations issued another warning:
- “The situation is appalling. Every minute, every hour, it is getting worse”
- “In the north, one in six children under the age of two is acutely malnourished…”
- “We need to flood the market… with humanitarian goods as well as re-energize the private sector so commercial goods can enter to meet the need of civilians…”
- “At the same time, humanitarian supplies via air or sea are ‘not a substitute for what we need to see arrive on land…’”
The first statement was about Sudan, a country that has been racked by a conflict that erupted between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and a paramilitary group called the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in April 2023.
According to the International Rescue Committee, which placed Sudan at the top of its Emergency Watchlist last year, nearly 6 million people have been displaced, and more than half the population (24.8 million people) needs humanitarian aid, with 17.7 million facing crisis-level or worse food insecurity.
The IRC has also stated that amid mass displacement and reports of mass killings, humanitarian access has been severely curtailed.
The second statement was about Gaza and the ongoing aid delivery problems that have affected the Strip as Israel wages war against Hamas.
As the United Nations makes clear in its statements, both Sudan and Gaza are facing a humanitarian catastrophe. However, the war in Sudan is impacting a much larger number of people and has gone on for much longer.
One might think that media organizations would think both crises were worthy of attention. After all, the UN statements were published mere hours apart and warned of similarly dire situations.
Alas, not so.
The Guardian and The New York Times, for example, both included details of the UN’s statement about Gaza in their coverage of what was variously described as a “humanitarian disaster” affecting millions of “besieged Palestinians.”
There is not as yet a “humanitarian disaster” affecting “millions” of “besieged Palestinians.” At most, all sources agree, 500,000 Gazans — only one-fourth of the total Gazan population of two million — are “facing” a “humanitarian crisis.” This crisis is always described as just about to happen, but it never quite reaches that point. And now, with massive amounts of aid now flowing in by land, sea, and air, every day the threat of mass hunger recedes.
Likewise, both publications [The Times and The Guardian] covered in depth the March 5 UN statement — signed by several UN rapporteurs — which, among other grotesque and unfounded allegations, accused Israel of “intentionally starving the Palestinian people in Gaza…”
Israel is not “intentionally starving” the people in Gaza. It has again allowed food aid from donors to enter northern Gaza on trucks. It has hailed the not opposed, but hailed the American effort to build a floating pier in order to deliver food aid by a maritime route, from Cyprus to that floating pier, whre the food aid can be transferred to trucks for delivery all over the Strip. The key food problem in Gaza is theft of the aid by Hamas, which has been seizing smuch of it for its own operatives, their extended families, and for the clans to which they belong. The IDF has no control over what happens when the food goes into Gaza; it cannot prevent Hamas from seizing the lion’s share. That is a problem not of the amount of food – right now about 1.78 pounds of food for every man, woman, and child in Gaza is delivered every day – but of distribution. The threat of Hamas gunmen seizing much of that aid off the trucks is best handled by UN peacekeepers, if such a force can now be assembled while a war is still raging all over Gaza.
Yet, neither outlet [The Guardian and The New York Times] dedicated any coverage to the UN’s statement about Sudan — not a single paragraph was printed about an impending catastrophe that would amount to “the world’s worst hunger crisis.”…
The contrast in coverage is stark: the news coverage of the first three months of war in Gaza amounts to fifteen times the coverage given to the conflict in Sudan in its first three months. The Gaza “humanitarian crisis” has received far more media coverage, too, than has been given to the situation in Yemen, where 17 million people are right now suffering“acute hunger,” more coverage has been given to Gaza than has been given to the 26 million people in the Democratic Republic of Congo who are suffering “mass starvation,” more coverage to Gaza than to Somalia, where eight million people — half the population — are enduring “crisis levels of food insecurity.” “Hunger in Gaza” receives far more media coverage than do the famine conditions in Burundi, Lesotho, and Madagascar, places where their populations have endured years of famine that have been much more severe than what the Gazans have experienced. In fact, UNRWA itself claims that “500,000 Gazans” will “face catastrophic hunger” if more food is not brought in. Note that UNRWA does not say that 500,000 Gazans are starving now, but that they “will be” if more food aid does not arrive. But we all know that massive amounts of such aid are indeed arriving now in Gaza. By land, sea, and air, vast quantities of food — hundreds of tons every day — are now being brought into Gaza. The food crisis will be over just as soon as Hamas can be prevented from stealing so much of the food aid for itself.
Once all this food reaches the quarter of the Gazan population that is suffering “food insecurity,” will the media at long last cover the real hunger crises around the globe?
What explains this incredible fixation by the media on the ”impending” starvation of one-fourth of the Gazan population, while the much greater humanitarian catastrophes in a half-dozen countries —South Sudan, Central African Republic, Yemen, Madagascar, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo — are largely ignored? It’s because the food insecurity, that then worsens into malnourishment, and then to famine, in all of these countries, have nothing to do with Israelis, or Jews. “Jews are News,” and these days, Jews are “bad news” around the world. The brief upsurge in sympathy for the Jewish state after the Hamas atrocities on October 7 within a few weeks had completely disappeared, and now pro-Hamas demonstrators, on American campuses, and in European cities, screaming their hatred of Israel with the preposterous charge of “End Genocide Now” and demands for more violence against the Jewish state in the cry “Another Intifada” and the most popular of them all, “From the river to the sea/Palestine will be free.” If understood properly, that last is a call for the destruction of the Jewish state, and its replacement by a twenty-third Arab one. The media want us to ignore all those other examples of malnourishment and famine, from Sudan to the Congo to Yemen, in order to stay focussed entirely on the “humanitarian disaster” in Gaza because that one can be attributed — albeit incorrectly — to Israel.
tony wilson says
Its ok to say this BUT no one knows this, Where are the brave western reporters??? However we know they are wetting themselves when you mention an assignment in Gaza. I checked booking .com found a 5 star hotel approx, half a mile from the main point of conflict, checked the buildings around the rubble they look good and in general with photos from Gazans this is no concentration camp. Now food? surely there are a truth seeking media with b@lls to go in and show what happens to the food??
Mindy says
Actually there have been a few, all conservative reporters , none from msm which means the reports back up with video are not televised, but, are written and are available via news sources such as Western Journal, bizpac, town hall etc.
Tony Rice says
The UN has again clearly demonstrated its anti-semitic attitude by constantly referring to Israel preventing food getting to Palestinians and the killing on innocent civilians in Gaza BUT has not accused Russia of its INVASION of another country WITHOUT plausible reason. The UN is as bent as a corkscrew, even members / employees fight FOR Hamas. Guterres must go
Mike says
Plus there is relatively little attention being paid to the real genocides against Christians and others by Islamist militias in Nigeria, Mozambique, Congo and elsewhere in Africa.
Mindy says
islam is poison and the world , including the us, have drunk from that cup of poison.
not willing to submit says
I totally agree with what you say I’ve followed the evil carnage perpetrated by Boko Haram and Al Shabab for years some of the graphic reporting by the Premier Christian website makes me tearful and angry and yet here in the UK the muslims are a protected species. We are in Holy Week Good Friday and Easter Sunday this weekend but my local supermarkets are decked out in Islamic icons celebrating Ramadam not a single sign of Christianity in sight.
WPM says
I think the UN should be moved out of New York to the Ukraine or Gaza so they can keep a close look and address the war up close in day to day actives. It would free up parking on the midtown east side and I am sure many people would be glad to buy up their real estate.
jewdog says
Those “other countries” you mentioned do not involve Whites, Jews or Palestinians, so nobody cares.