The Gaza Reservation

World Central Kitchen

I’ve been waiting a while, thinking about how to say this.  Like most people in America and across the world, I was shocked and saddened by the death of the seven World Central Kitchen workers in Gaza.  They were literally doing “God’s work”, trying to feed the starving under the most dangerous conditions, wartime.  World Central Kitchen is often the first on the scene when  natural disaster strikes; hurricanes and earthquakes and forest fires.  And they are often the group that takes the highest risks – they are feeding people in Ukraine and in Gaza, the two “hot wars” in the world.  To use a Christian analogy:   they are literally the ones creating the loaves and the fishes for those who have none.

Their convoy of three cars were purposely targeted and destroyed by Israeli air strikes.  The process went on for a few minutes;  one car was hit, the survivors raced to the second.  That was hit, and, predictably, they raced to the third.  Then that vehicle was completely destroyed.  According to WCK, they “deconflicted” the convoy with the Israeli Defense Forces.  The IDF doesn’t deny that.  Someone didn’t get the message.

Food as a Weapon

Israel will claim this was a “fog of war” mistake – a too quick-on-the-trigger officer who thought he was attacking a brazen Hamas action.  And it probably was. But there is a pending question which hasn’t been answered.  Is it the policy of Israel, to starve the Palestinians in Gaza?  I am reminded of US Army General Phil Sheridan, sent out west after the Civil War to prosecute the attacks against the Plains Native American tribes:  “If you kill the buffalo, you destroy the Indians’ commissary”.  Sheridan encouraged the mass slaughter and near-extinction of the American bison, removing it from the Great Plains, to starve the tribes into submission.

Is this an Israeli war goal as well?  Are they choosing to starve out Hamas, forcing them to try to run or come to battle?  And, since Hamas is totally embedded in the general population, is it Israel’s strategy to “starve them all”?   I listened to an Israeli cabinet official interviewed, the former Mayor of Jerusalem, Nir Barkat. 

 He makes no distinction between Hamas and the Palestinians in Gaza.  They were all “the enemy”.  In fact, he took “credit” that Israelis were allowing any food at all into Gaza.  To paraphrase his quote:  All of the Palestinians in Gaza support Hamas, and Hamas is like the Nazis in World War II.  The Allies didn’t worry about starving the Germans during World War II, so we shouldn’t have to worry about feeding Gaza.  But Israel is worrying about it, letting some food in – so there.

Waging War

Seven World Food Kitchen workers were killed, and the world took notice.  But over two hundred aid workers in Gaza have been killed in this six month conflict.  Much less notice was taken about them.  And, most importantly, over 30,000 Palestinians are dead in this conflict.  The Israeli Defense Forces will say that close to 20,000 of those were Hamas fighters, some teenagers.  Given that number – it still means that over 10,000 civilians are dead.

Israel certainly has cause good cause for battle.  Over 1300 Israelis were killed in the surprise assault on October 7th, mostly civilians brutalized and murdered.  Over one hundred remain hostages of Hamas, though their fate is still unknown.  And maybe the Israeli government has a point when they claim that the United States and the world are being “holier than thou”.  Are we demanding that Israel wage war differently than the US did in Vietnam or Iraq or Afghanistan, all conflicts when the enemy embedded itself in the civilian population.  How many civilians were killed in those places?

The Enemy, The Solution

The view of the Netanyahu administration, is that all Palestinians are the enemy.  Whether they’re in Gaza or the West Bank, they are not an “equal partner” for a future two-state solution.  They are “occupying” land that Israel believes is “theirs”, especially on the West Bank.  Even as Israel occupies Gaza, they are building more settlements in the West Bank, establishing Israeli “sovereignty”.   They don’t want a Palestinian state, they are moving towards total Israeli occupation of the region.

The current Israeli Government view is much like the United States government of the late 19th Century towards Native Americans.  Put the Palestinians on reservations, and control the rest of the territory.  When the United States wanted reservation land, like Oklahoma, they took it, much as Israel is taking the West Bank.  And what’s left?  In the US, the Plains Native Americans were sent to some of the most desolate places in the Nation, like the Badlands in South Dakota (not called the Badlands for nothing).  Is Gaza the Israeli “Badlands”?

Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, proposes to clear the Gaza seafront and build resort hotels, a “beach-a-fication” of that useful slice.  That demonstrates clearly how a Trump victory would align American policy with the Netanyahu government.  On the other hand of November’s binary choice, a Biden victory, like the opposition in Israel politics, would revive the hope of Palestinian sovereignty.

The death of the World Central Kitchen workers is a tragedy.  But it’s a single point in a whole series of tragedies, that began long before even the October 7th terror attack on Israel.  The issue is the ongoing Israeli v Palestinian crisis, and how the Israeli government sees the ultimate solution.  To moderate Israelis and the Biden Administration, that answer is a two-states.  To the current Israeli government, it seems like more of a Final Solution.    

Hamas/Israel War

Author: Marty Dahlman

I'm Marty Dahlman. After forty years of teaching and coaching track and cross country, I've finally retired!!! I've also spent a lot of time in politics, working campaigns from local school elections to Presidential campaigns.