Starvation: The Cruelest Weapon Of War
Starvation,War Crime,Weapon of war
"Those who don't study history, are doomed to repeat it" - Santayana
"Hitler's Hunger Plan. Starvation was a central strategy in the Nazi genocide against the Jews. Hitler had long been aware of the power that lay in controlling the food.
A central tenet of Nazi thought was the idea of Lebensraum; the growth and expansion of the German people and its lands. The Germanic race was viewed as superior, and this ideology justified the theft of land and food supplies from those seen as racially inferior" - Nobel Peace Center
“No power, no food, no gas, everything is closed. We are fighting human animals and we act accordingly. I ordered a full siege on the Gaza Strip,” Yoav Gallant, Israeli minister. - Independent
Compare the similarities between the Nazi and Netanyahu's use of starvation as a weapon of war with this StoryMap. What is collective punishment? How can millions of people be starved? What is a war crime? Why do authoritarians kill journalists and ban the free press?
Hunger Plan
Forced, deliberate starvation also played a role in the Holocaust. In the Jewish ghettos, the access to food was tightly controlled. “It is hard to say how many Jews died from hunger”, says Anette Homlong Storeide, researcher at the Falstad Centre, a museum, memorial and human rights centre in Norway.
34,683 Palestinians killed and 78,018 injured
"At least 34,683 Palestinian people have been killed and 78,018 injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since 7 October, said the Gaza health ministry. Most of the casualties have been women and children, the health ministry has said, and thousands more bodies are likely to remain uncounted under rubble across Gaza." - The Guardian
What is a War Crime?
“On March 19, Volker Türk, the United Nations’ human rights chief, said in an official statement that Israel’s policies regarding aid in Gaza might amount to a war crime.
The extent of Israel’s continued restrictions on the entry of aid into Gaza, together with the manner in which it continues to conduct hostilities, may amount to the use of starvation as a method of war, which is a war crime,” he wrote. Using starvation of civilians as a weapon is a serious violation of international humanitarian law, and a war crime under the Rome Statute, the treaty of the International Criminal Court, or I.C.C.
... There is a high evidentiary bar for war-crime prosecutions, and we have no way of knowing at this stage what a full investigation would reveal, particularly because independent observers have had limited access to Gaza." - NY Times
Establishing Control of the Press
"When Adolf Hitler took power in 1933, the Nazis controlled less than three percent of Germany’s 4,700 papers... brought about the demise of hundreds of newspapers produced by outlawed political parties. It also allowed the state to seize the printing plants and equipment of the Communist and Social Democratic Parties, which were often turned over directly to the Nazi Party. In the following months, the Nazis established control or exerted influence over independent press organs.
Under the new Editors Law of October 4, 1933, the association kept registries of “racially pure” editors and journalists, and excluded Jews and those married to Jews from the profession." - The Holocaust Museum
Netanyahu shuts down Al Jazeera
"Israel orders shut down of Al Jazeera in the country, seizes equipment, in ‘dark day for democracy’... The Qatari-based news network, which has produced dogged, on the ground reporting of Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza, called the closure of its offices a “criminal act,” while critics said the move was a “dark day for democracy” and that it sets a concerning precedent for other international media outlets operating in Israel." - CNN
TakeAway: Study history.
Deepak
DemLabs
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