New Rule: Jews must feed the people who want to murder them.
Even in war, even under fire, even when the enemy starves its own, only Israel is endlessly condemned for not doing enough.
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This is a guest essay written by Tobias Gisle, who has a master’s degree in Middle Eastern Studies from Stockholm University.
You can also listen to the podcast version of this essay on Apple Podcasts, YouTube Music, YouTube, and Spotify.
Israel is using food as a weapon.
That’s the message in the New York Times and hundreds of articles in all kinds of publications.
And there’s truth to it. It’s not easy to live in Gaza right now; war has destroyed much of the infrastructure, and as I write this, Israel is controlling food distribution via the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.
Families are hungry, some eat only once a day. Interview after interview with Gazans tells us life is hard. This looks bad. Israel should fix this; hungry children are painful to see.
Even The Economist, much more wary of “pro-Palestinian” talking points than the New York Times and The Guardian, said that “food should not be used as a weapon.” Lack of food is also gold for anti-Israel propagandists. Hamas may have coined the perfect propaganda phrase: They are calling it “the hunger war.” Who wants to be on the side that wages a hunger war?
Because of these harsh conditions, talking about food and war in Gaza feels uncomfortable. Like the word “genocide.” As soon as you raise the issue, it sounds like you’re saying starvation or the deaths of children are acceptable. So again, no. It’s not okay. This is war, and it’s awful.
Still, we must discuss war, food, and aid. Not least because Hamas’ “hunger war” antics are repeated by its propaganda arm, the supposedly respectable Qatari state TV, Al Jazeera.
It’s difficult for the average media consumer to understand what’s really going on. We constantly hear alerts about Gaza’s humanitarian crisis. But mass famine is not occurring. Quite a lot of people are malnourished, but it’s hard to find verified cases of people dying from hunger. The category “famine” has a strict definition under the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification:
“Today, a famine is officially declared only when Integrated Food Security Phase Classification data about a region shows that at least 20 percent of households have run out of food, at least 30 percent of children are acutely malnourished, and two people out of every 10,000 are dying each day from starvation.”1
The same article reports that only four famines have occurred globally since 2000. The latest was in 2024, but not in Gaza. It was in Sudan, one of the world’s worst conflicts and largely ignored by media. We see no hundreds of articles warning Sudan’s army or the government’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces not to use food as a weapon.
Gaza creates a constant “crying wolf” situation: Anti-Israel voices assume thousands are dying; pro-Israel voices assume nobody is dying and all Gazans are lying. Living in informational bubbles isn’t healthy, but Israeli media tends to be more fact-based. The Times of Israel and Haaretz have interviewed Gazans who describe the situation as “hard.” There’s a difference between “hard,” “famine,” and mass death.
In war zones, those with weapons often take control of supplies for their own benefit. This is especially true for a ruthless group like Hamas, which has little interest in the welfare of its civilian population. Controlling food is how they maintain power. If you’re disloyal to Hamas, you don’t get food. That’s why Israel wanted to oversee food flow, to bypass Hamas and directly aid families, not deliver truckloads that Hamas seizes, sells at extortionate prices, and uses to fund its war, including paying salaries to fighters sent into the meat grinder.
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, an American initiative managed by Israel in Gaza, began operations May 26th and has since delivered hundreds of thousands of food boxes to Gazans. The United Nations and other so-called “humanitarian” organizations said no, arguing it would be “using food as a weapon.” But that’s exactly what Hamas has done all along. If you truly believe mass death is imminent, why reject a plan that could get food to people?
The alternative is letting only Hamas, and not Israel, use food as a weapon. Hamas has been using food as a weapon all along, as well as a tool of blackmail. By controlling the supplies, Hamas can conveniently withhold food from those who oppose their tyrannical rule.
That, in turn, may prolong the war. Therefore, violence becomes the only tool, while Hamas remains secure in power. We may have to choose between a longer war or starving children. War is often a choice between a rock and a hard place. None of this changes the fact that this war is brutal, people lack food, and we see disturbing images of malnourished children. No one wants to see this. In the media war especially, this is disastrous for Israel, and Israel will likely be forced to back down.
Reading the news, one might think Israel is the first country to ever “use food as a weapon.” But this is so obviously not the case. It’s the opposite. Why do armies do this? Because it works. Thousands of years of warfare show that it works. If you want the enemy to surrender a holding, you cut off their supplies. Ask any historical military leader — from Charles XII to Saladin to Napoleon — whether they’d block enemy resources if they could. They would be puzzled by the question, and probably send you to a sticky end for being on the enemy side just for asking the question.
Indeed, long before Alexander the Great besieged Tyre, to long after the Red Army surrounded Nazi Germany’s armed forces in Stalingrad, food was used as a weapon of war. Battle was, surprisingly perhaps, not paused to bring in supplies to the enemy. That would’ve been absurd. All sides would agree. The point was to force surrender, through starvation if necessary. Then, once the enemy surrendered, you brought in the food. If you wanted to.
True, the world used to be more brutal. But this still happens today, with terrifyingly little fanfare. After Russia reduced Mariupol to ashes in early 2022, killing perhaps 60,000 in a month (and never issuing warnings before bombings), it surrounded the Azov Regiment in the Azovstal plant. Was anyone accusing Russia of denying food to surrounded soldiers? Not really, this was not a war crime on the scale of bombing a theatre full of children.
On the other side — in the same war, in Autumn 2022 — many hoped Ukraine would isolate Crimea and destroy the Kerch Bridge that connects Crimea to Russia. I don’t recall a single commentator worried about Russian children potentially going hungry. It was discussed coldly: A million people might be trapped on the peninsula without food. That might force a Russian surrender. The general mood was: “Great!”
The idea of “never using food as a weapon” becomes all the more absurd if we imagine Israel’s enemies following this doctrine. If Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, or Iran’s regime had a chance to starve Jews, they would. Not just to win a war, but because killing Jews is their goal. It’s part of their ideology.
So, yes, using starvation as a weapon is brutal. It always has been. The citizens of Tyre just didn’t have TikTok or Al Jazeera.
There is one thing makes Gaza different, though: civilians can’t leave. In most wars, civilians flee. But here, they can’t. Not because Israel won’t let them, but because Egypt refuses to open the border. Egypt fears Hamas would destabilize Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi’s regime and only lets in Gazans who can bribe their way through with at least $10,000.
That’s why Israel must relocate civilians within Gaza, creating complex systems of “safe zones.” If you want to argue that Israel has a special duty to feed civilians, this is the strongest point: Gazans often have no option but to stay.
To “never use food as a weapon” is, for all the reasons above, a revolutionary concept. The idea is: Let the enemy hold territory while food and supplies flow in throughout the conflict. In fact, the Gaza war — under U.S. President Joe Biden and then his successor Donald Trump — is a brand-new type of warfare. We must acknowledge how novel and extraordinary it is. Who in the world wants children to starve in conflict? Only extremists.
If applied everywhere, this commandment — “Thou shalt not use food as a weapon.” — could usher in a new era of warfighting, one where civilian stomachs are always full, no matter the surrounding violence. You could call it a “Biden War.” And you should.
Let all wars be Biden Wars. Because no, food should never be used as a weapon. Ever. That’s the most moral stance. As long as “ever” is part of the sentence, I’m in.
Ames, M., 2025. “The Gaza Famine Myth.” The Free Press.
Good writing. My frustration is seeing a story about a malnourished child and then seeing that the photo used is actually from Syria five years ago [or someplace similar]. The level of lying is through the roof. It is hard to tell the truth, over here in the States.
There has been a real attempt by AntiSemitic elements in European Six to attack Israel to reverse play the idea of ‘Forever War’ in what is the violent Middle East. America and the President quite rightly don’t want to become involved in an actual ‘shooting war’ without a clear exit. But Shia Islamism sees terrorism as an Eternal fight until the whole planet is converted to Islam by The Sword. This is the meaning of Islamism. It is the modern Ideology of Religious War. Judaism is precisely Not this, because Jews are expressly not proselytising. We only want to survive, in a region which actually has been in conflict for the whole of the last Millennium. Nazism was the same; War as humankind’s natural state even amongst ourselves as Hitler’s idea of the Herrnvolk kill everyone off. This is expressed as such in Mein Kampf. The Nazis have actually said that only 40 million people are fit to live; Only they are Human. Again, Judaism is expressly NOT this. We just want to survive. Forever War is certainly NOT of our choosing.