February 11, 2003 - So Quickly We Have Forgotten

During the last few weeks, Israeli society has been intensely preoccupied with its own internal affairs.

The elections, corruption scandals, the space shuttle disaster. A glance at recent newspapers shows that we have forgotten what is going on in our own back yard. Perhaps we should take a look.

We have frequently mentioned here the hunger in the Occupied Territories. Many of our opponents are quick to deny these reports."There's no hunger in the Territories!" They vehemently claim, and rush to condemn the refuseniks and/or don their uniform on the way to another tour of 'duty' in the territories, thus enhancing the very reality which they refuse to acknowledge.

I decided to research the matter. I typed the words "Palestinians" and "hunger" on the web, and embarked on a long, and very sad, journey in the virtual depths. Before I lay out my findings, I want to bring you this editorial's recommendation: Look on the web, or send your denier friends to look, for information on any subject regarding the Palestinians. Tell whoever claims that this or that reality does not exist, to go look for it!

Regardless of whether they find support for their argument or not : they will not be able to ignore the huge accumulation of evidence regarding prolonged incarcerations, children blown up in their homes or on the street during assassinations, children dying at checkpoints when a proud and true Israeli soldier follows procedure, Palestinian prisoners treated like animals, an elderly woman chasing a truck for almost a mile so she can get a sack of rice and more than three million desperate and despondent people, suffering for more than two years now under inhuman conditions (for one highly reliable site with up-to-date testimonies, see B'tselem).

Well, is there or isn't there hunger in the territories?

The most professional source of information on the subject, is a summary of a research conducted by Johns Hopkins University and financed by The U.S. Agency for International Development. (http://www.usaid.gov/wbg/reports/Nutritional_Assessment.pdf) The report was published last August. According to all the experts on the subject, and according to the warnings in the report itself, the situation has since deteriorated. Following is a brief summary of my findings:

Hunger is a subjective term, which describes a person's feelings in particular situation. It is a phenomenon which is hard to measure.The appropriate scientific term is malnutrition, which is a physiological phenomenon with a wide spectrum of severity: from populations in which the children are lacking ingredients which allow full growth (but who don't experience hunger) to the horrors we know from places like Africa, where people simply starve to death.

According to the standard scientific definitions, both these cases are regarded as malnutrition. As malnutrition worsens, more and more people will confess to feeling hunger. Palestinians who claim that they and/or their children are hungry are easily found (again, just look anywhere on the web).

But where, on the wide spectrum of malnutrition, is the Palestinian population located?

According to the report, in a bad place in the middle. These are the main facts:

Malnutrition is measured (by various means, such as blood and weight tests) on two levels:

Acute malnutrition : a state wherein the consumption of food was found to be lacking in the short period of time (days) before the examination.

Chronic malnutrition : a state wherein the person was suffering from malnutrition for an extended period of time (weeks and even months) before the examination.

The research shows that 9.3 percent of Palestinian children suffer from moderate to severe acute malnutrition. Even worse is the figure regarding chronic malnutrition, which is much more serious physiologically than acute malnutrition.

13.2 percent of Palestinian children suffer from moderate to severe chronic malnutrition.

Another aspect of the report deals with anemia. Anemia (which is caused by prolonged malnutrition) is manifested by deficient oxygen supply to the body. A fifth of all Palestinian children suffer from a moderate to severe level of anemia.

As the report makes clear (pp. 6-7, Ibid), malnutrition and anemia damage children's growth and are a source of fatigue, declining mental and physical abilities and deficiencies in the immune system, which may lead to disease.

The report also investigated in depth the reasons for malnutrition. The results are unambiguous and not surprising : over 80 percent of the causes of malnutrition can be traced to the military closures/encirclements.

What does this mean? What is the hidden picture behind the data?

Only a few miles from our houses there are children : all innocent by definition : which as a direct result of the Israeli army's policies are suffering a decline in their physical and mental capabilities.

How bad is this?

This is a subjective question. One person will say that as long as people are not dying as a direct result of malnutrition, it's not so bad. Another will say that the description of people and children walking the streets or sitting at home with a vacant stare, crippled physically and mentally as a result of malnutrition, brings to mind a darker period in history.

You can Judge for yourselves. [1]

Whatever the case may be, a humanitarian disaster is taking place in the Territories. If we don't take immediate steps to stop it, and instead just go about our business, it will blow up in our faces. It's just a matter of time : and not a long time. Neither fighter jets nor missile ships, not even tanks, will help us against a million parents of starving children. And when this happens, we'll miss 2002 : the bloodiest year Israel has known since 1973.

What about terrorism, What of the Israeli children being blown up in our streets?

The answer is clear. Terror is an atrocity without moral justification. There is no question about that. We want neither to justify nor "understand" the murder of innocents.

But the starving of children also has no justification.

Even those who think that the Israeli Army's actions in the territories prevent terror, even those who think that the war against the Palestinians is justified : must ask themselves this simple question: how is it possible to lock an entire populace, young and old alike, in their homes for months on end, without directly supplying them with large amounts of food? (see note)

Do we not know that as a humane society, and especially as Jews, we must not purposefully make children hungry?

So quickly we have forgotten, that which we vowed to remember.