Ben Connolly
12/4/23
Resource Control as a Genocidal
Tactic: Israel/Palestine & Holodomor
Following Hamas’ October 7th attack on Israel, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant announced “a complete siege” on Gaza, cutting off access to food, water, and medical supplies. This does not come as a total surprise regarding the fact that Israel has had full control of Palestinian water supply since their 1967 occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, prohibiting the construction of new water sources and repairs to existing ones. The result was quintessentially a drought that caused the land used for farming to become unsuitable for many of their profitable exports, primarily citruses. Meanwhile, neighboring farms and more generally residential areas of Israel have unlimited access to water. Gaza has also been cut off from gas and electricity, resulting in repeated blackouts and spotty cellular reception. This has interfered with communications, and while that hasn’t totally prevented media coverage, it has certainly made it more difficult for actual Palestinians to spread videos of the atrocious conditions they are living in. Furthermore, multiple vital infrastructures have shut down because of their reliance on a constant power supply. This includes essential spaces such as hospitals and water treatment facilities, the latter of which consequently lead to “over 120,000 cubic meters of wastewater being discharged into the sea” (UNICEF). The measures taken by the Israeli government have been claimed to be preventative against further Hamas attacks, but they are anything but given the primary victims are women and children entirely unaffiliated with Hamas. With that in mind, one would think Israel’s actions would have been swiftly deemed collective punishment, war crimes, if not an active genocide. The notion that the Israeli government has imposed collective punishment on the Palestinian people is irrefutable, yet these televised war crimes are not being properly addressed by our political leaders. The actions of the Israeli government should be deemed a direct violation of the Geneva Convention and treated as such in the global response:
Article 33 - Individual responsibility, collective penalties, pillage, reprisals
No protected person may be punished for an offense he or she has not
personally committed. Collective penalties and likewise all measures of
intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited. Pillage is prohibited.
Reprisals against protected persons and their property are prohibited.
There is not a single part of Article 33 that Israel has not violated just in the last two months alone. Israel claims their actions are targeted at Hamas, yet the resulting casualties are bystanders, murdered for actions that are not their own. They have occupied homes in Gaza and the West Bank, and though Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denounced the unlawful support of extremist allies taking part in the occupation and fear tactics, the government and military seem to be publicly avoidant but not personally opposed. Article 18 also declares that hospitals for those sick, wounded, or in maternity care are an Illegitimate target for attacks by all parties involved, yet this too was directly violated by the Israeli military without actual consequence. The world is currently witnessing a horrific amalgamation of human rights violations go unchecked.
As per the most recent casualty updates, the death toll in Gaza has surpassed roughly 15,200 people (PBS), but that number becomes more and more inaccurate even as I get further into writing this sentence (More recent Al Jazeera estimates now show a death toll of over 20,000). Israel is slowly confining the Palestinian people into Southern Gaza, blocking all entry into Northern Gaza and limiting mobility. Amidst the temporary ceasefire spanning from November 24th to December 1st, Israeli soldiers still shot and killed Palestinians attempting to return to their homes in the north. There is not a way out for the Palestinian people. Confined to a continuously shrinking area, Palestinians are simultaneously living under fire, undersupplied, under a man made famine, and without proper drinking water. On December 2nd, one day after the temporary ceasefire, Bisan Owda (better known as @wizard_bisan1), a 24 year old Palestinian journalist known for her on-site reporting and documentation of the conflict, posted a harrowing message to Instagram writing that “I no longer have any hope of survival like I had at the beginning of this genocide, and I am certain that I will die in the next few weeks or maybe days. I have been sick with severe viral infection for days and cannot move from the mattress!” (@wizard_bisan1). Though Bisan is still alive and continuing to report at the time of writing, the tone of her words and those of other journalists operating out of Gaza is unequivocally different than it has been for the last few months. Publicity is proving itself to not be enough and that truth looms like a dark gray cloud overhead. Journalist Motaz Azaiza took to Instagram to give a message similar to Bisan’s, stressing that “the stage of risking everything to bring you the news has ended, now begins the stage of trying to stay alive. I’ve brought you enough news, as God is my witness, in order to save my country” (@motaz_azaiza). The siege on Palestinians will only worsen as the carpet bombing and confinement continue, but the lack of food, water, and power adds entirely new dimensions to the conflict.
By controlling and withholding essential resources, Israel has a practically unbeatable upper hand. They have the complicity of the dominant world powers and the capabilities to exterminate the entire Palestinian people. Additionally, water sources in Gaza are limited and unsanitary which has resulted in major outbreaks of cholera and typhoid. Human Rights Watch, the World Health Organization, and UNICEF have each published articles expressing how high of a risk disease and famine pose, noting that disease will result in a rapidly exponential increase in civilian deaths, primarily children. As for the withholding of food, the more extreme consequences have yet to actualize themselves, but the World Food Programme has warned of the “immediate possibility of starvation” (WFP). Commissioner-general Philippe Lazzarini of UNRWA (the UN Agency for Palestine Refugees) stated that “every little girl and boy I met in an UNRWA shelter asked me for bread and water” (Lazzarini, UNRWA). Even if the people are not dying of starvation yet, they are hungry and trying to survive. Each resource withheld creates a myriad of issues that make it harder to fight back. Since Lazzarini’s first hand account of Gaza, at least 5000 more civilians have died and food stability has continued to decrease. Without access to food “adults usually starve within about 65 to 70 days. Children die much sooner” (Ukraine Today). By the end of December, it will have been over 70 days since the beginning of the blockade and weather conditions will get harsher. The available shelters in Southern Gaza will continue to get massive influxes of refugees. Given the cramped conditions of the shelters and the poor hygiene within them, diseases are able to spread like wildfire. Adele Khodr, the Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa at UNICEF believes that the Israeli militant attacks “could be the tip of the iceberg” without proper humanitarian aid. “‘The death toll will increase exponentially if incubators start to fail, if hospitals go dark, if children continue to drink unsafe water and have no access to medicine when they get sick’” (Khodr, UNICEF). This is not a matter of additional threats with minor consequences, but threats that could kill more Palestinians than the bombing itself. Already there has been a major Hepatitis A outbreak in a Gazan UNRWA school, a pattern that will likely appear throughout designated areas of refuge. The lack of sanitary drinking water, shelter, food, medical supplies, and electricity have all converged to make any form of retaliation or survival drastically more difficult for civilians. “Gaza City Mayor Yahya al-Siraj said that without fuel, the territory could not pump clean water or clear waste accumulating in the streets, warning of a potential public health ‘catastrophe’ (Al Jazeera). Dr. Tedris Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the World Health Organization Director-general stated that 1.3 million people in Gaza currently reside in overcrowded, unsanitary shelters and this is clearly reflected in the illness rates. A seemingly obvious approach to this would be to send in humanitarian aid, but in no way is that enough to combat the damages that are currently taking place. The “160-200 trucks a day” are nothing more than a Band-Aid solution, especially considering that it is “half of what Gaza was importing before the fighting, even as humanitarian needs have soared” (Al Jazeera). Israel has fully weaponized the basic needs of survival and confined Palestinians to an ever dwindling amount of land [as of December 4th the Israeli army has now begun its invasion in Southern Gaza, the supposed safe area for Palestinian refugees]. If Israel’s intentions were strictly to eliminate Hamas and protect Israelis, their strategy would not be recklessly carpet bombing Palestine and its people, but there is a clear disregard for the wellbeing of Palestinians and ulterior motives. Hamas has been used as an excuse to justify unspeakable amounts of violence and usurp an entire country in the name of monetary gain and regional power. In order to properly analyze the potential outcomes as a result of withholding essential resources, we look to a different case study that contains some insightful parallels.
Holodomor, also known as the Great Ukrainian Famine, was a man made famine that took place from 1932 to 1933 under the rule of Joseph Stalin and the Soviet Union. After a brief stint of independence, Ukraine was reabsorbed by the USSR in 1921 after losing the Ukrainian War of Independence. Then in 1928, Stalin announced his first 5 year plan prioritizing rapid manufacturing and the collectivisation of agriculture. Farmers were told to give up their property to the state and join collectivist farms. Those who resisted were labeled “kulaks” and either deported to Siberia or immediately executed in an attempt to “liquidate the class”. An initial 30,000 Ukrainians were killed, but 1.5 million people ultimately died from the policy. Surviving farmers were forcefully recruited into collectivist farms and forced to meet a ridiculously high grain quota of 7.7 million tons, which quickly proved itself to not be a sustainable practice, as by 1932 the quota was lowered to 6.6 million tons and Ukrainian was only able to produce about 65% of the expected 6.6 million. The USSR responded to this by blaming the Ukrainians for their production rates and accusing them of hiding food. Military action was taken to invade villages and confiscate any grain they could find. Villages that could not meet grain quotas were surrounded by the military, preventing the import of food and fuel while forcing all residents to stay in the village. Around ⅓ of villages were blacklisted. Any grain left was confiscated and the decree of “Five Grains of Stalk” outlawed taking collective produce by punishment of death. Regional passports were implemented by the USSR specifically to demobilize farmers, who were all not given passports and thus could not ride the train. Amidst the famine, the USSR exported massive quantities of wheat to the west, profiting off a daily death rate that reached 28,000 lives a day. Throughout the Holodomor, any accusation of famine was denied as was all foreign aid. The policies and military action collectively undergone by Stalin, the military, and invigorated followers ultimately killed 3.9 million Ukrainians (though there is data that suggests both higher and lower estimates) in a few year span, followed by a strategic denial by the government in the following decades. Russia has admitted to the occurrence of Holodomor, but continues to deny responsibility.
Though the criteria and contexts are incredibly different, the truths of Holodomor provide a lens through which the risk of famine can be properly assessed as an isolated form of genocide and than applied to a context in which there are various other factors that pose an equal if not higher risk. Within two months, Israel has successfully set up a framework that if uninterrupted will likely cause a mass death of Palestinians by means of starvation, dehydration, disease, missiles, or ground forces.
Israel’s pursuit to annihilate Hamas is reflective of that of the USSR in their pursuit for collectivisation and mass output. I do not mean to say Hamas is like wheat, but I use the comparison to stress that the rabbit chase from residential area to hospital to school to refugee camp in order to find and eliminate Hamas is just as illogical and unlikely to succeed as the high grain quotas. Just as Stalin was willing to let all of the Ukrainians die for higher wheat output, the Israeli government and settlers have everything to gain from Palestinian death, particularly land. During and after the Holodomor, Russians were moved into the now empty and demolished countryside of Ukraine, occupying the rightfully owned land of the 3.9 million slaughtered. Roughly 700,000 Israelis have unrightfully settled into Palestinian land and homes since the 1967 Israeli occupation. It is incredibly important to highlight the distinction between the government and the people of Israel, as many Israelis - young people in particular - have taken to protesting Netanyahu’s neo-fascist leadership, yet still many radical supporters of Israel have taken a part in the occupation. A group of Israeli settlers attacked Milhem farm, a Palestinian property located in the West Bank. Armed with guns the settlers stormed and robbed the farm, taking olives and violently beating the men. Netanyahu publicly denounced their actions, though his words are baked in hypocrisy and utterly unimpactful. This too is akin to the Holodomor, in which young communists were sent into blacklisted villages to steal any food left, only this was directly ordered by the government. Israel has continued to confine the permitted areas for Palestinians while they relentlessly carpet bomb and maintain their blockade, an eerie resemblance of the USSR’s village blacklists, and now as Israel invades the supposed safe zone of Southern Gaza there is genuinely nowhere else to evacuate. Just as the farmers could not travel without a passport, the Israeli Closure Policy was put into effect requiring all Gazans to have a personal exit permit in order to leave, evolving into a full on closure later on in 1993.
There are 4.9 million Palestinians at risk of extermination currently, which sits slightly above the average estimate of Ukrainians killed during Holodomor (3.5-7 million). While the conditions of the Holodomor are not to be understated it is crucial to hammer in the point that the USSR achieved conducted a genocide almost entirely through their control of resources rather than military violence (collectivization/immobility was enforced by the military both in the initial transition process and during the famine, but the majority of deaths were not a direct result of military violence), whereas Israel is using excessive military force and witholding essentials. While Russia cut food and fuel from Ukrainian villages, even they did not cut off water. Through the use of resource control, Joseph Stalin and the Soviet regime was able to kill about as many people as Palestinians in Palestine. If something is not done about the restrictions on food, water, fuel, and electricity, these supplies will continue to deplete and the rates of disease, famine, dehydration, and consequently death will skyrocket. This is already a genocide, so now it is a matter of preventing the complete wipeout of Palestininians and guaranteeing that Israel faces the proper consequences for there action.
Bibliography:
Livi-Bacci, Massimo. “On the Human Costs of Collectivization in the Soviet Union.” Population and Development Review, vol. 19, no. 4, 1993, pp. 743–66. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/2938412. Accessed 5 Dec. 2023.
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2017/11/the-occupation-of-water/
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2017/11/the-occupation-of-water/
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/9/israel-announces-total-blockade-on-gaza
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/16/world/middleeast/gaza-blackout-fuel-shortage.html
https://www.aljazeera.com/gallery/2023/12/1/israel-strikes-gaza-after-truce-expires
https://www.ochaopt.org/content/hostilities-gaza-strip-and-israel-flash-update-40
https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/04/health/gaza-illness-disease/index.html
https://holodomorct.org/holodomor-facts-and-history/
https://www.npr.org/2023/11/17/1213684429/benjamin-netanyahu-israel-hamas-gaza
