op ed published in the Seattle Times May 9, 2025 https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/the-suffering-in-gaza-is-a-moral-crisis/
Palestinian children jostle for donated food at a distribution center in Khan Younis in the Gaza Strip on April 21, 2025. (Abdel Kareem Hana / AP)
Special to The Seattle Times
With the onslaught of executive directives and the shock and awe of MAGA attacks, feints, and retractions on everything and everyone, a major catastrophe has almost completely dropped from the headlines. After 20 months of unrelenting Israeli assaults on Gaza and the total obstruction of all aid, food, water, medications and essential supplies since March 2, Gazans are facing a program of deliberate starvation. This is not normal.
Depriving an entire civilian population of food and water, a policy clearly delineated by Israeli politicians and military leaders, is internationally recognized as a war crime. This practice should be an affront to every person who believes in the sanctity of life, human rights, international law and proportionality in times of war. The most vulnerable Gazans will die first: children, pregnant women, the elderly, people with chronic diseases that have not been treated since the Israeli government began carpet-bombing Gaza and methodically destroying the hospitals and medical infrastructure, arresting, imprisoning, torturing and killing medical personnel.
The Israeli newspaper Haaretz noted that after two months of complete blockade, community kitchens are closing due to food shortages, UN bakeries closed a month ago due to the absence of flour and fuel, food looting has increased and thousands of young people have been hospitalized for severe malnutrition. Reports of deaths from starvation are mounting. The World Food Program has run out of food stocks and is no longer able to support its 168 community kitchens, which were the essential providers of hot meals. This is often the only meal of the day for Gaza residents and does not meet daily caloric requirements or dietary diversity. Fresh fruit, vegetables, meat and dairy are almost impossible to find or afford. The United Nations and the International Red Cross have warned of an imminent collapse of all humanitarian efforts.
Overshadowing this human disaster are the growing attempts to erroneously define support for the survival of Palestinians, and criticism of Israeli policies and massive U.S. military, surveillance and political support, as inherently antisemitic and dangerous to Jews. This weaponization of the accusation of antisemitism is threatening free speech and the jobs, education and status of citizens and noncitizens in this country who are being tracked, persecuted, fired, expelled and snatched by masked agents, to be imprisoned in private jails in Louisiana or deported despite repeated judicial efforts to stop the process. This defies democratic principles as well as basic human decency.
On May 15, Palestinians and their allies will mark Nakba Day, a solemn commemoration of the “Catastrophe,” the dispossession of 750,000 Palestinians in 1948, the destruction of over 500 villages and the unraveling of Palestinian life that occurred during the war that led to the establishment of Israel.
Despite congressional inaction, people in the U.S. do care about this. The majority of U.S. voters support an arms embargo against Israel. University students and Jewish and non-Jewish activists continue to be engaged in protests, encampments, demands for divestment from companies involved in weaponry and surveillance, and divestment of institutions from Israeli bonds.
While the Israeli military is calling up tens of thousands of reservists to expand the country’s assault on the besieged Gaza Strip, there is decreasing support for the war in Israel and rising calls for a cease-fire and hostage release. More than 100,000 Israelis have stopped showing up for reserve duty.
We are all in a moral crisis of epic proportions. Will the world stand by while 2 million people are annihilated, through starvation or bombing? Will 2025 be remembered for the culmination of the Nakba begun in 1948?
This is not normal.
Alice Rothchild: is a retired physician, author, and filmmaker. She is on the steering committee of the Jewish Voice for Peace Health Advisory Council and the management team for We Are Not Numbers.