WWJS—WHO WOULD JESUS STARVE?

This post was supposed to be the second in the series “Donald Trump Wants YOU to Hate…”.  There’s plenty to say about that, and what’s happening to our country.  But it can wait.  Something far more pressing needs to be discussed.

Starvation.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamen Netanyahu has now joined an exclusive club that also includes Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler, Mao Tse-Tung, and Kim Il-Jung.  He is willfully, methodically, and deliberately starving people to death.

And no, that’s not an antisemitic statement.  It’s not an anti-Israeli statement (although I could go on and on about the immoral actions of the current Israeli government both in Gaza and against farmers in the West Bank).

Rather, it’s an anti-starvation statement.  But before we talk about the politics, the excuses, and the rationalizations, let’s talk bluntly about how people starve.

I’m not going to use cute little terms like “not enough to eat” or “malnutrition” or “suffering from hunger.”  I’m going to use the word starve.

Without food, the body goes into survival mode.  Energy drops dramatically.  Every ounce of stored fat (if you have any) is broken down for energy.  Once that’s finished, the body starts breaking down muscle, including the heart muscle.  By now, any amino acids that might be directed to the immune system have vanished.  You’re susceptible to any infection that comes your way.  If you’re “lucky” the infection will take you out first.  If not, your body continues to consume itself.

Your brain may come next.  As it deteriorates, you may suffer seizures and hallucinations.  And through it all will be a sense of weakness and fading that becomes overwhelming.

How long does it last?  Anywhere from 3 weeks to a couple of months, depending on the person.

Ever gone without a meal?  No food for a day?  Two days?  A week? How did it feel?

The first time I worked with a medical team in Haiti, I heard children sobbing in the evening.  What’s going on, I asked?  Are they OK?

It’s no big deal, I was told.  They’re just hungry.  They’ll fall asleep eventually.

I heard it night after night.  Those tiny voices have haunted me ever since.

But there’s another sound that’s even more haunting.  Silence.

When starvation progresses far enough, the child has no energy to cry.  They suffer silently.  But up close, you can see it in their eyes.

If nourishment arrives soon enough, the child may survive.  But irreversible brain damage may have already occurred.  And what about the emotional toll?  The fear, the confusion, the anger?

Around the world, people are increasingly pointing to what the Israeli government is doing and calling it for it is.

Genocide.

The outcry includes the voices of thousands of Jews here in the United States, as well as in Israel itself.  Influential Jewish leaders have also expressed their opposition.  As one Jewish history professor said, “I teach courses on the topic of the Holocaust.  I know genocide when I see it.  I’m seeing it now.”

But from the decidedly right-wing fundamentalist Christians of America, the ones who proudly wear bracelets proclaiming “What Would Jesus Do?”  Barely a peep.

General Stanley McChrystal, arguably the nation’s leading expert on counterterrorism, reportedly once said that for every non-combatant you kill in the war on terror, ten new terrorists will thereby be created.

Was he right?  It’s something the Netanyahu government should think about.  Even by conservative estimates, over 60,000 Palestinians have been killed, at least half of them woman and children.  Over 400 aid workers, some from the Nobel Prize winning organization World Central Kitchen, as well as dozens of journalists have lost their lives, for doing nothing more than providing care.

And just who carried out those brutal attacks on Israeli civilians on October 7, 2023?  I spoke with a Palestinian-American, who knows people in the middle east.  What I was told should give us all pause.

The attackers were primarily orphans.  Young men whose parents had been killed by Israelis.  Young men who were angry, bitter, and hopeless.  Young men who could easily be manipulated by Hamas. 

Even if Israel is successful in crushing Hamas as a political and military entity, what then?  What happens when the children who’ve seen over 60,000 deaths, witnessed starvation, and watched their homes blown to pieces come of age?  What form will their anger, bitterness, and hopelessness take?

Over 30 years ago, Israel sought to undermine the governing body of the Palestinian Authority (PA), which itself had grown out of Yassir Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).  They did so by supporting a splinter group that defied the PA.

The group’s name?  Hamas.  And if Hamas is, in fact, destroyed, but Gaza lies in rubble, Israeli settlers continue to murder West Bank Palestinians with no fear of consequences, and life for Palestinians continues to worsen, what does the future hold, especially if General McChrystal is right?

Try to be optimistic, if you can.  But I can see little good that will come out of this.  And more significantly, I doubt that all the military hardware that the tax-payers of the world’s richest country can dish out will forestall what’s coming.

But all of that’s political, isn’t it?  In the meantime, the children of Gaza are starving.  Is the world even listening to those tiny, shallow breaths?