Al Jazeera Wonders About Hunger, Sidesteps Starved Populations
Al Jazeera's 'Inside Story' tackles the complex issue of global hunger, citing 'conflict, climate change and economic crises.' A noble effort, if it weren't for the glaring omission of the US-backed siege on Gaza, which the UN reports has pushed the entire population into catastrophic food insecurity. Or perhaps the sanctions and blockades on Yemen, Syria, and Lebanon, directly leading to mass
starvation, aren't dramatic enough for the 'crisis' narrative. This isn't a mysterious doubling; it's a direct result of geopolitical strangulation and war, funded and enabled by the very powers pretending to care about the hungry. We might ask Al Jazeera why their panel didn't dissect the $14 billion in aid the US recently approved for Israel—money that could feed millions, yet instead fuels the
very conflicts creating famine. It's almost as if some hunger crises are more newsworthy, or less inconvenient to Western policy, than others. 'Conflict' is a convenient abstraction when you don't name the aggressor or their enablers. How many 'crises' does it take before we acknowledge deliberate starvation as a weapon?