Yes. We all understand that. However, until the IDF allows trucks (whether that’s willingly or by arm-twisting or worse) airdrops are better than nothing.
Honestly, what you’re talking about is a prime example of making the perfect the enemy of the good.
Yes.
First, the crowd swarmed the trucks. This should not be a mystery because people who are truly, literally starving get desperate, aren’t fully rational, and will very much do things like that.
Then the IDF, in a fit of stupidity, thought “firing shots in the air to disperse the crowd” was a good idea. No, it’s not.
First, any bullet going up is also going to come down, and every one of them is potentially lethal. Firing over a crowd practically guarantees someone is going to be injured or dead from that alone.
Second, it causes panic. Which it very much did. So you wind up with people running around and shoving into each other in a panic and people getting trampled. Then, in this case, the truck drivers panicking and crashing into and running over people in their haste to get away from what they think is a new front in a war zone.
In other words, it was a complete clusterf***
It’s armchair quarterbacking by comfortable first worlders who have never faced anything like the situation in Gaza.
Making perfect the enemy of good is definitely a problem. But doing something and then considering the problem solved because something was done, is also a problem.
No one is denying that the air drops are better than nothing. But if you are pointing at the air drops as a solution, even a partial one, then you are mistaken. And if you aren’t suggesting they are a solution, then we can drop the subject of air drops and talk about how to get aid in that will actually prevent mass starvation. We all agree that air drops are better than nothing.
Please point to someone in this thread stating that air drops are going to “solve the problem”. Because I haven’t seen it so far. Maybe I missed something in the 3700+ posts here.
Air drops are a desperation move that’s better than nothing. That’s all.
The only thing to really end the mass starvation problem is to end the war and make sure no draconian restrictions are imposed on getting stuff to the people who need it. Which we all also already know.
OK but an organization that is trying to feed people in gaza decided to buy flour and bring it into the country and then a whole lot of people wanted it.
My point is I don’t get the point in extremely surface level attempts to logic out why the food that aid orgs are sending is actually not what they should be sending in. There are all sorts of reasons flour might be good for people to have and every reasonable person here agrees that in general the trucks were the best way to deliver aid. What is the point of getting bogged down in minutiae.
I do think the airdrops are better than nothing in the present situation. Obviously Biden has some pull in Israel and there is reason to think he’s not using all forms of pressure available but i don’t think its as simple as calling Netanyahu and telling him to let aid in and then he immediately does Americas bidding.
Then I’m not sure why there are so many posts defending the air drops. It’s arguing against a strawman.
The key question is whether the air drops so far are the beginning of a ramp-up into a more sustained operation; or whether they were a mostly-symbolic one-off.
It’s certainly ridiculous to compare the first few attempts to the-Berlin-Airlift-once-it-was-in-full-swing.
Anyone know the answer to this question?
Air drops are an absolute last-ditch, no-alternative-exists means of providing food. The World Food Programme described them as a “last resort”, only to be used “when more effective options fail” in a 2021 report.
“Airdrops are expensive, haphazard and usually lead to the wrong people getting the aid,” Jan Egeland, the secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council and a former UN aid chief, told the BBC after returning from a recent three-day visit to Gaza.
Airdrops are seven times more expensive compared to ground-delivered aid due to costs related to aircraft, fuel and personnel, says the WFP.
In addition to that, only relatively small quantities can be delivered with each flight, in comparison to what a convoy of lorries can bring in, and significant ground co-ordination is required within the delivery zone, says the WFP.
There is no way to control distribution from an air-drop, leading to inequality as well as the risk of people consuming unsafe items.
There needs to be a lot of open space to drop items, which is why deliveries have mostly been on the coastline. But this has evidently led to some supplies falling into the sea or being blown into Israel.
So yes, absolutely keep doing it if there is truly no other way. But there is another way, so finite time and resources would be better spent on that.
…framing it as a “desperation move” is the problem here.
Because it isn’t a desperation move.
It’s a “we don’t want to offend Israel, we are getting hammered in the polls, let’s get some cheap PR” move.
It’s a strategy that carefully avoids confronting or criticizing Israel at all. It allows the genocide to continue unabated, save for a handful of airdrops that will largely be inconsequential.
And that’s why this strategy is being criticized. Not only are they bending over backwards with the strategy, they didn’t even coordinate with humanitarian agencies on the ground to find out where the best place to do food drops were or what food would be needed.
As I’ve said over and over again: more food is better than nothing. But let’s not pretend that this is anything more than it is. It isn’t a genuine attempt to head off famine.
It will not be inconsequential to whomever gets that food.
And it’s not a matter of confronting Israel, the real political problem in the US are Christian whackjobs lusting after Armageddon who think the existence of a modern Israel is essential to fulfilling their myth-based fantasies. In my opinion. YMMV.
If you think the current administration is bad in regards to mollycoddling Netanyahu and his ilk the prior one was even worse.
I will also point out that not only is it not just the US doing drops but the US is also late to the party, having been proceeded by air drops from France, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and Jordan. Framing this as a solely US action is in error.
The humanitarian agencies on the ground are hamstrung by the IDF. On the other hand the USAF not only has access to all sorts of satellite imagery, the IDF wouldn’t dare fire on their airplanes. Food drops aren’t just a matter of where the people are, it’s also a matter of where it is feasible to drop food where it will be accessible as well as not hurting/killing people by falling on them. Aid agencies used to operating with ground vehicles are not necessarily able to make those decisions.
As to what sort of food is needed - for all too many in Gaza it doesn’t matter - they need something to eat, raw calories if nothing else. There is absolutely nothing wrong with MRE’s in this situation. Some of it may be unfamiliar but with reports of people attempting to eat grass or straw just to have something in their bellies I don’t think that will be a significant obstacle. It may not be hallal, but Islam allows suspension of the usual dietary rules in order to preserve human life in dire situations.
People have already died of starvation in Gaza. Saying we should deliver by truck or pressure Israel isn’t working. Until it is, what else besides air drops is feasible?
Well, maybe something by sea, although that will take more time than flying airplanes overhead will. People need food right now.
Trucks can easily be commandeered by Hamas. Air drops are spread out making it tougher to hijack all of it. Airdropped MRE’s are individually wrapped food made in sanitary factories. trucks are hauling sacks of insect and rat food from some warehouse. People are hauling this around using whatever un-sterile container they can find.
Not true. The MRE’s can be dropped individually without parachutes making it even easier for people to forage for them individually without having to line up for trucks in the hopes of getting anything. We did this in Afghanistan and I posted a video of it upthread.
…we’ve had this discussion. It’s largely inconsequential in terms of being part of a strategy to avoid famine.
I’m well aware that other countries as well have joined in on the largely inconsequential airdrop train. That doesn’t make it any more consequential. Its been like 20 or 30 airdrops so far? That isn’t even half of the average of a days-worth-of-trucks.
The humanitarian agencies on the ground have also been hamstrung by Israels allies, some of them have even been defunded based on zero evidence at all.
And the humanitarian agencies still have people all over Gaza that know where the food is most desperately needed, something that satellite imagery isn’t able to tell you. The operative word here is “coordinated.” You can still use your satellite imagery. You can still make your own decisions. But the very least you should also do is consult with the people on the ground.
Because something a simple as a conversation like:
“We are planning on dropping food here tomorrow”
"We have a food convoy heading there first thing in the morning. But we don’t have anything going to [insert this location], so perhaps it would be better to send it there instead.
“Okay.”
Can make all the difference. That’s what coordination means. You need to be talking to each other.
Aid agencies aren’t just “used to using ground vehicles.” This is literally what they do. And the ones that are on the ground know the lay of the land better than anyone else. They not only work there, they live there. Aid agencies know how airdrops work.
I haven’t argued that there is something wrong with MRE’s. I’ve said over and over again that anything is better than nothing. But if the aid agencies think that dropping “x” food over “y” food into an area would help more people, then that is something that should be considered.
“Pressuring Israel” would mean, “we are cutting off all money and arms until you let the food trucks through.”
That isn’t happening.
Let’s not pretend that America is putting any real pressure on Israel at all. They are saying all the right things in public. But that’s all it is. PR.
Actually putting pressure on Israel.
Its not as if nobody saw this coming. I was warning in this thread that the siege would result in famine months ago. Human Rights Watch published their article that said Israel was using starvation as a weapon on December the 18th.
And now all of a sudden people are realizing that people are dying of starvation now? Aid coming in by sea is something they have just figured out might be needed?
What’s really happened here is that in some circles (not here on these boards) Palestinian lives are simply not that valued. So even the prospect of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians dying from starvation won’t ever move the needle much. These airdrops are the absolute minimum that the US could be doing right now.
I’ll say it again: any food is welcome right now. But relief efforts need to be scaled up substantially. And that starts by recommencing funding to UNRWA. Because as I posted a few days ago, the funding situation for them right now is dire.
Chef José Andrés pushes back on criticism of airdrops into Gaza: Bring food ‘any way we can’
Chef and humanitarian José Andrés, whose nonprofit World Central Kitchen has been sending significant aid into Gaza amid the Israel-Hamas war, on Sunday pushed back on criticism that airdrops into the Palestinian territory are wrong because they are hypocritical and insufficient compared to broader solutions.
“We need to bring food into Gaza any way we can,” Andrés told ABC News “This Week” co-anchor Jonathan Karl, calling the situation there “desperate.”
World Central Kitchen has provided more food aid to Gaza than any other nongovernmental organization, delivering more than 350,000 meals a day.
Sure. When that’s feasible.
The US military has MRE’s palletized and ready to go so they could be launched quickly. So apparently someone decided sooner with less than perfect was better than later.
No, it’s not. And in the current political climate it is not going to happen. Let’s talk about what is possible.
Yes, it’s been talked about since Israel put Gaza under siege.
Yes, that is true. Unfortunately, some of those people have the ear of people with actual power in DC.
In fact, for some bigots it’s not that Palestinian lives are “not that valued” but they’d like to actively eliminate them. It’s absolutely disgusting.
The problem with funding UNRWA is that this is a war that is being fought not just one the ground but on multiple levels, including propaganda and funding. De-funding UNRWA is, I’m certain, part of the playbook and if it kills people there are those who would view it as not a bug but a feature. Which is wrong, but sometimes we have to face the reality there is evil in the world.
…well, not that quickly. How many airdrops has it been so far?
So this isn’t a “desperation move that’s better than nothing.” It’s the politically convenient one.
That’s really my only point here. That, yeah, it’s better than nothing. But it isn’t a serious attempt to do anything more than pay lip service to the humanitarian efforts required to prevent famine.
And any talk now about “and we are now waiting for food to come in by sea” shows that most of the governments around the world didn’t take any of this seriously. I don’t think any of them expected it to get to this point. And now that it has they don’t really have a plan on what to do next.
The problem with defunding UNRWA is that every single humanitarian agency both on the ground and outside of Gaza have stated clearly and definitively that there is nobody else that can do the job UNRWA is doing right now. If UNRWA falls over, the entire relief effort collapses.
Which is, of course, what Israel wants. They’ve been gunning for UNRWA for years. Canada has said they are restoring funding today, the EU a few days ago. If the US are serious about helping the Palestinians in Gaza (and I don’t think they are) then they need to restore funding as well.
At least with the US, the track record with how they handled Saudi’s war on Yemen over the past decade or more is that they don’t actually care about civilians starving, they just care about the optics. Saudi was completely transparent about their deliberate plan to starve out Yemeni civilians in Houthi-controlled areas, and the US helped them in those efforts more or less the whole way basically because not enough of the world was up in arms about it. They’re probably more surprised by the backlash than the actual famine this time around.
Correct.
Newsflash: most governments, by which I mean the people with the power and the money, don’t care about you or any other “little people” Well, in a democracy they care about your votes so they’ll try to keep you able to vote to some degree.
No, they didn’t expect it to matter. You’d have to be an idiot not to see that starvation was inevitable given Israel’s stated intentions, they just didn’t expect anyone to care.
Yes.
From the standpoint of Netanyahu’s crowd that’s a feature, not a bug. For anyone backing that crowd the same applies.
Well no, our government is not on the side of the Palestinians. I’m sorry, you weren’t aware of that? The US backs Israel, has for over 70 years. This administration cares enough about PR that they’ll do something to appease voters in the US, indeed, at this point pretty much has to do something - if it’s at all effective that’s a bonus. That was the whole point of Democrats in Michigan voting “uncommitted” during the primary, to send a message to Biden that if he wants to be re-elected he better start paying attention to this. “Coincidentally”, the airdrops started after that point.
Keep in mind the Democrats are the political group most open to helping the Palestinians. Trump - who, let’s face it, at this point is the Republican candidate at this point - is even more whole-heartedly behind Netanyahu’s version of Israel. If he wins in November expect him to not only throw the Gazans under the bus but run said bus back and forth over them a few dozen times.
You said this wasn’t really a desperation measure but politics. I don’t think you understand that politics really is a driver here. As paltry as the US response is under Biden it would be non-existent under Trump. What is happening now is, realistically, is as good as it’s going to get for the Gazans and frankly I’m surprised we’re even doing air drops at all.
Palestinians lives aren’t valued. Just like the lives of all the Africans who have starved and suffered for decades aren’t valued. They aren’t a favored group. If you argue that morally disgusting I would agree with you 100% but I’m not talking about what should be but rather how the world actually is.
^ This.
The only thing that’s going to save the Gazans at all is enough people giving a damn that governments go “oh, shit - these are bad optics, we’ll actually have to do something useful here”.
When I responded earlier, I hadn’t even quoted a specific snippet. But just for reference (and scrolling back to find this was more work than I had planned to do), this is the entirety of the quote I responded to:
This post is entirely about Israel’s motive for invading Gaza post-10/7. There is no context here that speaks to anything else.
Just because Ben-Gvir is a minister in the Knesset does not mean that his statements represent the position of the government regarding their execution of the war.
But my sources, unsurprisingly, are Jewish ones, which ultimately come from Israeli sources such as the IDF. You quote from doctors who claim that Israel is wantonly destroying hospitals that contain no traces of terrorist activity, the articles I read speak of hundreds of terrorists surrendering on hospital grounds, weapons caches being found in hospital storage rooms, and tunnels dug directly underneath. You’ve already declared that you wouldn’t believe anything the IDF says, so why bother arguing with you that what they reported doing has a military/defensive justification rather than being wantonly genocidal?
I’m certain it did, and also that the number of Israelis who think a peaceful co-existence with a Palestinian state is at all possible has been greatly reduced. One is a corollary of the other. If the Palestinians cannot be trusted as neighbors, then why would Israelis not want to uproot them? That said, the fact that some, even elected officials, hold these views, does not make them government policy.
What does one have to do with the other? Even though I’m not in agreement with these many anti-Bibi posts, I would say that even if you believe that Bibi would be willing to let the war go on for the sake of his own political survival, the fact that Hamas has yet to surrender makes the point kind of unprovable. And I’m not going to hijack this thread by addressing the “overturn the entire Israeli judicial system” clause in there.
I posted this earlier, but since you asked it isn’t just a matter of continuing the war, but also a matter of how the war is being fought and what Israel’s goals in fighting the war are. There is quite a bit in this thread, and elsewhere, about how the people of Palestine are paying the price for a Hamas government that is not operating in the best interests of the people. The same argument can be, and has been made, that the Netanyahu government is currently taking actions that are not in the best long-term interest of the people or nation of Israel.
If you have further questions, I suggest you track down the Israeli citizens who replied to this poll.
When asked what values motivate Netanyahu in his wartime decision-making, 53% in the Channel 13 survey said they believe he is primarily motivated by personal interest, and only 33% said he is acting for the good of the country.
Breaking: Biden will direct US military to create Gaza port to deliver aid.
US President Joe Biden is set to announce new steps to establish a port in Gaza for humanitarian aid during his State of the Union address Thursday evening, senior administration officials said.
“Tonight in the speech, the President will announce that he’s directing the US military to lead an emergency mission to establish a port in the Mediterranean on the Gaza coast that can receive large ships carrying food, water medicine, and temporary shelters,” a senior administration official said Thursday.
The port will include a temporary pier, a second senior official said, which “will provide the capacity for hundreds of additional truckloads of assistance each day” to be coordinated with Israel, the United Nations, and humanitarian nongovernmental organizations. Initial aid shipments will come via Cyprus, the official said.