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Episode 226: The Importance of Seriousness; or, Why Palestinians Can’t Be Witness to Their Own Genocide (Part I)

Added 2025-08-06 16:22:21 +0000 UTC

“12 UN Relief Works Agency staff members are accused of involvement in Hamas' attack against Israel,” reports NPR. “Details Emerge on U.N. Workers Accused of Aiding Hamas Raid,” announces The New York Times. “Hamas Military Compound Found Beneath U.N. Agency Headquarters in Gaza,” claims The Wall Street Journal.

In January 2024—literally on the same day the International Court of Justice deemed Israel was committing “plausible genocide”—a number of sensationalistic headlines broke across U.S. media, namely The Wall Street Journal and New York Times, telling us in 40-point font that the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the single most important supplier of food and medical aid in Palestine, was in fact a front for "Hamas." Western audiences were told that, based on “Israeli intelligence”, 12 workers at the agency may have been involved in the attacks on October 7, 2023, and, in another blockbuster claim, that “Around 10% of Palestinian aid agency’s 12,000 staff in Gaza have links to militants, according to intelligence dossier.” Given this history, the logic went, who knows how else the agency might be operating at the behest of Hamas?

It would have been a major revelation if there were any evidence to support it. But there wasn’t and the story was later dropped, walked back or ignored by the media. But the damage was done: President Biden quickly defunded UNRWA and Israel criminalized it, helping fast track mass starvation in Gaza. So why did media outlets publish so many breathless and lurid headlines about Israel’s claims without an ounce of independent confirmation? To what extent, if any, have outlets acknowledged their journalistic and moral recklessness? And how has this contributed to the mass starvation, immiseration, and wholesale murder of the population of Gaza?

On this episode, Part I of our two-part season finale on “The Importance of Seriousness, or Why Palestinians Can’t Be Witness to Their Own Genocide,” we examine the role of legacy news media in inciting the starvation of millions of Palestinians in Gaza, the racist double standard of what sources and experts can be trusted and the broader incitement campaign against the UN Relief and Works Agency which directly caused today’s mass starvation in Gaza.

Our guest is Moureen Kaki, Head of Mission at Glia.

Guest

Moureen Kaki, has been coordinating medical and food aid on the ground in Gaza for more than a year. She is the Head of Mission at Glia, a medical solidarity organization bringing doctors and providing open-source medical equipment to Gaza. She is alsoa chef and volunteeer with the community kitchen, Shabab Gaza. Previously, she opened Saha, a Palestinian food pop-up in San Antonio, Texas. Moureen joins us from Khan Younis in Gaza, Palestine.

Show Notes

Palestinian chef from San Antonio volunteering in Gaza

Megan Stringer | June 28, 2024 | Axios

Israelis Are Starting to Talk About Famine in Gaza

Ruth Margalit | August 5, 2025 | The New Yorker

Why legal experts say that starvation in Gaza is a war crime

Sondos Asem | August 5, 2025 | Middle East Eye

‘No one should act surprised,’ says UN expert who warned of starvation in Gaza last year

Nina Lakhani | August 4, 2025 | The Guardian

I'm a father in Gaza. My children wake in the middle of the night crying for food.

Mohamed Hammoudeh | August 1, 2025 | USA Today

Journalists Facing Hunger Tell Gaza's Story of Starvation

Nour Abu Rokba | July 31, 2025 | Institute for Palestine Studies

Anger Over Starvation in Gaza Leaves Israel Increasingly Isolated

Steven Erlanger | July 31, 2025 | The New York Times

The mathematics of starvation: how Israel caused a famine in Gaza

Emma Graham-Harrison | July 31, 2025 | The Guardian

"Worst-case scenario of famine unfolding" in Gaza Strip, food security experts say

July 29, 2025 | CBS News

UN warns of ‘catastrophic hunger’ in Gaza as Israel announces humanitarian pauses

United Nations | July 27, 2025

Israel is starving Gaza. And the U.S. is complicit.

Sari Bashi | July 25, 2025 | MSNBC

Gazans Are Dying of Starvation

Rawan Sheikh Ahmad, Isabel Kershner and Abu Bakr Bashir | July 24, 2025 | The New York Times

How Seeking Food in Gaza Has Become So Deadly

The Daily | July 24, 2025 | The New York Times

Israel Is Starving Gaza

Editorial | July 24, 2025 | Ha'aretz

More than 100 aid groups warn of 'mass starvation' in Gaza amid Israel's war with Hamas

Somayeh Malekian, Nasser Atta, Diaa Ostaz, and Nadine El-Bawab | July 23, 2025 | ABC News

MSF staff and patients are wasting away as mass starvation spreads across Gaza

Médecins Sans Frontières | July 23, 2025

OHCHR: Palestinians in Gaza continue to be killed by starvation or by bullets from the Israeli military while trying to access food

United Nations | July 22, 2025

Shootings, Devastation, Hunger: Israel Fails to Address Gaza’s Power Vacuum

Patrick Kingsley | July 21, 2025 | The New York Times

Gaza: Evidence points to Israel’s continued use of starvation to inflict genocide against Palestinians

Amnesty International | July 3, 2025

“Starving a Generation” report indicts Israel for weaponizing starvation as a tool of genocide

Defense for Children International - Palestine | June 24, 2025

Gaza is the ‘hungriest place on earth’, as Israel continues stranglehold on aid

United Nations | May 30, 2025

Gaza subjected to forced starvation, top UN official tells BBC

Fergal Keane | May 30, 2025 | BBC

What Israeli Officials Are Privately Saying About Starvation in Gaza

Isaac Chotiner | May 21, 2025 | The New Yorker

People in Gaza starving, sick and dying as aid blockade continues

World Health Organization | May 12, 2025

Journal still can’t confirm January story about UN agency for Palestinians

Max Tani | August 4, 2024 | Semafor

Countries are reinstating funds for UNRWA — but not the United States

Sammy Westfall | April 26, 2024 | The Washington Post

Independent review panel releases final report on UNRWA

United Nations | April 22, 2024

Gaza: Israel’s Imposed Starvation Deadly for Children

Human Rights Watch | April 9, 2024

Manufacturing Famine: Israel is Committing the War Crime of Starvation in the Gaza Strip

B'Tselem | April 2024

NYT, WSJ Laundering Israel's Obviously Bogus UN "Hamas Links" Story Helped Starve Gaza

Adam Johnson | March 20, 2024 | The Column

Documents reveal alleged pattern of Israeli harassment of UNRWA workers on West Bank

Jason Burke | March 19, 2024 | The Guardian

Which countries have cut funding to UNRWA, and why?

January 28, 2024 | Al Jazeera

Israel: Starvation Used as Weapon of War in Gaza

Human Rights Watch | December 18, 2023

Israel calls for end of UN Palestinian refugee agency

Ali Younes and agencies | July 11, 2017 | Al Jazeera

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Transcript

For a full transcript of this episode go here. You can also find transcripts of past episodes, live shows, Beg-a-Thons, Interviews and News Briefs here.

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