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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.
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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.
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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
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
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
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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Credits
Senior Producer: Florence Barrau-Adams
Producer: Julianne Tveten
Production Assistant: Trendel Lightburn
Newsletter: Marco Cartolano
Music: Grandaddy
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Comments
Terra Jones
The fact that only Jewish journalists can condemn the genocide, everyone else is suspected of anti-semitism when they say the same thing is kind of similar to that saying that only Nixon could go to China. Any other president who did that would have been accused of being a communist.
Grandma_Caprio
Bravo on this episode. Maureen is the hero we all need to emulate. o7 free Palestine 🇵🇸
