on November 30, 2024, 6:37 pm
Brendan Ciarán Browne has his eyes wide open while the Irish government keep their's determinedly shut, with the new Taoiseach (prime minister/wanker) refusing to invite the Russian ambassador to famine commemorations in Ireland but inviting the Israeli ambassador, to the horror of many.
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The Coloniality of Enforced Starvation: Reading Famine in Gaza through An Gorta Mór
Brendan Ciarán Browne
Journal of Palestine Studies
Volume 53, 2024 - Issue 2
Abstract
Drawing on the Irish Famine, this essay argues that Israel’s enforced starvation of the Palestinian people in Gaza during the 2023–24 genocide is a deliberate act that advances the settler-colonial aspirations of the Zionist regime. In addition to preventing the delivery of humanitarian aid into Gaza, the author argues that manufacturing food insecurity is part of a long-standing Israeli policy in the besieged enclave, which includes targeting essential infrastructure and other elements of food production. The essay ends with a call on political representatives in both Ireland and the United States to reflect on their own legacy of colonially enforced starvation and to intervene to bring an end to the looming famine in Gaza.
The shadow of the Irish Famine, An Gorta Mór,Footnote1 looms large in collective Irish memory as a catastrophe—an Irish Holocaust or Nakba.Footnote2 On May 19, 2024, a group of Irish political representatives gathered for the annual National Famine Commemoration, during which newly inaugurated Irish TaoiseachFootnote3 Simon Harris opined in his speech: “The Great Irish Famine destroyed lives, destroyed families, and destroyed the hopes and dreams of so many. It was our national tragedy, leaving scars that never fully healed.”Footnote4 Despite the blatant echoes of the Irish Famine in Israel’s ongoing enforced starvation of the Palestinian people in Gaza, to date, the Irish government has done relatively little to hold the Israeli regime accountable for its colonial violence.
The significance of An Gorta Mór goes well beyond Ireland. This “key ‘genocidal’ episode in British/Irish relations” in which over one million Irish men, women, and children starved to death, also drove a further million to flee aboard “coffin ships”Footnote5 in search of a better life in the United States.Footnote6 Those who survived the perilous journey across the Atlantic, including the ancestors of US President Joe Biden, became the foundation of a newly constituted Irish American community. And though the US leader proudly proclaims his Irish roots and his family’s flight from famine in Ireland,Footnote7 the man who holds the most powerful position in the Western world is a self-proclaimed ZionistFootnote8 who has long turned a blind eye to the brutality of Israel’s enduring settler-colonial mission in historic PalestineFootnote9—including to its genocide and enforced starvation in Gaza since October 7, 2023.
Over the last eight months, Biden has, in word and deed, demonstrated his unwavering support for the Israeli regime, even though it stands accused by the International Criminal Court of myriad war crimes and crimes against humanity, including using starvation as a weapon of war.Footnote10 Indeed, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant made very clear Israel’s intent to starve the Palestinians when he addressed the Israeli public on October 9, 2023: “There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed. We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly.”Footnote11 Despite overwhelming evidence of Israel’s crimes, Biden has unequivocally supported it militarily while simultaneously blocking all attempts at diplomatic resolution at the UN Security Council. As a result, between October 7 and April 2024, Israel dropped approximately 70,000 tons of bombs on Gaza,Footnote12 killing over 38,193 Palestinians, more than 15,000 of whom are children; a further 87,903 people have been injured and more than 10,000 are missing.Footnote13 This transatlantic genocidal alliance is erasing the Palestinians of Gaza. History, it seems, is lost on this Irish American president and proud descendant of famine survivors.
In Ireland, official state commemorations for An Gorta Mór only started in 2008,Footnote14 even though the famine transformed Ireland, with entire communities erased, and a culture and language decimated. These performative official events are about reflection, recollection, reaffirmation, and commitment, with speakers at the pulpit declaring that a nation such as Ireland, one that endured historic suffering and enforced starvation, stands committed to ensuring that “never again” applies to all. They are calls to action, with an end to global hunger a cornerstone of Irish foreign policy, administered under the banner of Irish aid. At present, the Irish government has committed to humanitarian assistance, including the alleviation of hunger and poverty, in some fourteen countries, of which Palestine is one.Footnote15 As Harris noted in his May speech: “The tragedy was national, but the lessons are global, and they compel us to honour the memory of the dead, by doing everything we can to prevent similar tragedies elsewhere … We must apply the lessons of the Great Irish Famine to our world today, working to alleviate hunger and suffering wherever it exists. ‘An Gorta Mór’ is a tragedy that will never be forgotten. Our history demands that we do everything we can to make sure it is never repeated.”Footnote16 Harris’s message was transmitted live on Ireland’s national broadcaster and delivered before an audience of invited guests, including a swathe of politicians and diplomats. But not all diplomatic representatives were in attendance. The Department of the Taoiseach released a statement echoing what has become the shared EU position with regard to “Russia’s full-scale invasion of the Ukraine:” “the Ambassador of the Russian Federation is not invited to official State events in Ireland.”Footnote17 In stark contrast, Israel’s ambassador to Ireland, Dana Erlich, was invited, to the dismay of many including those who have been demanding the severance of diplomatic relations with the Israeli state.Footnote18
It seems that the Irish government does not consider the Israeli regime’s brutal and genocidal siege of Gaza, nor its repeated assaults on the enclave since 2008 and its obstruction of the delivery of humanitarian aid to Palestinians, sufficient cause for meaningful diplomatic action against Israel. For many leaders in Ireland and the US, awareness of An Gorta Mór thus does not translate into empathy and action to alleviate enforced starvation in Gaza.
Manufactured Hunger as Colonial Erasure
It is important to stress that manufactured food insecurity is not new in Gaza. Ever since Hamas took power in the besieged enclave in 2007, Israel has enforced food insecurity through myriad colonial policies, including restrictions on the movement of goods, services, and people. The NGO Gisha has shown that the denial of entry of a range of foods and other essential items in and out of Gaza is a deliberate tactic of Israeli siege warfare.Footnote19 The NGO Visualizing Palestine has referred to this practice as “The Gaza Diet” and states: “Since the start of its blockade on Gaza, Israel has been controlling Gazans’ calorie intake, making food essentials such as meat, dairy, fruits, and vegetables a luxury. 2017 OCHA estimates found that 40% of Gazan households suffered from food insecurity, and 80% of people were reliant on foreign aid for survival.”Footnote20 During this ongoing genocide, food insecurity has increased rapidly, to the point where the average daily calorie intake for Palestinians in the north of Gaza has plummeted to 245, according to an Oxfam report.Footnote21 Other reports released by international NGOs, including United Nations OCHAFootnote22 and Global Nutrition Cluster,Footnote23 have been sounding the alarm about the potential for famine from as early as December 2023.Footnote24 According to another report on acute food insecurity by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO): “Over one million people—half the population of Gaza—are expected to face death and starvation (IPC Phase 5) by mid-July.”Footnote25 It is therefore abundantly clear that, should the current situation in Gaza continue, more Palestinians will die due to enforced starvation and associated diseases than as a direct result of Israeli military bombardment.
However, Palestinians in Gaza are not starving; Palestinians in Gaza are being systematically, determinedly, and brutally starved by the Israeli regime and in coordination with European and North American allies who have enabled and emboldened the Israeli state, and who have refused to intervene for the past 278 days and 76 years of its colonial occupation. While famine is often a consequence of armed conflict, enforced starvation of people under siege, as history has shown, is a tactic routinely adopted by colonial powers. As Bridget Conley and Alex de Waal argue, “starvation is produced by leaders’ decisions” and “serves political, military or economic goals.”Footnote26 For colonial powers, starving people aids the broader settler-colonial project by facilitating erasure through either mass eradication or forced expulsion.
In this vein, it is essential that we unequivocally define An Gorta Mór as a supreme act of colonial violence. McVeigh calls on all who are interested in unpacking the colonial underpinnings of the Irish Famine to recall the words of historian John Mitchel,Footnote27 whose “contemporary, anti-imperialist” assessment included the fervent belief that, “the Almighty, indeed, sent the blight,Footnote28 but the English made the Famine.”Footnote29 Such statements are echoed by David Lloyd, who refers to the Irish famine as a “colonial catastrophe.”Footnote30 While the Irish potato crop failed during this period, as it did across Europe at the time, it was not a lack of food that was to blame for the mass starvation and catastrophic loss of life in Ireland between 1845 and 1852. Rather, it was the fact that the food available was being exported to other sites of empire by a colonial government in London with little to no regard for the Indigenous Irish population. Thus, “the key fact about An Gorta Mór,” as noted by Robbie McVeigh and Bill Rolston, “is that there was sufficient food within Ireland to feed the Irish people who were allowed to starve throughout the famine.”Footnote31
In much the same way, and in echoing the words of UN Secretary General António Guterres, the imminent famine in Gaza is an “entirely man-made disaster,” with “the highest number of people facing catastrophic hunger ever recorded by the Integrated Food Security Classification system—anywhere, anytime.”Footnote32 Data released by the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS) has warned that: “Famine (IPC Phase 5) is imminent in northern Gaza and likely to occur by May 2024. The expected emergence of hunger related deaths in line with internationally recognized thresholds for Famine is a further deterioration from the already widespread Emergency (IPC Phase 4) outcomes marked by high levels of acute malnutrition and hunger-related mortality.”Footnote33 The illegality of using starvation as a weapon of war is well-established in international law. Referencing the work of Esbjörn Rosenblad,Footnote34 Federica D’Alessandra and Matthew Gillett highlight that “an absolute prohibition against the intentional starvation of civilians in war exists today both in treaty and in customary international law, irrespective of the nature of the conflict.”Footnote35 This point is egregiously lost on many Western leaders.Footnote36 International law further notes the illegality of acts that may contribute to the effect of starvation, including military attacks on infrastructure considered indispensable to basic survival. The intentional destruction of water sanitation stations, factories for processing food, aid warehouses, bakeries, orchards, and flour mills, contributes to mass starvation and widespread famine, as Jessica Whyte has argued. As such, the very biopolitical “techniques” that are essential to sustaining the state, including “sanitation, nutrition, healthcare, habitation—are now being utilized in reverse to decimate Gaza’s capacity to support human life.”Footnote37
Alongside attacks on food-producing infrastructure and the killing of humanitarian aid workers delivering food, Israel is using aid as a bargaining chip during ceasefire negotiations, further evidencing its use of starvation as a deliberate tactic against the besieged Palestinian people.Footnote38 That is, Israel’s starvation of Palestinians in Gaza involves numerous intersecting factors, all of which directly relate to its exertion of colonial power: the prevention of humanitarian aid supplies from entering Gaza through various Israeli-controlled checkpoints, the added layers of Israeli bureaucratic hurdles to check what can and cannot be let in, and the use of highly erratic, performative, and at times lethal “air drops” to distribute aid, all constitute a colonial logic of control, domination, and erasure. Beyond the direct slaughter of Palestinians, the management and manufacturing of enforced starvation is one of the most visible tactics of Zionism’s settler-colonial mission.
Beyond False Solidarity
The harrowing sight of rows of humanitarian aid trucks sitting stationary, waiting to be permitted entry into Gaza to help alleviate the suffering of over 2.3 million Palestinians, should remind us in Ireland of British colonial ships departing our shores for sites of British empire abroad, laden with Irish crops and livestock, while our ancestors at home starved. Indeed, Irish support for Palestinian liberation, or so it goes, centers on our empathy and connection with other colonized peoples. Our refrain as a partially postcolonial nation—“we understand”—has been the rallying cry of an expanded Irish Palestine solidarity movement that claims to be acutely sensitive to the effect of violent colonization, including “genocide by starvation.”Footnote39
Yet, while every corner of the island of Ireland has a famine story, An Gorta Mór remains a trauma hidden in plain sight. Despite being lauded as a strong European voice in support of Palestine, the Irish government’s record in bringing forward meaningful steps to hold Israel accountable for its flagrant breaches of international law is poor. This inertia at a time of deep crisis for our sisters and brothers confronting famine in Gaza reveals how little our political representatives understand and appreciate the enduring impact of their own colonial history. They make a mockery of the spectacle of public declarations proclaiming “never again.”
Choosing to embrace gentle diplomacy and carefully constructed language at commemorative events does little to change the material reality for those experiencing famine in Gaza. Indeed, cordial condemnation does not equate to calories for those who are forced to starve. The failure to take tangible steps to exert pressure on the Israeli government responsible for the ongoing genocide in Palestine, including by cutting off all diplomatic ties, reveals the limits of Irish solidarity. As UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in the West Bank and Gaza, Francesca Albanese, recently declared: “There’s this tendency to be very supportive with rhetoric, as Ireland has, but when it comes to taking concrete actions, there is zero. Not a little. Zero. The countries that have been most outspoken, like Ireland, what have they done in practice? Nothing. And this is shameful. It is disgraceful.”Footnote40
As for Irish America, Biden might be the legacy of those who fled colonial famine and starvation in Ireland, but his own legacy will be the enforcement of famine against a colonized people: the Palestinians. Irish and Irish American political leaders who mourn Ireland’s experience of enforced starvation would thus do well to situate Israel’s genocidal war against the Palestinians within the same colonial violence that decimated Ireland.
Additional information
Notes on contributors:
Brendan Ciarán Browne is an assistant professor of conflict resolution and a fellow of Trinity College, Dublin. His book, Transitional (in)Justice and Enforcing the Peace on Palestine (Cham: Springer Nature Switzerland AG, 2023), was nominated for a 2023 Palestine Book Award. He has been working on and in Palestine for over fourteen years, and previously held academic roles in occupied Jerusalem. He is based in Belfast.
Journal of Palestine Studies
Volume 53, 2024 - Issue 2
Footnotes in original:
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0377919X.2024.2379709
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