Mother’s Day has passed, but I am thinking about mothers.
I’m thinking about the mothers of Gaza. Imagine a child, some child that you know and care about, perhaps your own or your grandchild or the child of a friend or a neighbor, or even one of the endless parade of adorably cute toddlers we see on the Internet.
Imagine that child comes to you, looks up at you with appealing eyes and says, “I’m hungry.”
And you have nothing to give them. You are hungry yourself, you’ve already given to your child the last morsel of moldy bread, the last pita fried up from bug-infested flour and now there is nothing.
Or you’re a nursing mother, your body crying out for nourishment as you squeeze out the drops of milk you can still just barely produce from your own depleted resources, until that source, too, dries up.
The Israeli military have stopped all aid, all food and medicine, from entering Gaza since March 2. I don’t care what your position is on policy, on the Israel/Palestine question, on the one-state or two-state solution, on who does or does not have the right to defend themselves. Can we not agree on one simple, moral truth: no one has the right to starve children!
Not for any reason whatsoever. There’s no rationale, no justification that can override the obligation of every grown-up to care for the young, the simple right of every child to be fed.
Even war is no excuse. Both human decency and international law agree: starvation cannot be used as a weapon of war. If war is politics by other means, we cannot wage it on the backs of babies and call ourselves good people.
What does it do to our soul, our morality, our sense human decency, to be complicit in the starvation of children? Who does it make us, what do we become, when we violate a moral standard so instinctive, so deeply ingrained?
We are all complicit, as we watch the images on our screens and eat our dinners. A forced complicity, without the power to stop this atrocity, only to at least raise our voices and say, “No! Not in our name!”
This is a call out to the Israeli people, because you more than anyone might have the power to stop this, to throw out Netanyahu and his right-wing cohorts and get the ceasefire that will end the bombing and starvation and bring the hostages home. I know the majority of you want that. You have stood up against Netanyahu before: you can do it again.
I am a Jew, raised in America in the post-Holocaust ‘50s, steeped in the narrative that Israel is our safety and salvation from centuries of persecution and genocide. I feel the underlying fear, the sense that nowhere is truly safe. The trauma of October 7th is great, and it triggers centuries of generational trauma. But how tragic, what a victory for the Nazis, to have turned Israelis from victims, survivors, resistance fighters into persecutors? If Israel continues to starve babies, the terrorists and the haters will have destroyed everything good that Israel can possibly stand for, and whether you retain territory or lose it you will already have lost.
And this is a call out to the diaspora Jewish community, at least to the segment of it that has not already spoken out against this atrocity, as many have. To be Jewish is not synonymous with being a Zionist or supporter of Israel’s military policy. Yet it is institutions from the Jewish community that strongly support Israel, that pressure our politicians and attack those who speak out against the deliberate starvation of children. Judaism is a complex religion, and the Jewish community interprets it in widely different ways, but there is no interpretation that could possibly say “Yes, go ahead, make little children starve.”
This is the moment for all of us to speak out, to exert any pressure we can muster for one simple end: stop the genocide.
I don’t use the word genocide lightly. But when it is a deliberate policy to deny people aid, to withhold medical care and supplies, to starve children, there is no other word that fits.
And this is a call out to everyone. It’s time to raise our voices, whether or not we think our voices will have impact, because they certainly won’t if we don’t use them. We in America are complicit in this. We are arming Netanyahu and supporting his genocidal policies. It’s time to demand a ceasefire, demand that Israel open the gates and allow in aid, food and medicine. Enough suffering, enough revenge! Stop the bombing, end the war, and feed the children of Gaza.
Students are protesting again at their universities. Some, incredibly brave, are on hunger strike, at the California State Universities, Yale, Stanford, UCLA and more. We can support them. We can demand an end to the weaponization of charges of ‘anti-Semitism’ that suppress dissent, stifle free speech, make erase the many Jewish leaders and organizations who say ‘no’ to this assault on human rights, and obscure the real upsurge in anti-Semitism coming from the neofascist extremists. The Freedom Flotilla has attempted to send a boat full of aid and supplies to run the blockade, but the Israeli military bombed them in international waters. We can support their efforts.
. Senator Peter Welch (D-VT) has introduced Senate Bill 224, calling for the urgent delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza. We can call our Senators and ask them to co-sponsor, and contact our Representatives and urge them to propose a similar bill. (Congressional Switchboard: 1-202-224-3121). U.S. law already forbids arming any nation that denies aid to civilians. We should demand that we follow the law, and end our support for these crimes against humanity.
Mother’s Day has passed, but I’m thinking about mothers. The mothers of Gaza are not the only ones in this world facing their hungry children with empty hands. I think of the mothers of the Sudan, where Trump and Musk have literally snatched food out of the mouths of starving children. I think of the mothers of Ukraine, whose children have been snatched away and given to the enemy.
Picture that child you care about, imagine the light in their eyes slowly dimming, their bodies wasting away their cries getting more and more feeble. Whatever your religion, whether you are Christian or Jew, Muslim or Hindu, Buddhist, Pagan, Indigenous or atheist humanist, there’s not a creed in this world that authorizes the starvation of little children. Whatever your politics, your ideology or moral philosophy, I propose this one bottom line: hungry children must be fed.
What more pressing need could there be for our wealth or our resources? What policy aims or personal gains can possibly justify the those wasted limbs, those sunken eyes?
And how much more would we all enjoy the bounty of our own tables if we knew that every mother in the world would be able to face her hungry child with a smile and say, “Come, here there is plenty, come and eat!”
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This post has been syndicated from Starhawk’s Substack, where it was published under this address.