Once a business economist, and founder- director of the School of Management Accounting, Steve Apfel is a veteran authority on anti-Zionism.
“There’s no more point in arguing with the UN about Israel than there is in arguing about whether Jews really kill Christians for their blood."
Israel’s former minister, Gideon Sa’ar makes a good point. Blood libels go with conspiracy theories. Which go with contradictory statements. Which are quite ludicrous.
All manner of addicted bashers of Israel, marked by euphoria at the start and denial at the end, took to the media for handwringing over the Gaza strip engulfed by famine. Were these archetype conspirators stating things too ridiculous for words?
Really and truly, to take the main example, can famine and obesity co-exist?
AI answers yes, they can. In Gaza they absolutely can. And if there’s a country with the knowhow to starve the Palestinian Arabs and also make them fat, simultaneously, Israel would be that diabolical country. ,
“The Mechanism Behind the Paradox. While it seems contradictory that a food-insecure population struggles with obesity, public health drivers are systemic.
"Reliance on energy-dense, low-nutrient foods in humanitarian crises heavily limits access to lean proteins, fresh produce and diverse diets. Families rely on aid-provided carbohydrates, oils and ultra-processed foods. These foods are high in calories but severely lack the essential vitamins and minerals.
"The 'Hunger-Obesity' Cycle (occurs) when severe food insecurity leads to episodic eating patterns. When food aid becomes available people may over-consume caloric food to compensate for periods of deprivation, altering metabolic rates and promoting fat storage."
In August 2025 a network of UN agencies led by UNICEF implicitly engaged this enigma to assert that famine in parts of Gaza had trapped more than half a million refugees in dire starvation. Purportedly acute malnutrition among kids had led to deaths that were all too preventable.
UNICEF was adamant. Famine conditions prevailed in Gaza City and surrounds, driven by cruel denial of access to food and by wartime conditions. Malnutrition among children under five was reportedly drastic. Half a million and more endured extreme famine conditions, many going days without food.
Then came the hit job.
Before Israel invaded the strip in December 2023 between 40% to 60% of grownups were overweight or obese. The factors were diets high in processed foods and lack of infrastructure for physical activity.
Then war came to Gaza. And war allegedly led to “massive weight loss" in the population. Households plunged into extreme hunger. By June 2025 UNICEF felt ready to announce that 5,119 children were diagnosed with malnutrition.
“Children in the Gaza strip are starving to death" cried Edouard Beigbeder, UNICEF regional director. “Children must not be left to starve."
The dynamic behind the drama hardly needs to be identified, it was that renowned.
“NY Times front-page image of emaciated Gaza toddler sparks backlash, then an editors’ note.
A haunting photo of an emaciated toddler cradled by his mother dominated the front page of The New York Times on Friday, 25 July 2025, quickly becoming a symbol of the hunger crisis in Gaza. Mohammed Zakaria al-Mutawaq, about 18 months, with his mother, Hedaya al-Mutawaq, who said he was born healthy but recently was diagnosed with severe malnutrition."
It unleashed a tornado. Doubters of the hunger story, who also resented the blame laid at Israel’s door, cried foul. They charged the Times with perpetuating a ‘blood libel’.
Thereupon the Editor amended the story - somewhat.
The child had underlying medical issues impacting his development. He also removed the mother’s "quote" saying that Mohammed had been born healthy.
Even so the paper persisted. “Gazans are dying of starvation" it wrote, adding that the kid had malnutrition caused by food scarcity. “This additional detail gives readers a greater understanding of his condition," said the ‘Paper of Note’.
“Another Photo. Another Lie" retorted media watchdogHonest Reporting. “Mohammad is not a victim of starvation. His condition stems from a health disorder, not from a lack of food caused by Israel".
The image and the dispute were symptomatic of a real problem confronting the news reporting profession. Israel, remember banned independent journalists from Gaza, a war zone. At worst the photo journalists that were permitted to work out of Gaza might have the approval of Hamas. At best they could be conflicted over which side to be on.
Nor did fake images have to mean a fake crisis. Though denying starvation, Israeli officials themselves admitted that logistical problems (such as Hamas stealiing the food, R.S.) led to acute hunger. And the Times quoted doctors who’d seen patients in acute stages of hunger. Some doctors complained that even they struggled to obtain food. There were also honest outlets that carried images of emaciated kids that no one contested.
And Trump of course: “That’s real starvation stuff. I see it, and you can’t fake it," said the President, contradicting Israel’s Prime Minister.
But the climb down had to come.
When it did, the usual suspects handled it deftly. Not a year into the ‘famine’ UNIFEC issued a July 2026 report, “Gaza Nutrition SMART Survey Result". It carried a stark reassessment: Gaza had no famine though ‘Wasting’ it did have, a term for ‘extreme thinness’ which could mean anything.
An accusation, though untrue, may be levelled in good faith and thus call for a serious rebuttal. A libel on the other hand can be made only in bad faith. Inflicting starvation as a weapon of war is a libel. The lie is told with the intention of doing harm to the Jews’ military machine.
It was thus a disappointment that The Free Press failed to see the big distinction. In the article “New UNICEF-Led Data Undermines Claims of Gaza Famine", the word, ‘Claims’ is a trouble maker of note.
“A year ago, Gaza was officially declared famine-stricken. New, more rigorous data paints a dramatically different picture-and has triggered a debate over whether the original declaration was correct." (My italics)
A claim which is not inherently libellous is debateable. What then is the point complaining of anti-Israel bias when “There’s no more point in arguing with the UN about Israel than there is in arguing about whether Jews really kill Christians for their blood."
By comparison, Amnesty Int makes UNICEF and co look mild. How so?
Surely it conceded that the “Israeli State" (Amnesty’s menacing name for Israel) expended great effort, time and money to keep Gaza fed.
Yes it did. But among the vilest of vile humanitarian bods, Amnesty believed it was only elaborate cover for Israel’s real intent to starve and murder Gazans to extinction.
Consider its report:
“Gaza: Evidence points to Israel’s continued use of starvation to inflict genocide against Palestinians.
"By continuing to prevent UN and other key humanitarian organizations from distributing certain essential items, like food parcels, fuel and shelter, within Gaza and by maintaining a deadly, dehumanizing and ineffective militarized ‘aid’ scheme, Israeli authorities haveturned aid-seeking into a booby trap for desperate starved Palestinians".
Thus according to Amnesty, Israel went to enormous effort and expense in order to lure hungry people to distribution points where they’d make easy targets.
Now that is a blood libel. That is the murder imagery by which the Nazis demonized and finally all but exterminated European Jewry.