From Ireland to Gaza, starvation has been normalised Submitted by Barry Malone on Thu, 01/08/2026 - 16:21 Almost two centuries separate the famines, but the atrocity inflicted on the Irish people in the 1800s is echoed today in the denial of aid to Palestinians Demonstrators hold placards and flags in support of Palestinians in Dublin, Ireland during a national protest ahead of the two year anniversary of October 7 attacks and Israel's subsequent genocide in Gaza on 4 October, 2025 (Reuters) On It is 1847 in Ireland, and the country is in the grip of a famine that will go on to kill more than one million people and force another two million to leave the soil of their birth. Dozens of carts loaded with food and supplies are making their way through the countryside, guarded by 25 British soldiers and several armed police officers. “Bullets, bayonets and cavalry swords” are at the ready as the convoy passes through villages where people are starving, according to the account of an eyewitness journalist. Such scenes were common as food, much of it for export, wound its way through towns and hamlets that chroniclers of the time described as filled with “skeletal” people. The Irish, though often conveniently portrayed in Britain as stoically accepting their starvation, were ready to take matters into their own hands to feed themselves. “Food riots” had become common leading up to the 1847 peak of An Gorta Mor - the Great Hunger - with mills, bakeries and meal shops raided, livestock stolen, and carts and cargo boats hijacked. Those who were caught were subject to the absurd charge of “plundering provisions”, though there were some lenient judges who recognised the difference between criminal activity and hungry people forced to take matters into their own hands in what was not only a legitimate form of protest and resistance, but a matter of necessity. Dying babies Today, nearly two centuries later, the cavalry swords and bayonets are gone. But far from Ireland, in Gaza , food is being kept from people with sniper rifles, drones and a ring of steel. Though the technology of oppression has changed, one weapon remains the same. It’s the ultimate weapon, the one that underpins everything: dehumanisation. The atrocities committed in Ireland and Palestine would not be possible without it. As long as people were not seen as equal; as long as they were depicted as savage, as not valuing life; as long as they were less, their oppressors felt they could justify anything. And that dehumanisation is facilitating Israel ’s ongoing starvation of Gaza, despite Tel Aviv having agreed to a bogus ceasefire in October, under which it pledged to let sufficient food aid and other supplies into the besieged and bombed enclave. Decision-makers need enablers, whether in the guise of Britain's 19th-century political classes and leader writers, or Israel's slavish allies in the West Though a formal designation of famine was lifted last month by the world’s leading global hunger monitor, the UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, Israel continues to restrict the entry of the required amount of food, Palestinians still go hungry, and babies have begun freezing to death . Let’s pause there and say that again: Palestinian babies are freezing to death. In December, two-week-old Mohammed Khalil Abu al-Khair died from acute hypothermia, and eight-month-old Rahaf Abu Jazar perished from exposure. Arkan Firas Musleh, two months old, froze to death just two weeks ago. If those babies had been Israeli, American or British; if they had been white; if they had not been Palestinian, the whole world would know their names. They would scream from international headlines. But, hardly surprising to anyone who has watched international coverage of Israel’s genocide over the last two years, the western media has largely ignored it. And now, as the world shrugs in response to the horror of dying babies, Israel has announced it is banning 37 aid organisations from operating in Gaza. Cynical exploitation The racism that makes some lives worth less than others is carefully constructed over decades - sometimes centuries - and then cynically exploited by colonisers. It isn’t just the Irish and Palestinians who have been degraded in this way. According to the diary of former British Secretary of State for India , Leo Amery, Prime Minister Winston Churchill in 1944 said that sending relief to India during the Bengal famine would do no good because the people “breed like rabbits”. Israel is starving Gaza to death, and still the world does nothing Read More » Charles Trevelyan, the British official responsible for administering famine relief in Ireland, often failed to conceal his distaste for the Irish people. The famine, sparked by successive failures of the potato crop due to blight, was an act of divine providence, he said, and no attempt to address it should interfere with the free market and the gospel of laissez-faire economics. There was a surplus population “ sunk in indolence and almost barbarism ”, and the Irish were not helping themselves because there was “scarcely a woman of the peasant class … whose culinary art exceeds the boiling of a potato”. Among the British elite, a view became pervasive that if too much aid was delivered, or if food exports were halted, the Irish rural poor would not become self-reliant. It was an opinion that wholly ignored the role of London in rendering them dependent. A more pernicious claim was that, if money was provided, they would spend it on weapons, prioritising rebellion over the survival of their children. Complicit coverage As with Gaza, a compliant and complicit media helped to paint the Irish as undeserving of help, responsible for their own fate, and not their coloniser’s problem. Though there was some sympathetic reporting, particularly in the early days of the famine, much of the coverage blamed and stereotyped the Irish people. The Economist said in 1846 that their plight was “brought on by their own wickedness and folly”. The London Times ran several editorials arguing against the British government funding aid. Punch, a satirical magazine, depicted the Irish with ape-like features, running cartoons accusing them of leeching off the English. Tourists walk inside the the Irish Hunger Memorial in New York City on 16 March 2015 (Timothy A Clary/AFP) Sound familiar? These same tropes echo down the ages in the conniving coverage of Gaza we’ve seen in major news organisations, such as the BBC and New York Times. The echoes are there, too, in the refrains of Zionists when faced with the undeniable fact that the government they support is committing a live-streamed genocide: “They should have thought about that before they started a war they couldn’t win”; “Hamas is to blame”; “Palestinians use their children as human shields.” One million Irish people dying from hunger, an ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people, babies freezing to death, children blown to pieces: these crimes against humanity were all the result of decisions made by an oppressor class. And decision-makers need enablers, whether in the guise of Britain’s 19th-century political classes and leader writers, or Israel’s slavish allies in the West. The Irish famine showed the world what happens when mass starvation is allowed to run its course. Today, Gaza asks whether we've learned any lessons In 1997, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, while stopping short of a full apology, acknowledged that “those who governed in London” had failed the Irish people. That admission came 150 years too late for the one million people who died, for the two million forced to flee their country in destitution, and for a nation still haunted by the memory of those times, its population levels not recovered to this day. But Gaza’s genocide, now slower and more grinding, is ongoing. People are hungry, freezing in flimsy tents, and their babies are dying. The United Nations says it has enough food, medicine and shelter materials for hundreds of thousands of people - but Israel will not let it in. If the world’s biggest media organisations continue to ignore children such as Mohammed, Rahaf and Arkan, while amplifying Israeli propaganda; and if western governments continue to support Israel materially and diplomatically, while Palestinians continue to be devalued, magnitudes more people will die. The Irish famine showed the world what happens when mass starvation is allowed to run its course. Today, Gaza asks whether we’ve learned any lessons - or whether, nearly two centuries on, some lives are still too cheap to save. The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye. Israel's genocide in Gaza Opinion Post Date Override 0 Update Date Mon, 05/04/2020 - 21:29 Update Date Override 0