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In this mailing:
* Pesach Wolicki: The Famine That Wasn't: How the UN, Media and Hamas Waged a War of Disinformation
* Lawrence Kadish: Breaking China's Chokehold on America's Crucial Defense Needs


** The Famine That Wasn't: How the UN, Media and Hamas Waged a War of Disinformation ([link removed])
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by Pesach Wolicki • August 29, 2025 at 5:00 am
* Behind this narrative lies a calculated strategy: the weaponization of humanitarian suffering, orchestrated by Hamas — the entity that controls Gaza and its distribution of aid — and amplified by willing accomplices in the United Nations system and global media. The goal is not to report the truth but to smear Israel, rally international condemnation, and shield Hamas from accountability.
* In May 2024, Israeli government data directly contradicted the IPC's claims. In June and July 2024, media reports continued to cite a "high risk of famine," but none could point to actual data proving that famine had occurred. The famine never arrived, but the headlines kept coming.
* [I]n late June 2024, the IPC issued a report titled, "Famine Review Committee: Gaza Strip, June 2024 – IPC's third review report." It showed that the previous famine predictions were not plausible, contradicted all available data, and were based on incorrect assumptions.... [T]he findings of the "Famine Review Committee" were barely covered by the media outside of Israel.
* Regardless of the consistent failure of the dire warnings of famine to come to fruition, the repetition of statements and headlines throughout 2024 set the narrative in the minds of the world: Famine in Gaza. Tellingly, the warnings were always couched in language that allowed for plausible deniability. There was always a "risk" of an "imminent" or "looming" famine -- a famine that just never arrived.
* According to the World Food Programme, sustaining Gaza's estimated population of 2.1 million people requires approximately 62,000 metric tons of food per month.
* From March through December 2024, 788,216 tons of food aid entered Gaza — an average of 78,821 tons per month, more than 25% above the WFP's stated threshold.
* Famously, on May 20, 2025, Tom Fletcher, head of the UN's Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, told BBC Radio that "there are 14,000 babies that will die in the next 48 hours unless we can reach them." While this claim was walked back by the UN, the narrative damage was done.
* The food was entering Gaza — far above the minimum necessary — so why was there any hunger at all? The answer is straightforward: Hamas has weaponized food. The terrorist group that controls Gaza has systematically blocked, diverted, looted, hoarded, and resold humanitarian aid at exorbitant prices.
* Operating four sites in the southern and central Gaza Strip, the GHF is an American project operating in close coordination with Israeli authorities. The purpose of the GHF is to deliver food aid directly to individual Gazan families while bypassing Hamas-controlled distribution networks. The GHF operates with a high level of logistical transparency, tracking aid deliveries with barcodes and GPS to ensure that food reaches its intended recipients.
* "[S]o who's doing the killing? That's a good question. You honestly think it's some U.S. contractors, or it's the IDF just gunning people down. Or is it Hamas... because it's business to them. If they can keep people from getting the free food, then they can sell the food that was supposed to be given to them for free. That's what no one seems to be wanting to talk about. Why not?" — US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, ([link removed]) August 8, 2025.
* The daily claims of deaths at from IDF fire distribution sites always come from staff at Hamas-controlled hospitals or unverified eyewitness testimonies. There has yet to be even a single video clip of such an incident occurring, even as virtually every move anyone makes in Gaza is recorded on a smartphone and shared widely.
* Macron's pledge to recognize a Palestinian state – quickly joined by the UK, Canada and Australia – and the most recent surge in aid into Hamas-controlled areas through airdrops and increases in trucks entering Gaza, together with the aggressive demonization of Israel in the media and diplomatic arena, have led Hamas to believe that time is on their side.
* Hamas knows that it has no chance of beating the Israel militarily, but its propaganda war has been a smashing success. If all it takes is keeping Gaza's civilians hungry and desperate, that is a price Hamas is more than happy to pay.

Since the invasion of Israel by Hamas on October 7, 2023, the international media, humanitarian organizations, and UN-affiliated agencies have relentlessly pushed one of the most damaging blood libels in history: that Israel is deliberately starving the people of the Gaza Strip. In headline after headline, and through "official" UN reports and viral images, the world has been told that Gaza teeters on the edge of famine — or that famine has already taken hold. However, these warnings, loudly declared, have repeatedly failed to materialize. Pictured: Gazans cheer after receiving food parcels from a Gaza Humanitarian Foundation distribution point on June 26, 2025, in central Gaza. (Photo by Moiz Salhi/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images

Since the invasion of Israel by Hamas on October 7, 2023, the international media, humanitarian organizations, and UN-affiliated agencies have relentlessly pushed one of the most damaging blood libels in history: that Israel is deliberately starving the people of the Gaza Strip. In headline after headline, and through "official" UN reports and viral images, the world has been told that Gaza teeters on the edge of famine — or that famine has already taken hold. However, these warnings, loudly declared, have repeatedly failed to materialize.

Behind this narrative lies a calculated strategy: the weaponization of humanitarian suffering, orchestrated by Hamas — the entity that controls Gaza and its distribution of aid — and amplified by willing accomplices in the United Nations system and global media. The goal is not to report the truth but to smear Israel, rally international condemnation, and shield Hamas from accountability.

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** Breaking China's Chokehold on America's Crucial Defense Needs ([link removed])
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by Lawrence Kadish • August 29, 2025 at 4:00 am
It is little noticed but deeply disturbing that China currently can withhold rare earth minerals that are critical to America's national security. Beijing has engaged in a two-year export-restriction campaign that has our defense officials scurrying for alternative supplies of crucial elements needed for weapons. Pictured: A front loader shifts soil containing rare earth minerals to be loaded for export at a port in Lianyungang, east China's Jiangsu province, on September 5, 2010. (Photo by STR/AFP via Getty Images)

During World War II, the Japanese invasion of the Southeast Asia cut off America's access to natural rubber, a vital resource. Our answer? Invent synthetic rubber and keep our armor rolling to victory.

The Germans built massive Tiger tanks, but by the end of the war many of them were on the side of the road, out of fuel. Why? We destroyed Germany's oil refineries, and the transportation infrastructure required to get the fuel needed by those war machines.

What does this history lesson mean to us today, in an era of artificial intelligence, satellite phones and nuclear brinksmanship? Plenty.

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