The Oregon Food Bank Has a Foreign Policy

The Oregon Food Bank has long been generously supported by a dozen Jewish nonprofits and synagogues. That support goes back decades. But now, it seems, some pro-Palestinian activists have managed to infiltrate into the Food Bank’s upper echelon and provided it with its very own foreign policy, something no other Food Bank in the United States has ever thought necessary until now. More on the Oregon Food Bank’s decision to declare its solidarity with Hamas and to condemn the IDF’s actions in Gaza, and the repercussions of that decision, can be found here: “Jewish Groups Pull Support From Oregon Food Bank for Blasting ‘Israel’s Violence’ in Gaza,” by Shiryn Ghermezian, Algemeiner, June 4, 2024:

A total of 12 Jewish organizations based in Oregon, including nonprofits and five synagogues, announced in a joint statement that they will not support the Oregon Food Bank until it retracts its condemnation of Israel’s military actions during the ongoing Israeli campaign targeting Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip.

The local Jewish groups, including the Jewish Federation of Greater Portland, also called on the Oregon Food Bank to issue a new statement “indicating that it will maintain its focus on hunger and its root causes here in Oregon.”

They added, “Until such time we will support other local organizations who are upholding this important mission.”

On April 30, the Oregon Food Bank released a statement that called for an immediate and permanent ceasefire to end “Israel’s violence against Palestinians.” The organization — which collects and distributes food across five main locations in Oregon and southwest Washington — claimed that Israel’s military campaign in the Gaza Strip puts Palestinians in the region “at risk of genocide.” The food bank condemned what it described as “indiscriminate attacks by the Israeli army on Palestinians, including the bombardment of neighborhoods, healthcare facilities, humanitarian aid efforts, and refugee camps.”

There are no “indiscriminate attacks” by the IDF on Palestinian civilians. The IDF makes enormous efforts to minimize civilian casualties. It has so far sent out 16 million text messages, made 15 million prerecorded telephone calls, 100,000 personal calls, and dropped nine million leaflets, all in order to warn civilians away from areas, or buildings, about to be targeted. According to British Colonel Richard Kemp, the IDF is “the most moral army in the world.” West Point Professor John Spencer, who studies urban warfare, has concluded that the IDF has been “taking unprecedented steps to protect Gaza civilians,” and “does more to protect the lives of civilians than any other army in the history of warfare.” Perhaps the Oregon Food Bank would like to look into the IDF’s elaborate system of warning civilians before flinging about absurd charges of “genocide.” And while it is at it, the Food Bank could examine the policy of Hamas, that deliberately embeds both its operatives and its weapons among the civilians of Gaza, using them as human shields, knowing that IDF pilots will abort a mission if they see too many civilians in the vicinity of the target, and that IDF soldiers on the ground will hold their fire for the same reasons. However, as in all wars, some civilian casualties are unavoidable.

The best measure of how an army is doing to minimize casualties is to look at the ratio of civilians-to-combatants killed. Since 1945, the UN reports, that ratio has averaged 9: 1, that is, nine civilians are killed for every combatant. In Afghanistan, the American army pushed that ratio down to 4:1, and in Iraq, the Americans and allies managed to lower it still further, to 3:1 — three civilians killed for every combatant. But no army has come close to the IDF’s historic achievement to attaining a 1:1 ratio — that is, one civilian killed for every combatant.

“The intentional obstruction of humanitarian relief efforts as well as the deliberate destruction of Palestinian food and lifeways, such as the intentional targeting of bakeries, hospitals, and housing units, exacerbates the suffering and vulnerability of Palestinians,” the food bank added.

A series of lies from the food bank. Primo, there has been no “deliberate obstruction of humanitarian aid” by the IDF. It is Egypt that has stopped trucks from entering Gaza through the Rafah crossing. Israel has always allowed in aid through, requiring only that the contents of the trucks be subject to security screenings at either Nitzana or Kerem Shalom Crossings. From there, aid is sent to the Gaza Strip. As of late March, over 20,000 trucks have delivered over 375,000 tons of aid.

There has been no “intentional targeting of bakeries, hospitals, and housing units,” when they are used for civilian purposes, but if they are taken over by Hamas, who uses them to conduct attacks on the IDF soldiers, or to launch rockets into Israel, then under international law those places lose their protected status. Israel has discovered an extensive Hamas presence – fighters and weapons — in many hospitals. The IDF enter to flush them out, taking care to ensure the safety of both the patients and the medical personnel. In the IDF’s weeks of fighting at Al-Shifa Hospital, Gaza’s largest hospital, not a single doctor, nurse, or patient was harmed.

The IDF precisely targets individual apartments in much larger residential buildings, where its intelligence has located Hamas fighters and weapons within, managing for example, to destroy a single apartment on one floor while leaving all the other apartments unscathed. As for bakeries, they are only targeted if Hamas fighters are hiding within. Israel does not, as the Oregon Food Bank claims, “engage in the deliberate destruction of Palestinian food and lifeways.” [sic] Israel has been responsible for getting more food aid into Gaza than any other country or international organization.

“These attacks illustrate how blocking food distribution and the weaponization of starvation is a violent tactic of war … Oregon Food Bank’s mission is to end hunger and its root causes. We know that colonial ideologies are root causes of hunger, including the legacy of World War II’s antisemitism, Islamophobia, and hatred, which fuel the current outbreak of violence in Israel and Palestine.”…

The “current outbreak of violence” between Israel and Hamas — not “Israel and Palestine” — was fueled by only one thing: the orgy of rape, torture, mutilation, and murder by Hamas of 1,200 Israelis on October 7. That is what started the Gaza war, a war that Israel did not want and did not start.

The only “weaponization of starvation” in Gaza is that practiced by Hamas. Its operatives steal much of the food aid as soon as the trucks cross into Gaza, keeping it for themselves and their extended families. They then turn around and parade for the world media a handful of emaciated Gazans, blaming Israel for their condition, when the blame belongs solely to Hamas for stealing food aid meant for everyone in the Strip.

On May 16, the Oregon Food Bank released a statement in recognition of Jewish-American Heritage Month, honoring “the resilience and contributions of Jewish peoples” and recognizing “the deep roots and present actions of antisemitism” across the US. The Jewish organizations said that while they appreciate the food bank’s remarks celebrating Jewish-American Heritage Month, “it does nothing to negate the harm already done.”

This statement was a transparent attempt to win back Jewish support — donations — for the Oregon Food Bank, but the dozen Jewish groups and synagogues, stung by the unfairness and viciousness of the OFB’s attack on the Jewish state just a few weeks before, are having none of it. They’ll contribute to other food banks instead. You know the ones I mean —- the ones that don’t have a foreign policy.