This is an open response to an email I received from Peter Oborne and Irfan Chowdhury challenging my comments on famine in Gaza. I have published their email here.

Dear Irfan Chowdhury and Peter Oborne

Thank you for your email. As is my usual method, I choose to reply by way of a public response. This way, both your questions and my answers are published in full and I can be sure that my words are not manipulated or cherry-picked to form a message I never intended.

Just a couple of weeks ago I see that Peter referred to a recent CfMM report on the BBC as ‘outstanding’ and ‘thorough’. I am mentioned only once in that report and yet they still managed to misattribute a quote to me, so thorough it certainly isn’t! Along with the fact that the key metrics in that CfMM report are amateurish junk (more coming from me on this in a few days), and I hope you’ll forgive my scepticism about your ability to play straight when it comes to anything concerning Israel and/or accuracy.

You had given me until Thursday, 10th July, at 12 noon to reply – so I made sure this piece was clearly published before that deadline.

Turning to the substance of your email, you state that you are currently working on a piece of toxic fiction called ‘Complicit: Britain’s Role in the Destruction of Gaza’. You asked me to explain the contents of my post of 19/12/2024 in which I push back against the narrative of mass famine, thirst, starvation and genocide. Here is an image of the post in question:

Your email basically questions my position on the imagined mass starvation accusations, and relies on three sources (Action Aid, Oxfam, and UNICEF) to suggest that I am wrong and about 1.8 million Gazans are all about to drop dead because they have no food to eat or water to drink. I am hopeful, although not certain that the fact you do not question my statement that Israel is defending itself from terrorists, means you accept that this part is true.

Just to clarify the actual statements you are relying upon:

• The Action Aid warning is built from a statement made by Amjad Al-Shawa, director of the Palestinian NGOs Network (PNGO).
• While the Oxfam statement does not divulge the source of its logistical information (so probably Hamas), the spokesperson who delivers the warning is Sally Abi-Khalil, Oxfam’s Middle East and North Africa Director.
• The UNICEF press release (which was made AFTER my post) comes from UNICEF PR rep Rosalia Bollen and pushes unverified hearsay to tell a story of a single tragic death.

Let me start with Action Aid.  I am not even going to bother pointing out that Action Aid employees have been caught glorifying terrorism and terrorists, I will address only the accusations of famine. Nine months before their December warning, Action Aid were warning of ‘an aid system at the brink of total collapse’.  The statement said that ‘If people in Gaza don’t die from the bombs, they will likely die from starvation.’

Well, I think we can all agree that didn’t happen. And reading through that ridiculous Action Aid (Hamas propaganda) emergency statement from 6 March 2024, I have absolutely no idea why either of you would rely on anything they said nine months later. I certainly wouldn’t.

Next, Oxfam’s unsourced warnings. This is what Oxfam were saying as early as December 2023:

Maybe it is just me, but as over 90% of the population of Gaza did not die of hunger 18 months ago, nor (given there was no prolonged ceasefire) did the threatened famine occur – I see no reason to take this anti-Israeli propaganda outfit seriously as it continually makes similar ‘end-of-time’ warnings. It is clearly not a fact-based organisation and I am amazed that you rely on them as if they are credible. Do you do no fact-checking at all?

Which just leaves the hearsay evidence from UNICEF that was published after my post was made. To try to at least make this interesting, let’s pretend that UNICEF published their statement first – and that I was aware of its contents. Here is UNICEF stating that famine was ‘imminent’ in March 2024:

Well that prediction clearly never materialised either!

While prolonged ceasefires never happened, Israel continued to eradicate Hamas, and none of these NGOs demands were ever met – the starvation scenarios promoted by these groups, simply never unfolded.

Like the genocide smear, the narrative of mass starvation is just more empty bunkum designed to demonise the only Jewish majority state in the world, and the MENA region’s only functioning democracy.

The real tragedy here is not merely that UNICEF and others echo Hamas-aligned narratives. It’s that this distortion corrodes their credibility, and with it, their ability to draw attention to REAL humanitarian catastrophes. While international activists shout ‘All eyes on Rafah,’ the world looks away from Sudan, where hundreds of thousands are starving with no access to aid and no political voice to amplify their suffering.

This is what happens when outrage is hijacked by propaganda. Moral energy is misdirected, and those with no lobby are abandoned to their fate.

Somehow, I doubt our streets will be flooded with protests urging the government to save the people of Sudan. When there’s no anti-Israel obsession driving the outrage, the streets stay empty.

If Gazans just hand back the hostages, and Hamas agrees to relinquish control, the conflict ends. The people of Sudan have no such choice. This is how the lies about Gaza cost lives. They take attention from places where people really are dying without food. ‘All eyes on Rafah’ – so nobody is looking as millions are actually dying from famine elsewhere in the world.

These NGOs and many others like them have been ruined by activists within who have politicised them. I know how bad the situation has become because I wrote a detailed report on the demise of Amnesty – and found that the face of Amnesty in Gaza, both celebrated Islamic Jihad terrorists, AND (importantly) posted about how people needed to self-censure to protect the ‘resistance’. I am sure if she were still there, you would be relying on her terrorist supporting  words as yet more evidence of a ‘truth’ that you think I should answer to.

These politicised outfits are relying on information provided by people embedded within Gazan clans that are affiliated to one of the many terrorist factions that operate there. There is no ‘independence’ in Gaza. These outfits are striving to end the conflict in such a fashion that would allow Hamas to retain control. As such they are doing the work of Hamas and all their messaging should be treated as propaganda designed to aid that proscribed terrorist group.

I get this is the truth, but I am not surprised that people who think that the CfMM are a credible outfit fail to see it. I hope I helped to open your eyes a little.

Oh, and yes, I confirm receipt of your message.

David Collier

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