From 1-3 June, the Israeli military fired on Palestinians in Gaza desperately trying to access food irresponsibly supplied by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. In recent days, these areas have been described as being a “food death trap.”

The Foundation, headed by a pro-Trump religious and political operative, works in close association with the very military carrying out the genocide and starvation policies in Gaza. Approximately 250 Palestinians have been killed in less than three weeks – “shot or shelled by Israeli troops” – while attempting to secure GHF food.

Nevertheless, GHF’s new leader, Rev. Johnnie Moore, formerly of the evangelical Liberty University of Jerry Falwell, Sr. and Jerry Falwell, Jr., declared in the headline of his Fox News op-ed on 4 June that his organization had carried out its aid mission “without incident.” Moore proudly circulated the op-ed via his X account.

This is shameless propaganda removed from the facts as later conveyed by CNN about Palestinian deaths near GHF sites. His foundation is complicit in a vile and deadly Hunger Games type of distribution of food aid.

US ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, a friend of Moore’s, sided with GHF in denying the organization’s culpability and accused The New York Times, CNN and Associated Press of false reporting about the incident.

“Reckless and irresponsible reporting by major US news outlets,” he asserted, is “contributing to the anti-Semitic climate that has resulted in the murder of two young people at an Israeli Embassy event in Washington last month and the attempted murder and terror attack on a group of pro-Israel demonstrators in Colorado on Sunday.” With evidence mounting of GHF complicity in Palestinian deaths, Huckabee has not walked back his comments.

Notably, Huckabee had a friendly meeting with fascist Israeli ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir on Thursday just hours before Israel’s strikes on Iran.

Huckabee tweeted: “Glad to greet Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.” He claimed they had been “ridiculously sanctioned by five nations” – referring to the action recently taken by Britain, Australia, Norway, Canada and New Zealand – and termed it “outrageous hypocrisy” despite the settler violence they are promoting in the West Bank and the ethnic cleansing they seek in Gaza.

Moore’s dismissal of the Palestinian deaths is unsurprising as he has long been engaged in propaganda intended to ensure the most violent response possible against Hamas and consequently Palestinians in Gaza. Francesca Albanese, special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian Territory occupied since 1967 and a guest Thursday on The Electronic Intifada livestream, has referred to GHF as a “criminal enterprise.”

The Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL), a Quaker lobbying group, has warned that GHF “militarizes aid.” An FCNL document by Hassan El-Tayyab, the group’s legislative director for Middle East policy, notes: “GHF is run by armed contractors. This violates the humanitarian principles of neutrality, independence and impartiality. Even GHF’s own executive director, Jake Wood, resigned in protest on May 25, saying that it could not work in a way that adhered to ‘humanitarian principles.’”

Nevertheless, the US State Department may provide GHF with $500 million through USAID, an agency the Trump administration decimated and folded into the State Department.

The Center for Constitutional Rights has notified GHF of “its potential legal liability for complicity in Israel’s war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide against Palestinians. Unlike the United Nations-run system that it was designed to replace in Gaza, GHF coordinates its operations closely with the Israeli government.”

Moore’s propaganda

On 7 October 2023, the day of the Hamas-led attack against Israel that resulted in the deaths of more than 1,000 Israeli civilians and soldiers, Moore tweeted that “Hamas is ISIS.” Yet less than two years later, far right Israeli politician Avigdor Lieberman has accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of arming ISIS in Gaza – and he wasn’t referring to Hamas being ISIS, but to groups opposed to Hamas.

Moore, soon to be a 2025-26 Agora fellow at Johns Hopkins University, claims that GHF is “learning more every day,” but at what cost? His organization is replacing groups that better know how to do this work and Palestinians are being killed as a result.

He goes so far as to accuse the United Nations of joining “a terrorist-led BOYCOTT of an initiative of the UNITED STATES to give away food to Gazans in a way which doesn’t allow the aid to be controlled, stolen, sold and used to prolong the war. The UN should be cooperating with America.” He simply disregards that the US initiative has resulted in scores of dead Palestinians.

Lieberman also contends the initiative is being funded by Mossad, apartheid Israel’s spy and international assassination organization.

According to Lieberman, “The money for the humanitarian aid is coming from the Mossad and the defense ministry – hundreds of millions of dollars at the expense of Israeli citizens.”

Moore, well aware of his more capable UN rival, has repeatedly threatened funding cuts, “historically tough” as he puts it, against the UN if it doesn’t cooperate with US complicity in the Gaza genocide. In his view, the previous system was “profanely corrupt” and, putting his public relations background to use, has asserted: “Surely, these old US and EU-funded humanitarian organizations won’t let people starve in exchange for being ‘right’ when they know what they have done hasn’t worked and has, in fact, made a terrible war worse?”

A man with such profoundly anti-Palestinian views should be nowhere near this job.

Moore accused Hamas of killing eight of GHF’s Palestinian workers earlier this week, though The Washington Post noted that GHF “did not offer evidence.”

The GHF leader asserted on X, “There is good and evil in this world. What we are doing is good and what Hamas did to these Gazans is absolute evil.”

He did not use similar language to classify the killing of some 250 Palestinians by the Israeli military while seeking GHF aid or for the abuse reportedly meted out by GHF mercenaries.

Moore also sought to escalate this into a religious war when he added: “While GHF is not a religious organization, I am a religious Christian and I especially draw on my faith in moments like these.”

He cited the word of Apostle Paul “to the Christians being brutally tortured by the Roman Empire two thousand years ago: ‘Soon the God of peace will crush Satan underneath our feet.’ Romans 16:20.”

This claim is made as he abets a genocide in Gaza and transforms food aid into a deadly dash exposed to Israeli gunfire. Chef José Andrés, whose own employees have been killed in Gaza by the Israeli military, is correct that humanitarian workers should not be targeted.

Yet it is also the case that humanitarian workers should not collaborate with an organization working in conjunction with an occupying army that is shooting at food-seeking survivors of war crimes and genocide. This is unprecedented territory in Gaza, all intended to exclude the United Nations and the UN agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA) and to deny access to established effective aid organizations. More broadly, the effort seeks to foreclose on the rights of Palestinian refugees whose ancestral lands are just a few miles away across the Gaza boundary.

War at home?

In a case of “imperial boomerang,” Trump, not content with terrorizing Palestinians with words and bombs and now failing to prevent Israel from attacking Iran, is flexing authoritarian policies against Americans and undocumented migrants. He is threatening protesters in the so-called majority-minority city of Los Angeles, California – part of a dissident region of the country – with the US military. Mexican territory, including California, was purchased by the US for a scant $15 million via coercive pressure at the end of the Mexican-American war in 1848.

Ironically, deputy White House chief of staff Stephen Miller, who does not recognize Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory, has said that “Los Angeles is occupied territory,” disparaging foreign flags meant to show pride in heritage. Trump stated on Truth Social: “A once great American City, Los Angeles, has been invaded and occupied by Illegal Aliens and Criminals. Now violent, insurrectionist mobs are swarming and attacking our Federal Agents to try and stop our deportation operations – But these lawless riots only strengthen our resolve.”

He is courting another Kent State massacre where National Guard troops killed four student protesters and observers in 1970.

The president added, “For those people that want to protest, they will be met with very big force. And I haven’t even heard about a protest.”

He also incited young soldiers against his political enemies during a speech Tuesday at Fort Bragg in North Carolina.

Trump’s possible use of US Marines against American protesters should show the world that this president is a menace not just to people around the world, and particularly to Palestinians whose genocide he is abetting like his predecessor, but at home as well.

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