The technical definition of famine is not important
In an earlier post I argued that the technical definition of genocide, while important for prosecution, is not that important for public discourse. Namely that we shouldn't just rely on legal/technical definitions. I've realised the question of whether there is "famine" in Gaza follows the same pattern, byt maybe even more clearly.
The UN and other agencies use something called the IPC Acute Food Insecurity Scale to assess how hungry people in a region are. The picture at the top of the post is a summary of the scale from this website. Each phase has precise definitions and orgs like the UN World Food Program monitor these for each country. When something reaches a particular level, there is a policy around particular level of response, tailored as appropriate to the situation. To declare something a famine, these conditions must be met:
- More than 20% of households are facing an extreme lack of food even after deploying all coping strategies.
- Malnutrition levels are at least 30%.
- At least 2 people per 10,000 are dying each day from hunger-related causes.
Note particularly the last point. Based on a 2022 estimate of 2.4 million people in Gaza, for all of Gaza to be considered under famine would require 480 people dying per day. So what would it mean if "only" 450 people were dying per day? It would probably mean level 4 ("emergency") instead of level 5 ("famine"). But these are bands, is there really such a difference morally? After all if that's the case then the defense of Israel is essentially that it has deliberately created conditions that have "not quite reached the technical bar for famine, yet".
The technical definition is bureaucratic because the organisations that help relieve famine are (for better or for worse) bureaucracies. This is what they need. It's not what the general public needs. When I say that there is famine in Gaza, I am NOT talking about the IPC scale, and it's bad faith to pretend otherwise. I'm talking about the fact that the population of Gaza is being starved by Israel. I'm talking about Oxfam reporting in April that people in Northern Gaza currently subsist on 245 calories per day. And of course I'm talking about the fact that the form that denials of the famine take (eg. "but I can show you footage of other people in Gaza eating plentifully!") are the exact forms of denial that get deployed for every famine.
Technical definitions were made for man, not man for technical definitions. And those who wield them like a club are doing it to shut people up, to obscure what is morally apparent.
By the way, the exact same pattern applies to the question of "genocide".