Francis Pike

Should starvation ever be used as a weapon of war?

The United States used food as a weapon of war in their fight against Japan in World War Two (Getty images)

Sorry to disappoint antisemites, but Operation Starvation is not an Israeli plan to murder millions of Palestinians; it was a US plan to starve Japan into submission at the end of the Pacific War. However, comparisons with Israel Defence Force’s (IDF) current strategy for defeating Hamas, and the changing legal landscape of warfare since World War II, are enlightening.

Japan’s death cult was in full swing

By April 1945, Japan had lost the war in the Pacific. At the naval Battle of the Philippine Sea, the Japanese fleet lost so many aircraft that the engagement was named ‘the Great Marianas Turkey Shoot. Months later, the Japanese Navy suffered even greater defeat at the Battle of Leyte Gulf. Thereafter the Japanese navy was nonfunctional – the war was lost.

Only as a last-gasp effort, the behemoth battleship Yamoto, at 72,000 tons the largest ever built, was given a one-way suicide ticket to the Battle of Okinawa.

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