Saudi Arabia under spotlight over Khashoggi, but drastic Yemen famine ignored
Yemen is on the verge of a devastating famine as it continues to endure Saudi coalition airstrikes. Despite this, most of the criticism levied at the Kingdom is about missing journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
UN REPORT
The UN’s World Food Program (WFP) has warned that 12 million people are expected to face the worst famine in 100 years in mere months, as fighting around the vital port of Hodeidah continues.
It has called on the Saudi-led coalition - which has been bombing the country since March 2015, with arms supplied by the US and UK - to halt airstrikes on the country which ordinarily imports 90 percent of its food.
More than eight million Yemenis are currently severely food insecure. The 2017 Yemen Humanitarian Response Plan warned 3 million children and pregnant or nursing women are acutely malnourished, including 400,000 children under the age of five.
The WFP’s report is just the latest warning of humanitarian disaster in Yemen over the years, and yet, the plight of the Yemeni people goes largely underreported. The bombing of a school bus in August gained some traction, but the situation in Yemen doesn’t usually inspire the same collective-handwringing as other conflicts.
READ MORE: Dozens of children slaughtered and injured in coalition airstrike on bus in Yemen
Why have our lawmakers and the media turned a blind eye to the atrocities committed against #Yemen every day by the US and Saudi Arabia? https://t.co/gLpbwDgvyg
— Mark Ruffalo (@MarkRuffalo) October 13, 2018
Saudi Arabia has been bombing kids in Yemen for months and yet big corporations and media outlets have only just discovered their moral conscience over a missing journalist?
— Paul Joseph Watson (@PrisonPlanet) October 13, 2018
Following the disappearance of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, believed to have been dismembered inside the Saudi embassy in Turkey on October 2, the media is starting to pay more attention to the Kingdom and cast a more critical eye on Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS). The latest developments in the Khashoggi case are the main agenda in news programs and critical commentaries are appearing in countless mainstream outlets. The story is inspiring far more outrage than the death of some 10,000 Yemenis.
Khashoggi’s last column in the Post highlighted the dire situation in Yemen, and suggested the Kingdom go from being “warmaker to peacemaker.”
While outrage mounts over murder of #JamalKashoggi, Saudi bombs another bus in Yemen, killing 17 civilians. This after attacking schools, hospitals & weddings w/ US support. No limit to atrocities Saudi can commit to remain protected by belligerent empire https://t.co/FULtNFj2pz
— Abby Martin (@AbbyMartin) October 15, 2018
All those big-wigs & media outlets who planned to go to Saudi investment conference, until the #JamalKashoggi incident—they were convening in the same hotel where MBS rounded up his opponents & allegedly tortured one to death
— Avi Asher-Schapiro (@AASchapiro) October 11, 2018
Sanders
However, not everyone has been quiet. Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders has used the Khashoggi outrage to draw attention to Yemen, saying it is the “world’s largest humanitarian disaster,” and that Khashoggi’s disappearance “only underscores how urgent” it is for the US to redefine its relationship with the Gulf state.
The former Democratic presidential candidate plans to reintroduce his resolution to stop supporting the war in Yemen, to “show the Saudis they do not have a blank check to continue human rights violations.”
The Saudi-led war in Yemen has become the world's largest humanitarian disaster. The recent disappearance and likely assassination of Jamal Khashoggi only underscores how urgent it has become for the United States to redefine our relationship with Saudi Arabia.
— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) October 15, 2018
Next month, I plan to give the Senate another chance to vote on my resolution to end our support for the war in Yemen, to reassert Congressional authority over matters of war, and to show the Saudis that they do not have a blank check to continue human rights violations.
— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) October 15, 2018
Sanders, along with progressives like Tulsi Gabbard and Ro Khanna and libertarian Ron Paul are some of the only politicians to have called out Saudi atrocities before the Khashoggi affair.
This story should leave every US lawmaker sleepless. Nearly 13 million in Yemen face possible famine. The war is on a scale that simply shocks the conscience of the world. Please, let us stop aiding the Saudis with their massacre. Let’s have some humanity. https://t.co/Uqz4v0XBw2
— Ro Khanna (@RoKhanna) October 16, 2018
#Yemen is on the brink of the worst famine in 100 years. The lives of innocent men, women, and children are on the line. The US must end its support for Saudi Arabia’s genocidal war now. https://t.co/djyiB3dOdS
— Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (@TulsiPress) October 16, 2018
Bandwagon journalists?
Khashoggi’s fate has inspired a number of journalists to highlight other human rights abuses the Kingdom is accused of, with some shining a light on Yemen, prompting others to accuse them of hypocrisy.
Raise your hand if you never bought the MBS nonsense to begin with 🙋🏻♂️
— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) October 11, 2018
Note that Saudi recklessness goes far beyond Khashoggi. Most of us in the international media have done a terrible job of calling attention to the world’s worst humanitarian crisis in Yemen, and the Saudi role in it. https://t.co/Qfy28BjJUt
— Ronan Farrow (@RonanFarrow) October 15, 2018
As a training journalist I am happy that #JamalKashoggi’s disappearance doesn’t go unnoticed but as a humanist I’m sad to see that millions of lives lost in Yemen did not trigger the same reaction. https://t.co/58P5PfAnUZ
— Nina Ray (@NinaYRAY) October 15, 2018
It’s taken the disappearance of a Saudi journalist [reporting suggests #JamalKashoggi was tortured and murdered by KSA intelligence] — to bring the world’s attention to Saudi and MBS. Yet Yemen’s civilians have been killed in their thousands since 2015 by Saudi air strikes. https://t.co/RPtP38Vsob
— Mikey Kay (@MikeyKayNYC) October 15, 2018
As a training journalist I am happy that #JamalKashoggi’s disappearance doesn’t go unnoticed but as a humanist I’m sad to see that millions of lives lost in Yemen did not trigger the same reaction. https://t.co/58P5PfAnUZ
— Nina Ray (@NinaYRAY) October 15, 2018
In some cases, these media outlets and journalists are guilty of having sung the praises of the young Crown Prince, despite the war’s atrocities and human rights abuses not being secret. The Washington Post, whose owner Jeff Bezos attended a dinner party with MbS when he visited the US in March, has come out swinging in the wake of Khashoggi’s disappearance, contradicting the many pro-Saudi pieces it has published in the past, some from people being paid by the Kingdom.
Trump, Kushner. I don’t usually tweet opinions, but here goes: you need to get the Saudis to find/release Jamal Khashoggi. Without constructive critics like him, Saudi econ reform will fail.
— Thomas L. Friedman (@tomfriedman) October 5, 2018
New York Times columnist Tom Friedman, who penned a gushing article on MbS after visiting him in Riyadh last year, illustrated the lack of empathy elements of the media hold for Yemenis in a recent column which explained it would be “an unfathomable violation of norms of human decency, worse not in numbers but in principle than even the Yemen war,” if Khashoggi is confirmed murdered by the Saudis.
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