As many as 10 Nobel Prize winners are among a slate of 23 of the most highly-regarded economists in the US and Europe who penned a letter to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, asking him to rescind his plans to militarily occupy Gaza City, and urging him to allow unrestricted food aid into the enclave.
As per the Middle East Eye report, the first signatory to the letter is Nobel laureate, MIT economist, and co-author of the international bestseller Why Nations Fail, Daron Acemoglu. He shared the letter on X on Friday. “We write with urgent concern about the spreading starvation in Gaza and the Israeli government’s plan to concentrate civilians in a so-called ‘humanitarian city,’” the letter says.
“As human beings and as economists and scientists, we call for an immediate halt to any policy that intensifies widespread starvation”.
The second paragraph denounces the 7 October 2023 Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel, but adds, “that does not absolve the Israeli government, which controls the flow and distribution of aid, of responsibility”.
The MEE report added that the economists cite the United Nations World Food Programme’s data, which shows that nearly one-third of Gaza’s 2.1 million residents have endured multiple days without food, and that market prices in the enclave are now ten times higher compared to prices from just three months ago. They also describe the scandal-plagued, US-backed, and “Israeli-coordinated” Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) as “deadly”.
The United Nations says that since May, more than 1,700 people have died while seeking aid from GHF sites. Palestinians have called it a “death trap”.
“Under the guise of relief, the proposed ‘humanitarian city’ would relocate hundreds of thousands of Gazans into a confined zone, stripping them of freedom of movement and basic dignity,” the letter says. “It is unconscionable for Israel to treat civilians as liabilities”.
The letter is referring to a “humanitarian city” that Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz proposed building in Rafah, which former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said would be a “concentration camp”.
Along with Acemoglu, the Nobel Prize-winning economists of the 23 signatories include Angus Deaton; Peter A Diamond; Esther Duflo; Claudia Goldin; Eric S Maskin; Roger B Myerson; Edmund S Phelps; Christopher A Pissarides; and Joseph E Stiglitz. Together, their research and consultancy have helped shape the economic trajectory of much of the western world, including institutions like the International Monetary Fund.
