What Hamas Learned about Propaganda from Saddam Hussein

As claims of famine in Gaza persist despite a massive influx of aid in recent weeks and the mass of evidence to the contrary, Elliott Abrams looks back to an instructive previous example: that of the sanctions imposed by the United Nations on Iraq in 1990 following Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait. To simplify a complex topic, the sanctions permitted Iraq to import food and medications but otherwise banned all trade. Abrams points to a series of UN reports asserting, based on mendacious reports generated by the Iraqi regime, that the sanctions were leading to malnutrition, rising infant mortality, and ever-imminent famine—to which one veteran UN official added the widely echoed charge of “genocide.”