Hollywood hunger strikes won’t save a single Palestinian

After this brief “humanitarian pause”, the conflict in Gaza could potentially resume at any moment. But don’t worry. It now seems that there’s hope for lasting peace.

Because, in order to force a permanent ceasefire, a Hollywood actress has announced that she’s going on hunger strike. For two days. 

Cynthia Nixon, who is best-known for playing Miranda in Sex and the City, unveiled the plan at a press conference outside the White House this week, alongside a group of like-minded politicians and activists. “As an American”, she declared, “I am here to demand that our President stop funding the mass killing and starvation of thousands of innocent Palestinians, the majority of whom are children and women.”

Hence the hunger strike. Some of the politicians and activists in the group are fasting for five days, although Cynthia, it’s been reported, will fast for only two – because, according to a source, “She has to go back to work.”

I’m sure the plan is well-meaning. At the risk of sounding defeatist, though, I’m not entirely convinced that it will achieve its goal.

First, because a two-day fast is hardly earth-shattering. To most Hollywood actresses, that’s just their regular diet. And second, it seems unlikely that the President of the most powerful nation in the world will change his policy on the Middle East purely because a woman from a 25-year-old TV series about shoes is refusing to drink her spirulina smoothie.

In any case, even if Joe Biden can persuade Israel to accede to Cynthia’s demands, there is another small flaw in the plan. Which is that the last ceasefire was broken not by Israel, but by Hamas. 

This is always the trouble with Left-wing Western celebrities trying to tell Israel what to do. They quite often seem to forget that there are two sides to this conflict. It’s all very well ordering the civilised modern democracy to lay down its weapons. It’s rather less straightforward, however, to extract a reliable promise of peace from the fanatical mass-murdering anti-Semitic terror group.

Bearing this in mind, how can we dissuade Hamas from breaking the next ceasefire? To have any chance of success at all, we’re going to need a seriously credible deterrent. Thankfully, I’ve got a suggestion.

Cynthia should threaten to make another Sex and the City film. Given how mind-bendingly atrocious the first two were, even the most cold-blooded terrorist should be quaking in his boots.