When I left in early March, I was the only Palestinian staff member at World Central Kitchen. (WCK).1 I resigned in protest of the organization's unaccountable and widespread censorship regarding Gaza. The WCK leadership took action six months too late, after seven of its employees had been murdered.
World Central Kitchen is a food relief NGO founded by celebrity chef José Andrés in response to the devastating 2010 earthquake in Haiti. Although much of the organization's work is in response to natural disasters, WCK has made exceptions, such as providing food to the National Guard and law enforcement during the January 6 riot, and in 2022, WCK will respond to natural disasters. Started wholesale activities.
On December 7 of last year, I sent this letter to World Central Kitchen's executive team to discuss its points in an open dialogue mediated by the Ombudsman, a resource the organization hired in the wake of last year's sexual harassment scandal. I asked them to talk. . The letter urges WCK to join other NGOs active in the region in condemning the cease-fire and Israeli blockade, to ensure that its coverage of Gaza conforms to standards set for coverage of Ukraine, and to ensure that food services in Israel are not called for an immediate suspension. At the time, his Slack channel, WCK's largest, had 101 employees, and he collected 43 signatures from WCK staff, contractors, and Chef Corps volunteers. The entire WCK enforcement team refused to meet and did not respond when contacted by the Ombudsman. WCK continued to actively provide meals in Israel until the second day of the ICJ genocide hearings in January.
The unique nature of WCK's relief response to October 7th first became apparent on October 11, 2023. At that time, the organization's communications team received the following statement from newly hired Chief Communications Officer Linda Ross, signed by CEO Erin Gore. Opinions from a communications team that breaks precedent. The statement began like this.
“Dear supporters and friends of World Central Kitchen,
I am writing this letter to address a very important issue regarding the mission of our organization and the horrific acts of terrorism orchestrated by the extremist group Hamas against Israel. ”
Four days after the start of the Israeli offensive, after Israeli authorities cut off water and aid and made it clear that they intended to treat all Gazans as criminals, the WCK statement said nothing about the blockade of the enclave or the rising number of civilian deaths. Didn't mention it at all. In a heated communications meeting convened to address this, Mr. Ross defended his statement against an almost team-wide outcry, claiming that the removal of the post was a “fireable crime” and that “no one should commit terrorism.” You don't support it, do you?”, justifying the statement. As it became clear that the team would not resign, the statement was changed to remove the sentence shared above.
Three days later, José Andres posted this video on WCK's Instagram, still only mentioning the October 7 attack, but not the increasing death toll of Palestinians or the blockade. As covered in electronic intifada On social media, Andrés called for the removal of Spanish ministers for protesting Israeli tactics, while WCK continued to work closely with the IDF throughout relief operations. The initial statement and Andres' video were decisions made by the leadership, ignoring the concerns of WCK officials.
Much of the job in genocide is not to pull the trigger, but instead to minimize and deny that genocide is occurring. Genocide is a phenomenon in which boundaries are gradually pushed. Each increment must be accepted by the party with power of attorney to reach the next. Under the leadership of CEOs Erin Gore, Linda Ross, and “Chief Feeding Officer” Jose Andres, World Central Kitchen recklessly endangers its employees and serves its own interests. took advantage of the situation and actively participated in the normalization of ongoing genocide.
As an assistant video editor, I cataloged all the huge amounts of footage coming in from Gaza. During its early weeks, WCK received daily media uploads from two Palestinian videographers. Combined with telephone footage from ground teams, it is plausible that WCK has more footage of Gaza since October 7 than any other aid organization. However, the use of this footage and communication with outside parties regarding the response were extremely restricted. It's unclear where in the chain of command these mostly unexplained restrictions came from, but they were requested to me by Linda Ross.
These limitations included removing important context from the video. In one video showing a WCK truck entering Gaza through the Rafah border, the story of the driver living outside the truck was deleted. The video released did not leave out the details of the Kafkaesque process of waiting days or weeks before restarting the process. In another example, a video of a WCK kitchen caught in an IDF bombing was put on hold completely. This incident, and the fact that WCK personnel were on board the UN convoy that was bombed, does not seem to be mentioned anywhere externally. I resigned in early March following Ross' time-bound request to share a version of the video that I found offensive. The video omitted references to past Palestinian displacement, overcrowding in Rafah, the commonality of deaths in Gaza, and the deaths of Palestinians. As a “crime” and as footage of North Korea.
Before being hired by WCK, Ms. Ross' longest continuous work experience was as manager of former Haballist and pro-Israel anchor Wolf Blitzer for the better part of 25 years at CNN. In the early days of the current offensive, she spoke openly in public about serving with the Israel Defense Forces in Lebanon and regarding an Israeli general she met there as a personal hero. In a Slack post, she referred to “Hamas people in air-conditioned tunnels with television and internet,” and also provided relevant context for Israeli claims about UNRWA personnel's involvement in the October 7 attack. Shared a tweet without. Similar Slack posts targeting Gaza, including one honoring workers from WCK partner organization MECA who were killed in airstrikes, were secretly deleted by administrators. At an organization-wide meeting, Ross later cited COGAT data, saying WCK has claimed 62% of all food in Gaza since October 7 and intervened “much more than the United Nations.” he declared. This claim was already impossible given that UN agencies brought in many times more aid than all NGOs combined. Since then, the gap has widened.
In external materials, all references to the attack on Gaza as a “siege” have been changed to “conflict.” Mr Ross requested that references to the Gaza blockade be removed from a post co-authored by the communications team, asking: “What is a blockade?” Most disturbingly, shortly after members of the Palestine Culinary Group stressed to Ross the importance of referring to Gazans as “Palestinians,” Ross removed all mention of “Palestinians” in a blog post. This was witnessed by two employees.2
Again, it is unclear where in the chain of command these actions came from, but it is clear that the entire management team refused to discuss the demands raised on December 7th. Rather than use its position to influence standards of acceptability, the WCK leadership has chosen to euphemize the situation and repeatedly withhold footage and stories that demonstrate the seriousness of Gaza's reality. According to COGAT data, these sanitizing tactics do not make him any more effective than WCK's earlier stronger-positioned organizations.
The lesson here is simple. Doing your part to promote the conditions under which you can feed people should be more important than being the one who feeds them.
WCK’s double standards regarding its activities in Palestine become very clear when compared to its activities in Ukraine.
The way WCK writes and talks about its activities in Ukraine suggests that this is not principled humanitarian neutrality. The NGO highlighted his work in rural Ukraine in three separate videos entitled “Seeds of Victory”. The company calls its Ukrainian employees and volunteers “food fighters” and considers them part of the war effort. Casualty rates among civilians, especially children, were much higher in Gaza. Andres is co-chair of Biden's Sports, Fitness and Nutrition Council, a member of the State Department's American Culinary Corps, and has warmly welcomed Antony Blinken on his podcast. Although he has had no problem claiming that Russia is using famine as a weapon in Ukraine, he has never publicly stated a similar position about Israeli policy in Palestine. WCK led the Biden administration's line on Gaza until the highly publicized massacre of its workers forced it to take other action. Despite ludicrous claims to the contrary, WCK appears to take political positions in line with the views expressed privately by its leaders.
Barring the possibility of genuine incompetence, the WCK leadership's decisions were not made to maintain neutrality, nor to promote effectiveness, and as evidenced on April 1, It wasn't meant to protect. The leadership's failure to honestly portray the tragic reality of Gaza and its attempts to influence the Gaza massacre through Gaza's status and close ties to the Biden administration means that the leadership is responsible for the consequences. It means there is. Don't let anyone say you've done everything you can.
My experience only happened once. When I left, there was a clear atmosphere of disappointment and anger among the employees due to problems that had started long before I joined. I am calling on current and former World Central Kitchen employees, contractors, and volunteers to publicly share their stories and force accountability and change.
Note
1. WCK employed many Palestinian contractors in Gaza and Egypt, but after one long-time employee retired, I was the only Palestinian with a staff position.
2. Colleagues eventually persuaded Ross to allow the use of the term “Palestinians” as long as it included “and other people in need.”
