The Hunger Games of Jo Bluen: When Political Theatre Crosses the Line Into Extremism
If Jo Bluen wants to protest something, she could start by looking at the abhorrence her own country has become, where crime, corruption, and collapse have replaced basic governance and moral clarity.
There is something grotesquely ironic about privileged activists in South Africa staging a hunger strike in solidarity with Hamas-run Gaza, while sitting comfortably in suburban cafés, planning their next "resistance" tweet over a latte.
At the center of this absurd theatre is Jo Bluen. She has positioned herself as the face of a dangerous international propaganda effort that trades in misinformation, hysteria, and tactical deceit. Her latest creation, a so-called "Proposal for a Hunger Strike" under the banner of "UCT Alumni for Palestine,"- a small, unrecognised, shady group of ex-UCT students with blood on their hands, Gazan blood.
Their initiative is not a humanitarian cry for justice. It is a dangerous weapon that is killing people and inciting death globally.
Carefully constructed, ideologically loaded, and intended to provoke, destabilize, incite, indoctrinate, and punish.
The language is familiar. "Genocide." "Starvation." "Settler colonialism." "Apartheid." The script writes itself.
What Bluen and her ideological peers are attempting is not a protest. It is a disinformation operation aimed at delegitimizing the State of Israel ( or as Bluen prefers, “Abolish Israel” or “Death to the IDF” while laundering Hamas talking points through a perceived university-branded megaphone. It is a very well-coordinated campaign, but transparent, expected, and designed as hate.
Bluen, along with others, has been pushing this hard on social media.
Jo Bluen's campaign doesn't exist in a vacuum. It is part of a broader, tightly coordinated information operation that gained serious traction between May and July 2025. This is not accidental overlap; it's a choreographed effort across NGOs, UN bodies, and sympathetic media outlets, amplified online through a predictable chorus of institutional accounts and field operatives. All pre-planned and in the name of Hamas.
The surge began in early May 2025, when the World Food Programme (@WFP), led by Cindy McCain, warned of 470,000 Gazans facing catastrophic hunger. This was followed by UNICEF's Catherine Russell, who pushed the child starvation angle with stats claiming 71,000 children required urgent treatment. The World Health Organization (@WHO) chimed in with malnutrition death tolls, and UNRWA's Philippe Lazzarini posted that 3,000 trucks were stuck at the border and that UN staff were fainting from hunger. They never mentioned once that it was not Israel or the IDF who refused the aid into Gaza, but Hamas itself via UNWRA (which is essentially operated, manned, and controlled by Hamas terrorists in Gaza )
All this created a data echo chamber, where each agency cited the others, cross-linked statistics, and amplified emotional appeals.
Then came Amnesty International's July 3 report accusing Israel of using starvation as a "weapon of war."
This acted as an accelerant, with the #HungerInGaza hashtag trending across X.
On July 13, UNRWA declared that 875 people had died at aid distribution sites. That same week, Al Jazeera's Anas Al-Sharif, whose work has been flagged by analysts as Hamas-adjacent, began pushing visceral footage of starving children and food queues. The effect was coordinated pressure: to cement a narrative of intentional genocide and catalyze international legal action and ensure no hostages are released from Palestinian kidnappers.
Yet behind the viral sympathy lies a contradiction. Israel's Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) has repeatedly published photos and data showing hundreds of trucks loaded with food and medical supplies, sitting idle because UN agencies weren't collecting them.
COGAT claimed on July 15, 2025, that the bottleneck was on the UN side, not due to Israeli restrictions.
They've detailed baby formula deliveries, reopened crossings, and scaled logistics, all while Hamas continues looting supplies, and armed gangs attack aid convoys in the chaos of lawlessness that Hamas enabled.
Even Gift of the Givers is boasting that they are providing aid in Gaza, so it poses the question as to how they are delivering aid where the UN refuses?
What's happening is a deliberate blurring of two concepts: "famine" as a technical threshold and "starvation" as an emotive narrative weapon. No official famine declaration has been issued by the IPC as of mid-2025. But the activists know they don't need one. The word "starvation" carries legal weight and moral gravitas, enough to shift ICJ and ICC proceedings, especially when amplified by official UN accounts, sympathetic media, and activist influencers. This is the goal, despicable as it sounds and deceptive as those who initiate the fake and false narratives that support terror. They don't post overweight Gazans eating pudding in TikTok videos as seen daily on X.com user Imshin. https://x.com/imshin
This isn't humanitarian advocacy. It's lawfare, weaponized imagery, and narrative manipulation. Psychological warfare by means of hatred. It's Jo Bluen taking her cue from the Amnesty-UNRWA-WFP trifecta, dressing it in academic credibility and exporting it to campuses and councils. It's a campaign rooted less in nutritional science than in ideological warfare.
This group, which includes the likes of Roshan Dadoo, Heidar Eid, Imtiaz Sooliman and others embedded in South Africa's BDS machinery, has no interest in peace or accountability. They peddle emotionally manipulative narratives, backed by cherry-picked images and false claims, to manufacture outrage.
They speak of famine, while Gaza's TikTok influencers post videos of chocolate pancakes, pistachio smoothies, and seafood platters.
The public is being played and the cause is deliberately misrepresented. What they omit is that Hamas diverts food aid. Hamas confiscates flour, hoards baby formula, and exploits civilian suffering as part of a propaganda campaign. Israel, far from starving anyone, has facilitated more humanitarian aid into Gaza than any other actor in this war. None of that fits the narrative, so it gets erased.
Jo Bluen's document reveals the real play. Hunger strikes are not about sacrifice. They are pressure tactics (that dont work, mind you). The proposal outlines staged fasts, social media blitzes, university occupations, and coordinated messaging to create a sense of crisis. The goal is not dialogue. It is submission. Institutions are to be bullied into cutting ties with Israel, or else be publicly branded as collaborators in genocide, a genocide that is not taking place.
But this game is not without consequences. Bluen's rhetoric and affiliations, particularly her apparent support for Hamas-linked networks, fall within the legal thresholds of the UK and US terror legislation. Bluen and others like her may very well start facing the music in the West as governments, institutions, and citizens grow increasingly sick of their manipulative games, their double standards, and their brazen abuse of democratic platforms to champion Islamic extremism.
This is no longer fringe activism. It is an international effort to legitimize antisemitism and disrupt Western institutions under the banner of "justice." It borrows language from Marxist liberation theology and post-colonial grievance politics. It exploits open societies. And it is being exported, repackaged, and weaponized.
The irony is staggering. They invoke the ghost of Nelson Mandela while aligning themselves with Islamist theocrats. They speak of human rights while glorifying terrorist violence. They claim to fight for the oppressed while defending regimes that slaughter women, persecute queer folk, and indoctrinate children for war.
There is a sickness at the heart of this campaign. And it is spreading.
Governments must act. Universities must disassociate. The media must expose it for what it is. This is not free speech. This is incitement, wrapped in rhetoric and sold as virtue.
If Jo Bluen wants to protest something, she could also start by looking at the abhorrence her own country has become, where crime, corruption, and collapse have replaced basic governance and moral clarity. In South Africa, up to 20 million people experience severe food insecurity, with millions of children going to bed hungry each night. But this bunch wants to focus on a country they know nothing about.
But she will not, none of them will. Because this was never about hunger. It was always about hate.
And that, finally, is something the public must refuse to digest.
Joshua Schewitz is a researcher and analyst specializing in Africa and the Middle East, with a focus on security related-topics in addition to blockchain technology.
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