With no Palestinian state in sight, aid becomes an adjunct to occupation

[Wordie]

With no Palestinian state in sight, aid becomes an adjunct to occupation

Israeli policy is the root cause of need in the occupied territories, but donors pay up without challenging it

Ghada Karmi
Saturday December 31, 2005
The Guardian

...Underlying this aid was the assumption that a two-state solution was the desired aim, and that the Palestinians would need help to prepare for statehood. So, until 2000, much aid was directed towards state-building projects and those fostering a "positive climate" for peace negotiations. The second intifada that erupted in 2000 halted this process. Donors were forced to switch from state building to emergency support, now running at $1bn annually. The EU and member states bear the brunt of this financial burden. The US also contributes, though far less than it does to Israel. Since 2002, it is the Arab states that have rescued the PA from collapse. Most aid is for humanitarian relief and rebuilding basic infrastructure destroyed by Israeli military assaults.

The Palestinians are today the largest per capita recipients of foreign aid in the world. According to the 2004 World Bank report, they are suffering "the worst economic depression in modern history": 75% are impoverished, and unemployment rates are 60-70% in Gaza and 30-40% in the West Bank. Without external support, the Palestinian infrastructure and basic services would not survive. The Palestinians have been robbed of their agricultural land and industry and had their trade devastated by Israel's closure regime. They have fewer jobs in Israel, which plans to stop using Palestinian labour in 2008. They have virtually no independent sources of livelihood left.

The donors well know the causes of this desperate situation. At a conference in Ramallah last July, the World Bank's representative, Nigel Roberts, candidly admitted that Israel's occupation was the problem. Yet the funding continues, as if for all the world the Palestinians were victims not of a deliberate Israeli policy, but of some natural disaster. In the context of an occupation that denudes the Palestinians of their land and resources, keeps them imprisoned in ghettoes, and controls every aspect of their lives, what should be the rationale of international aid? Without doubt, emergency relief is vital to Palestinian survival and cannot be lightly withdrawn. But should not the root cause, Israel's occupation, be addressed too? Otherwise aid becomes merely an adjunct to the occupation.

By paying up without caveat, donors in effect relieve Israel of its obligations under international law. As the occupying power, Israel must deliver assistance and services to the Palestinian population. As high contracting parties to the Geneva conventions, the donors are obliged to ensure Israel's compliance with the law. None of this has happened. Instead, international aid has rendered the occupation cost-free. It has even enriched Israel's economy: according to the UN Conference on Trade and Development, for every dollar produced in the occupied territories, 45 cents flows back to Israel.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,1675792,00.html

The article goes on to say that when the donors focus on the effects of occupation rather than finding ways to end it, they inadvertently worsen the economic plight of the Palestinians, and strengthen the hand of Israel in continuing the occupation and imposing its demands on them.

[Kagemusha]

1. Wait wait wait WAIT.

Isn't not sending sufficient aid for the Palestinians EXACTLY what the Arab countries like Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, etc. were criticized for in the decades preceding the Oslo accords? That they were being inhumanly stingy with aid because they wanted to keep the Palestinians in miserable conditions to keep the matter fresh as a political issue? To the point that they made sure the Palestinians never really integrated into their own societies to keep them geared up for a Right of Return?

So this article is saying with a straight face that the West should do the same thing!?

...Just checking.

[Wordie]

2. Propaganda: "Palestinians never...integrated into their own societies..."

That's a horribly misleading statement.

And the point of the article is clear: to continue the aid without addressing the root cause of the problem is an exercise in futility.

[Kagemusha]

3. It's more misleading after you selectively quoted.

I seem to remember Palestinians being treated as second-class citizens in Jordan. I remember Kuwait never giving them citizenship and expelling a lot of them after the first Gulf War. I remember Saudi Arabia using them as cheap labor as if they were Mexicans. I didn't hear much about other countries.

But that was merely context.

The point is that the Arab nations didn't give tons of aid to the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories because they viewed this as damaging the Palestinians' long-term prospects for an independent state. Certainly Israel pushed condemning this as the cruelty of Arab nations towards their own, deliberately helping keep the Palestinians poor and dependent on things like U.N. refugee camps in the Occupied Territories and Lebanon. And I am saying that in light of that condemnation, the writer of the above article nonetheless wants the West to be seen to be denying aid to the Palestinians to keep them poor enough for the world to keep taking pity on them and not make them too comfortable lest they lose ground in the long-term campaign for a state.

Am I misreading this somehow?

[Wordie]

4. Yes, you're misreading it. Try reading the article again.

The article mentions that the Pals are receiving a lot of aid from the West, and doesn't complain that it is not enough, but rather makes the point that no amount of aid will be able to do anything meaningful about the Palestinians, if the underlying cause for the aid being required is not addressed: namely, the occupation itself.

Those other comments you made aren't relevant to that point.

[Kagemusha]

5. ...Fine, but it sounded like saying maybe LESS aid should be sent.

Putting things a little differently: it sounded like an argument not that aid was insufficient, but that aid was overly sufficient. The point is, if you're saying aid is supporting the occupation, if you're not arguing that aid should therefore be cut, shouldn't you be, by the logic of your argument? Obviously the second stage of that is what I said, reminding that such an argument would be reminiscent of what the Arab League was accused of doing for years and years.

My point is that hey, maybe the aid isn't getting to the root causes. But cutting it or keeping it artificially low isn't guaranteed to help either.

[Wordie]

6. I think the author of the article...

in the last part, the author stated that the donors have a dilemma on their hands:

By focusing on the effects of occupation rather than ending it, the donors have made the conflict into a scramble for socio-economic survival. But distancing the Palestinians from their national struggle can only help Israel impose its final terms on them. If that is not to happen, then the donors must resolve their dilemma: not abandoning the Palestinians to their fate, and not challenging Israel, are incompatible. Facing up to the bully is a moral imperative, and, ultimately, the only practical way forward.

I think the critical sentence - the one about the Pals fate and challenging Israel - may indeed be a bit unclear. Maybe that's why you misread it. I think the author is saying that the donors can't abandon the Pals, so they need to address the root causes.

[eyl]

7. Misleading in what way?

Jordan is the only Arab state that has made it possible for Palestinians to integrate in its society - in other Arab countries, they live there on sufference only. Kuwait expelled 300,000 Palestinians after GF1, and more recently many Palestinians were expelled by locals in Baghdad; In Lebanon, the constitution specifically prohibits Palestinians from attaining citizenship (and effectively, there are severe restrictions on where they can work there as well)