Overseas Aid prolongs the Occupation


June 25, 2017
Sarah Benton

“Aid” in the Context of Israeli Violations

 

From “Aid and Militarism, Unpacking Peacekeeping and Security Efforts in Asia”

Prepared by IBON International and The Reality of Aid for Reality Check, June 2017

 

Palestinians’ need for aid is exclusively a result of decade-long conflict with Israel. However, aid to both Israel and Palestine is militarized, furthering and prolonging conflict rather than addressing its root causes.

On the macro level, aid to Palestinians is militarized because it comes in the context of Western governments’ unqualified support for Israel, including impunity for Israeli violations of Palestinian rights. The provision of military aid, military trade, and other forms of economic, cultural and political exchange strengthens Israel’s ability to occupy, colonize, and dispossess Palestinians.

Aid directly subsidizes the costs of Israel’s militarized aggression to Palestine, while international political support protects it from the consequences of noncompliance with international law, thus making aid actors complicit in Israel’s violations of Palestinian rights. In fact, it is widely seen as “normal” for the US to provide military support to Israel militarily while also providing “aid” to Palestinians to mitigate the impact of Israeli military action.

The US Government has provided $124.3 billion in bilateral (mostly military) assistance, making Israel the largest cumulative recipient of U.S. foreign assistance since World War II. US aid to Israel is part and parcel of US military strategy in the Middle East, and US investments have helped Israel develop one of the most technologically sophisticated militaries in the world. In contrast, the US provided nearly $5 billion in aid to the Palestinian Authority since its establishment.

Critics of US military aid to Israel argue that it violates US domestic law. In their review of policy implications and options, the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation quotes the US Foreign Assistance Act as saying,

“No assistance shall be furnished under this chapter or the Arms Export Control Act  to any unit of the security forces of a foreign country if the Secretary of State has credible evidence that such unit has committed gross violations of human rights.”

Ruebner goes on to say,

“The Arms Export Control Act (AECA), which conditions and restricts the sale and leasing of U.S. defense articles and services, limits the use of U.S. weapons solely for internal security, for legitimate self- defense, for preventing or hindering the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and of the means of delivering such weapons, to permit the recipient country to participate in regional or collective arrangements or measures consistent with the Charter of the United Nations.”

US military aid to Israel may also violate Common Article One of the Geneva Conventions, which obligates third states to ensure respect for international humanitarian law in all circumstances. Others note that arms sales to Israel may be illegal because Israel, which is widely known as a nuclear power, has not signed the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.

The UK has also been under scrutiny for trading arms with Israel, including weapons that  were used in human rights violations

Additionally, this aid when channeled to the Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank clearly violates basic rules of international law and hinders possibilities for a lasting peace.

Calls for a military embargo on Israel by Palestinian civil society do not only target US arms sales. The UK has also been under scrutiny for trading arms with Israel, including weapons that evidence shows were used in human rights violations: In the six months prior to the attack on Gaza in the summer of 2014, the UK government granted licenses worth £6,968,865 for military-use exports and £25,155,581 for dual-use equipment. The licensed items included combat aircraft components, drone components, anti-armour ammunition and weapon night sights. Meanwhile, the UK’s Watchkeeper surveillance drone has been developed under a £1 billion joint venture contract awarded by the Ministry of Defence to Thales UK and Israel’s Elbit Systems, allowing the UK military to benefit from technologies that have been ‘field tested’ on the occupied Palestinians.

Even in the best-case scenario, the net effect of international aid to Palestinians is questionable because it is offset by military action by Israel’s military action that is subsidized by the US and others and granted political immunity by the international community. Palestinian critics of aid therefore consider Western donors complicit in Israel’s violations of Palestinian rights, despite efforts by donor governments to distinguish their political actions from their aid policy, suggesting that aid policy is somehow “neutral”.

Fragmentation and Militarized Aid

Israeli policies have fragmented the Palestinian community into several different legal/institutional settings, all of which are in some way militarized; and in this way, aid to Palestinians is also politicized and militarized in different ways. Aid policies and practices also contribute directly to political fragmentation between the West Bank and Gaza Strip, social fragmentation, and fragmented rights claiming.

Palestinians who make up 20% of the population of Israel are essentially colonized in a state that officially designates them as having fewer rights than Jews. Western aid to Palestinian citizens of Israel, which is limited and subject to Israeli restrictions, generally focuses on strengthening Palestinian rights claiming as minorities, which reinforces Palestinian citizens’ ties to Israel despite its Jewish identity, while simultaneously weakening their connections to the rest of the Palestinian community in the Arab world.

By entrenching Palestinians’ identity as a “minority” rather than as an indigenous people, Western aid to Palestinians strengthens Israel’s territorial claims. In this way, aid to Palestinian citizens of Israel is politically and institutionally part of western support for Israel, regardless of what those same countries may say rhetorically about their support for Palestinian rights in international law.

The 3 million Palestinians in the West Bank also experience politicized and militarized aid, though the mechanisms are more complicated. The Oslo Accords (1993) and the Paris Protocol (1994) established a hegemonic political and economic paradigm within which all “development” in the occupied Palestinian territory takes place. Researchers Tartir and Wildeman explored the neoliberal interests that underpin the World Bank framework guiding Western aid policy toward the occupied Palestinian territory. They note that World Bank prescriptions “…do not take into account the history and human reality of Palestinians struggling to survive for decades under a violent military occupation” and over-estimate the capacity of the Palestinian Authority (PA) to engage in demanded reforms given that the PA lacks sovereignty.

Donors have sought to pacify Palestinian national liberation aspirations in Israel’s interest

Mandy Turner also suggests that the intention of Western “peacebuilding” interventions includes counter-insurgency. In other words, aid [donors have] sought to pacify Palestinian national liberation aspirations in Israel’s interest. In the West Bank, aid policy is implemented differently in areas designated by the Oslo Accords as Area A (under Palestinian Authority control), Area B (under joint Israeli-Palestinian control, and Area C (under Israeli control). Donor policies differ in each area, with most controversy in Area C where Israel enforces (and most donors comply with) an illegal planning regime that denies Palestinians access to their own natural resources and to their right to development.

By being unable and unwilling to challenge Israeli militarization in Area C, international donors contribute to the sustainability of the status quo. While discussion of the political status of Jerusalem was postponed by the Oslo process, the practical reality of Israeli annexation of Jerusalem and forced transfer of Jerusalem’s native Palestinian population has not been challenged by international aid policy. The virtual collapse of the Palestinian economy in East Jerusalem renders the city essentially unlivable for Palestinians. The  effectiveness of both humanitarian aid (e.g. to Palestinian families whose homes have been demolished by Israel) and development aid, which is limited by Israel’s explicit Judaization policy, has been totally undermined.

The Gaza Strip is yet a different case; the Israeli blockade, now 10 years old, makes the Gaza Strip nearly totally dependent on international aid, as no materials or people can enter or leave through Israeli checkpoints without Israeli military permission. Meanwhile, the system of aid is increasingly controlled by Israel not by the United Nations, thus adding aid to the arsenal of weapons Israel uses to control Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. In fact, it is precisely due to the militarized and securitized nature of the aid and the framework it is delivered (or not) that explains the lack of adequate reconstruction after the 2008-9, 2012 and 2014 Israeli attacks.  Notably, having this aid delivered in a highly securitized context makes it easier for donors to cover their failures using the excuse of “security.”

Lastly, about 5 million registered Palestinian refugees get aid through a dedicated United Nations agency, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East. According to critics, UNRWA’s ambiguous protection mandate has prompted debate about the extent to which UNRWA guards Palestinian rights or weakens rights-claiming through other bodies and mechanisms.

Bilateral Aid to the Palestinian Authority

Clearly, military assistance to Israel is not the only way in which international actors subsidize the Israeli occupation of Palestine. Both the EU and the US are main bilateral donors to the Palestinian Authority. In a scathing critique, Tartir says about 30% of international aid funds the $1bn/year security sector, which is not accountable to the Palestinian people and increasingly authoritarian. Since 2005, the US and EU have supported sector reform, but “…the central tenet of this project has been the entrenchment of security collaboration between the PA and Israel” not the security of Palestinians. He notes that both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have documented the PA security forces’ excessive use of force and noted PA limits on freedom of speech, political participation and mobilization.

So, on one hand, there is Israeli occupation and colonization that receives militarized aid, and on the other hand there is the Palestinian Authority that receives ODA and spends it in a highly securitized space within a securitized “development” process. So, however you look at the aid in the Palestinian context, it is driven by a hegemonic security rationale, designed to address Israeli security concerns, while making Palestinians feel increasingly insecure. Moreover, investigation into the militarization of aid highlights:

(1) how a liberation movement can be made to transform into a subcontractor to the colonizer as a result of this militarized aid; and

(2) how this militarized aid may result in authoritarian tendencies giving dominance to security establishment and personnel at the expense of other sectors (e.g., health, education, manufacturing) and at the expense of democracy.

In other words, in Palestine, aid did not only fail to address the poverty, employment and empowerment gaps, but also created new insecurity and illegitimacy.

Militarization of Aid to Palestinian Civil Society

 Aid to civil society, both international and Palestinian, is also militarized. It is conditioned by anti-terrorism policies that directly contradict the humanitarian principles of impartiality and neutrality by requiring aid actors to vet beneficiaries on political criteria, which exacerbates internal conflict, including armed conflict. Israel benefits indirectly by the co-option of Palestinian civil society to a militarized global regime; it also benefits because Israel’s already strong security sector profits from the export of products  related to counter-terrorism  now topping $1bn annually according to the Israeli government. This securitized and militarized aid has a dramatic impact on the everyday life of the Palestinian people and their quest for freedom and self-determination.

Aid to Palestinian civil society is conditioned by anti-terrorism policies contrary to humanitarian principles

Evidence suggests that such a form of aid is anti-developmental especially under foreign military occupation. It limits rather than enhances the capacity of the Palestinian people to claim their right to self-determination. This increases instability in the long-term and increases the likelihood of further militarism and violence.

Aggression is a Crime That Should Not Be Funded By Aid

The use of aid to promote or support aggression is not only inappropriate and counter-productive, but arguably illegal. The purpose of our global governance system manifested as the United Nations is, first and foremost,

“To maintain international peace and security, and to that end: to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace, and to bring about by peaceful means, and in conformity with the principles of justice and international law, adjustment or settlement of international disputes or situations which might lead to a breach of the peace”

(Charter of the United Nations, 1945: Chapter 1, Article 1.1)

Moreover, three basic humanitarian principles – humanity, neutrality, impartiality– are enshrined in General Assembly resolution 46/182 (1991) and reaffirmed in innumerable UN resolutions and declarations. While many Palestinians and internationals consider Palestine an exception to aid norms, the problem of militarized aid is widespread. The New Deal for Engagement in Fragile States says that 30% of Official Development Assistance is spent in fragile and conflict-affected contexts. The European Parliament reported that in 2013 over two thirds of the humanitarian assistance recorded by the OECD was directed to long-lasting crises. There are only two ways to interpret this data. Either international aid is having no effect on the perpetuation of conflict (and failing to stem the increase in humanitarian need), or, alternatively, that international aid contributes to increasing conflict.

The report of the UN secretary general on the World Humanitarian Summit takes a predictably diplomatic tone, but a careful read reveals acknowledgement that lack of political will is at the heart of aid ineffectiveness. It says:

“…Addressing people’s humanitarian needs requires more than increasing levels of assistance. It necessitates a far more decisive and deliberate effort to reduce needs, anchored in political will and leadership to prevent and end conflict…”
UNGA 2016: 1

There is ample evidence in literature and practice demonstrating the relationship between aid and the perpetuation of conflict. Palestine offers one of many examples of how aid violates the principle of “Do No Harm” that is fundamental not only to the credibility of aid, but to the credibility of the post-World War II international system. Aid must not promote or enable aggression whether actively or passively. In Palestine, even aid for ostensibly “purely good” purposes such as food, health, education, and water and sanitation, is implemented within a complex aid regime that serves the expansionist political interests of Israel and donor countries.

A recent study by Aid Watch Palestine found that 78% of aid to the occupied Palestinian territory ends up in the Israeli economy thus subsidizing between 18-30% of the costs of the occupation. Tartir and Wildeman also note that forced economic integration with Israel makes the Palestinian economy vulnerable; Israel has often withheld funds (with US support) as punishment for Palestinian policies it dislikes, including Palestinian pursuit of internationally enshrined rights through United Nations mechanisms. In another stark example, international aid utilizing the Gaza Reconstruction Mechanism, to which the UN is a party, is being criticized as giving legitimacy to the Israeli blockade on the Gaza Strip and profiting Israel by giving international cover for Israel’s promotion of its own economic and military interests.

Conclusion: Aid to Palestinians is militarized on at least four levels.

  1. Military aid and military trade with Israel is normalized, despite proof that aid is used to violate Palestinian rights under international law;
  2. The Oslo, two-state framework within which essentially all Western aid is implemented reflects the political and military interests of the US and Europe and the World Bank-led neoliberal consensus instead of democratically determined Palestinian interests;
  3. Development and humanitarian aid to Palestinians, whether funneled through international or Palestinian Authority institutions, is structured to protect Israel’s colonial monopoly at the expense of Palestinian security and self-determination; and
  4. Aid to civil society, both international and Palestinian, is conditioned by anti-terrorism policies that exacerbate internal conflict, including armed conflict, in violation of principles of impartiality and neutrality.

Aid supporting Israel would not inherently violate Palestinian rights if aid actors (in their political and aid roles) held Israel accountable for compliance with international law. However, Israeli impunity granted by international actors has the effect of empowering Israel’s aggressive policies, thus resulting in what appears a shocking hypocrisy: donor governments and aid actors allow Israel to deny Palestinian rights while providing aid to Palestinians in ways that ensures Israel’s continued dominance.

Nora Lester Murad, PhD is an activist and writer based in Jerusalem, Palestine. She co-founded Dalia Association, Palestine’s community foundation, in order to promote self-determination in development, and Aid Watch Palestine to mobilize Palestinians to hold aid actors accountable, especially in the Gaza Strip. She writes a blog “The view from my window in Palestine”

Alaa Tartir is the programme director of Al-Shabaka: The Palestinian Policy Network, a post-doctoral fellow at The Geneva Centre for Security Policy, and a research associate at the Centre on Conflict, Development and Peacebuilding, The Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies (IHEID), Geneva, Switzerland. Tartir served as a researcher in international development studies at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) between 2010 and 2015, where he earned his PhD.

 

 

 

 

 

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