International aid is not new to the Palestinians. Nor is Israel's
problematic attitude toward that aid.
Back in the pre-1967 days, when Israelis contemplated the role of UNRWA
(United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near
East) in the Palestinian refugee camps across the green line in Gaza and the
West Bank, the impression was overwhelmingly negative. UNRWA, it was argued,
contributed to Palestinian incitement and violence against Israel, and by
its very existence prolonged the existence of the refugee issue, hence
extended the conflict. But after the Six-Day War and the beginning of an
Israeli occupation that in some forms and areas continues to this day,
Israeli attitudes quickly changed. UNRWA, it was discovered, also fed,
clothed and educated Palestinians--functions that would have to be born by
the Israeli occupier unless it cooperated with the UN organization.
Since then international aid to the Palestinians has only increased. Over
the course of the decade that has elapsed since the Oslo process began, the
Palestinians have received international development assistance at one of
the highest per capita rates in the world. Close to seven billion aid
dollars have been committed. And half of this has been provided during the
past three and a half years alone, since the current conflict commenced.
Today most of this aid takes the form of emergency humanitarian
assistance. According to the World Bank, the ratio between development aid
and emergency aid changed from 7:1 before the intifada to 1:5 in 2002. This
means that the international community is now essentially devoting its
support- -about one billion dollars in 2002--to keeping this generation of
Palestinians alive rather than to developing Palestine for future
generations and sustaining the peace process.
If the international community were to withdraw its aid tomorrow, the
world would look to Israel- -still technically the occupying power--to
provide sustenance for Palestinians. Israel would still be obliged to export
foodstuffs to Palestine and provide for the Palestinian electricity, water,
fuel and communications infrastructures, but neither the aid-givers nor the
Palestinian Authority would be able to pay for them. As a result, Israel
would be out of pocket by as much as $2 billion annually--unless it chose to
allow Palestinians to starve while the world watched.
This would not stop the fighting. Without the international aid, the
Palestinian economic situation would get worse, not better. Palestinians
would not stop attacking Israelis, and Israel would not stop retaliating for
the violence. If anything, the occupation--and the opposition it provokes-
-would become more intense. Once again the many Israeli security people and
politicians who today consider the international aid community to be a
hypercritical source of trouble for Israel, would quickly change their
minds.
Now Israel's disengagement plans provide the aid community with a new and
unique opportunity. If Israel does indeed abandon settlements in the Gaza
Strip and perhaps in the West Bank, the aid givers have a unique opportunity
to petition Israel to turn the homes, farms and infrastructure that it
abandons over to them, e.g., to the United Nations and/or the World Bank. In
cooperation with the Palestinian Authority, these international institutions
can then redistribute these assets to Palestinians in an equitable manner.
They can also ensure that Israel receives a "credit" of major proportions,
looking to the day when, under a peace agreement, the value of these assets
will be deducted from Israeli compensation payments to Palestinian 1948
refugees.
The international aid community should begin by appealing, now, publicly,
to the government of Israel, to ensure that those assets are not destroyed
or removed if and when the settlers leave--to guarantee that Prime Minister
Ariel Sharon does not yield to the same impulse that led him to destroy the
settlements in Sinai when Israel departed in 1982. -Published
22/3/2004©bitterlemons.org
Yossi Alpher is coeditor of bitterlemons.org and
bitterlemons-international.org. He is former director of the Jaffee Center
for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University, and a former senior adviser to
PM Ehud Barak.
Israel - Palästina:
Zur Notwendigkeit einer internationalen
Intervention
