Palestine
Development Assistance and the Occupied Palestinian Territories 2006
Submission by War on Want
Introduction
1. War on Want welcomes the IDC’s continued prioritisation of the issue of development assistance to the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) and this opportunity to make our views clear to the Committee.
2. We congratulate the IDC on its 2003/04 report on this subject. We believe that the IDC’s recommendations of 2003/04 are still valid, and note with regret the failure of the UK Government to carry the most important of those recommendations into effect.
3. In particular, it is with enormous concern, and at times despair, that we have watched the collapse of the Palestinian Authority (PA) over the last year. We deeply regret, along with all British aid agencies, the negative role which the UK Government has played to this end, notably through its decision to suspend assistance to the PA. The damage which this decision has caused to the UK’s standing in the region, and to our ability to influence the conflict in a positive manner, cannot be over-estimated.
4. If the desire is to promote development in the OPT, then it is essential that the UK Government acts as a force for peace, reconciliation and justice in the region. The position in which the UK Government now finds itself is considerably weaker than it was three years ago. We look to the IDC to express the situation with clarity to the British Government.
Suspension of aid to the PA.
5. In our last submission, we reported on the humanitarian disaster that had befallen the Palestinian people since 2000. That situation has been compounded in the last three years. UNCTAD reports that, following a slight recovery from 2003-5, massive economic decline in 2006 will leave Palestinians with half their pre-2000 per capita incomes, extend poverty to two-thirds of households and leave 50% of the workforce unemployed (‘Report on UNCTAD’s Assistance to the Palestinian People’, 19 July 2006). The World Bank predicts 2006 will be “by a margin, the worst year in the West Bank and Gaza’s dismal recent economic history” (World Bank, ‘The Impending Palestinian Fiscal Crisis, May 2006).
6. The poverty the Palestinians are suffering from is manmade, in the very direct sense that it is a consequence of the Israeli Occupation (see ‘Fighting Palestinian Poverty’, War On Want, 2002). But the responsibility for this situation now lies not only with the Israeli government, but squarely with EU governments including the UK.
7. Aid agencies had warned the British Government and EU on many occasions that their decision to suspend assistance to the PA would have a disastrous impact on the lives of the Palestinians, to the extent that the very viability of the PA would be placed in jeopardy. Suspension of emergency aid and development assistance are the least ‘smart’ sanctions possible – targeting essentially both the poorest sections of society and those most necessary to recovery and development. The World Bank predicted in May that EU and Israeli sanctions would lead to “major income reductions” for 30% of the population, “a humanitarian crisis, a deteriorating security environment” making it difficult for government, commerce, and relief efforts to operate properly, and ultimately “institutional dissolution” (World Bank, ‘The Impending Palestinian Fiscal Crisis, May 2006). Apart from the immediate suspension of EU aid, commercial Arab banks have also been forced to suspend accounts or risk prosecution under US anti-terror laws, providing further difficulties of access to finance. These facts appeared to be well known within the government of Israel, judging by a cabinet meeting leak in which government advisor Dov Weisglass joked that the current policies would put the Palestinians on a “diet, but not to make them die of hunger” (Conal Urquhart ‘Gaza on brink of implosion as aid cut-off starts to bite’ in the Observer 16 April 2006).
8. Across the spectrum, aid agencies warned that the Temporary International Mechanism (TIM) was completely insufficient for the purposes it was established, as well as sending a disastrous political message to both the Palestinian people and the government of Israel. Unfortunately the agencies have been proved correct by events. The Palestinians have suffered immeasurably from the decisions of the UK and its EU partners. Just as important, the decision has both removed any influence the UK may have wielded over the PA, and has sent exactly the wrong message to the government of Israel – that the UK is prepared to ignore its responsibilities under international law in order to preserve the current unjust power balance in the region, which lies at the heart of the Palestinians’ problems.
Full development assistance to the OPT must be restored, through the PA, immediately.
The EU-Israel Association Agreement 9. War on Want questions the continued operation of the EU-Israel Association Agreement, as well as the deepening relationship with Israel through the European Neighbourhood Policy, at a time when trade policy could provide a key mechanism for exerting pressure on Israel. The UK Government has said repeatedly and in public that it will not consider suspending the Association Agreement. This is despite the fact that the Association Agreement itself, under Articles 2 and 79, call for appropriate measures to be taken if “respect for human rights and democratic principles” are undermined. 10. The UK government’s approach to the Association Agreement is consistent with its approach to other mechanisms which could be employed to pressure Israel to implement international law, such as arms licensing. Arms licenses to Israel in 2005 reached £22.5 million, double the licenses granted for 2004. This is despite the UK’s admittance that “It is frustrating that our calls to stop the construction of the barrier on Palestinian land have not been heeded” (letter from Nick Banner, FCO to Hickman & Rose, 20 September 2005). It appears that UK policy towards Israel pays no reference to its potential impact on development in the OPT. 11. The Association Agreement with the PA is minute when compared to the Israeli Agreement (42million euros as opposed to 22 billion euros according to the Agreement websites), and is only in force on an interim basis owing to the nature and policies of the Occupation. It is misleading, therefore, to present these Agreements as ‘even-handed’. The British Government must use the foreign policy tools at its disposal to bring the violations of international law in the OPT to an end. Changing policy towards the Israeli Government would be more effective in assisting Palestinian development than any conceivable disbursement of DfID funds. Israel's disengagement from Gaza. 12. War on Want criticised the British Government’s enthusiastic acceptance of Israeli disengagement from Gaza, warning that it would “harm the prospect of long-term peace unless the international community increases its pressure on Israel” forming as it did “part of a wider project that is likely to fuel further conflict in years to come.” The significance of this project was described by Dov Weisglass at the time as the "freezing of the peace process... Effectively, this whole package called the Palestinian state, with all that it entails, has been removed indefinitely from our agenda” (Ari Shavit & Yair Ettinger, ‘Top PM Aide: Gaza Plan Aims to Freeze the Peace Process, in Haaretz, 6 October 2004). UN Human Rights Rapporteur John Dugard accused Israel of turning Gaza into "a prison" and "throwing away the key" (‘UN says Gaza crisis 'intolerable'’, BBC, 27 September 2006). 13. The disengagement not only left all decisions of national sovereignty in the hands of the Israeli Government, but gave them carte blanche to re-invade at will. The Israeli 're-invasion' of the Gaza Strip in June 2006 demonstrated this. The humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip today is far worse than anywhere else in the OPT at any time since 1967. Three-quarters of Palestinians in Gaza depend on food aid. Agencies working in Gaza are finding emergency activities almost impossible, let alone prospects for development. 14. It is imperative that the British government does not make the same mistake with Prime Minister Olmert’s plans for the West Bank. Olmert gave his fullest explanation of ‘disengagement’ in January 2006 when he stated: “Israel will maintain control over the security zones, the Jewish settlement blocs, and those places which have supreme national importance to the Jewish people, first and foremost a united Jerusalem under Israeli sovereignty” (Address by Acting PM Ehud Olmert to the Sixth Herzliya Conference). Development under such criteria would be unthinkable, as would final status peace talks. 15. As an example, settlement expansion on the West Bank increased sharply during the ‘disengagement’ from Gaza, with more Palestinian land being occupied than disengaged from by Israeli settlers in 2004. Settlement construction has continued at a rapid rate ever since. A War on Want delegation in April 2006 visited the Jordan Valley, on the eastern side of the West Bank, where $58million of Israeli Government money has been invested since 2004, helping Olmert in his plan to permanently annex the Valley to Israel (War on Want ‘Profiting from the Occupation’, 2006, p.8). The investment includes plans for one million new palm trees, adding to the one million already growing on plantation settlements, producing largely for export to the EU. Israeli peace groups such as the International Committee Against House Demolitions have shown how this construction is aimed at the strangulation of the West Bank and ensuring that any potential Palestinian state would lack contiguity and viability. 16. In May 2006 UN Secretary General Kofi Annan reported “The Israeli closure system is a primary cause of poverty and humanitarian crisis in the occupied Palestinian territory, and restricts Palestinian access to health and education services, employment, markets and social and religious networks” (UN Doc E/CN.4/2006/29, 17 January 2006). The Israeli Government is currently constructing a system of by-pass roads, tunnels and gates which purportedly assist Palestinian movement, but which actually entrench the Occupation, thus counteracting long-term Palestinian development. It is essential that the UK government does not fund any project in the OPT, whether through DfID or international agencies, which contributes to the on-going land grab, even where it may appear to make Palestinian movement freer in the short-term (e.g. separate settler and Palestinian road systems). In particular the UK Government must challenge the World Bank's increasing support for these short-term solutions to improve movement. It will not assist long-term development to trade away the Palestinians' rights. Customs duties and taxes. 17. The impact of the withholding by Israel of the PA’s own customs duties and taxes on the Palestinian population are well attested. In 2005 this source of revenue accounted for $60million per month, representing two thirds of total Palestinian public revenue (‘Report on UNCTAD’s Assistance to the Palestinian People’, 19 July 2006). It is a matter of international disgrace that Israel has been able to get away with withholding the Palestinians’ own money, a key component of the current exacerbation of poverty in the OPT, without any concrete action from the international community. The UK Government must apply immediate and concrete pressure on Israel to change this policy. The impact of the separation barrier.
The network of settlements. 18. The impact of the Separation Wall has caused untold suffering, separating over 100,000 Palestinians from their employment, communities and local services. The Wall has driven thousands of Palestinians’ out of business. A War on Want delegation in 2005 saw small examples of this hardship. We met several Palestinian families whose houses had been half-demolished to make way for the Wall, and one man whose roof had been confiscated by the Israeli Army as a look-out post. It is the opinion of the International Court of Justice that the Wall’s route is contrary to international law and that the international community has a duty to ensure Israel’s compliance, as spelt out in international humanitarian law (ICJ, ‘International Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory’, July 2004). 19. The UN's Special Rapporteur on Human Rights, John Dugard, believes that the Wall has not been built from security concerns, but in order to perform a land grab, to make the illegal Settlements more viable, and to make Palestinian lives more miserable in order to persuade them to move eastwards (John Dugard, ‘Question of the Violation of Human Rights in the Occupied Arab Territories, including Palestine’, 7 December 2004). Then Israeli Justice Minister, Tzipi Livni, suggested in 2005 that: "One does not have to be a genius to see that the fence will have implications for the future border” (Donald Macintyre ‘Sharon 'sees wall as Israel's new border' in the Independent, 2 Dec 2005). 20. In July 2005, War on Want, the Dove & Dolphin charity and a number of individuals instructed lawyers from Hickman & Rose to write to the Foreign & Commonwealth Office to ask what action they had taken to prevent Israeli abuses of Palestinian human rights, specifically in relation to the Separation Wall. In their response, the Government demonstrated that they were aware of the suffering the Wall had caused the Palestinian people, but that Government pressure on Israel consisted only in raising the matter at diplomatic level (for more information see ‘British Foreign & Commonwealth Office Disclosure’ www.waronwant.org/?lid=11496). The UK Government must apply immediate and concrete pressure to Israel to dismantle the Wall and Settlements, as part of a termination of the Occupation. The role of civil society. 21. Like other development agencies, War on Want is alarmed by the UK Government’s interest in civil society in the OPT as a means of providing parallel structures of service delivery. Palestinian civil society cannot, and does not want to, take on the duties of the PA. 22. That notwithstanding, long-term development of civil society is vital to empowering civil society in the OPT and creating a thriving democratic culture capable of asserting its rights internationally. Increased funding of civil society by DfID must not be used as a political tool to replace or undermine the PA, though separately funding long-term rights-based civil society development programmes is welcome. The role of development assistance in supporting political solutions.
Future development needs of a Palestinian state. 23. War on Want believes that all development assistance in the OPT must aim at supporting a political solution based on international law. At a minimum that means not supporting projects which make the Occupation more viable. On a wider level, the UK must ensure support for projects which challenge the root causes of Palestinian poverty – the Occupation itself. Education and rights projects, networking aimed at ensuring Palestinian unity and viability, refugee rights projects, workers rights’ projects, are all essential in this regard. So are development awareness funds spent in the UK raising awareness of the international responsibility for the current situation in the Middle East, and especially the OPT. Conclusion 24. Israeli peace groups such as the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions have warned that the two-state solution of Israel and Palestine living side-by-side in peace is all but dead. The responsibility lies with Israel’s post-Oslo policies aimed at maintaining maximum Palestinian resources from any final status settlement, while impoverishing the Palestinian people. These policies continue to dominate the Israeli political landscape, and they are inimical to Palestinian development. 25. Since the Committee last reported, the UK Government has, by its actions, been clear: not only will it not apply any concrete pressure on the Israeli government, but it has imposed sanctions upon a people who have dared to elect a government which promised to provide them with the better future which the international community has so singularly failed to deliver. The Temporary International Mechanism is no more than a fig leaf, failing to cover the lack of hope which is truly being offered to the Palestinian people. 26. Earlier this year John Dugard delivered his latest report to the UN Human Rights Council stating "I hope that my portrayal... will trouble the consciences of those accustomed to turning a blind eye and a deaf ear to the suffering of the Palestinian people" (Shlomo Shamir, ‘UN blasts Israel for plight of Palestinians’ in Haaretz 28 September 2006). His comments are a plea to the governments of the US and EU. It is impossible for the British government to continue to portray sympathy for the strivings of the Palestinian people, while at the same time subjecting them to an untargeted sanctions regime. It is impossible to profess a concern in development at the same time as supporting the major impediment to development taking place. 27. Holistic action on the part of the UK Government has never been more urgent. This should include: full restoration of aid to the PA and other recommendations laid out in this submission; suspension of military agreements with Israel; suspension of trade preferences followed by progressively increased sanctions; support for an international peace presence; and all other diplomatic and political means at their disposal.
For further details contact:
John Hilary
War on Want
Development House, 56-64 Leonard Street, London EC2A 4LT
Tel: 020 7549 0555
Fax: 020 7549 0556
Email: jhilary@waronwant.org
The EU-Israel Association Agreement 9. War on Want questions the continued operation of the EU-Israel Association Agreement, as well as the deepening relationship with Israel through the European Neighbourhood Policy, at a time when trade policy could provide a key mechanism for exerting pressure on Israel. The UK Government has said repeatedly and in public that it will not consider suspending the Association Agreement. This is despite the fact that the Association Agreement itself, under Articles 2 and 79, call for appropriate measures to be taken if “respect for human rights and democratic principles” are undermined. 10. The UK government’s approach to the Association Agreement is consistent with its approach to other mechanisms which could be employed to pressure Israel to implement international law, such as arms licensing. Arms licenses to Israel in 2005 reached £22.5 million, double the licenses granted for 2004. This is despite the UK’s admittance that “It is frustrating that our calls to stop the construction of the barrier on Palestinian land have not been heeded” (letter from Nick Banner, FCO to Hickman & Rose, 20 September 2005). It appears that UK policy towards Israel pays no reference to its potential impact on development in the OPT. 11. The Association Agreement with the PA is minute when compared to the Israeli Agreement (42million euros as opposed to 22 billion euros according to the Agreement websites), and is only in force on an interim basis owing to the nature and policies of the Occupation. It is misleading, therefore, to present these Agreements as ‘even-handed’. The British Government must use the foreign policy tools at its disposal to bring the violations of international law in the OPT to an end. Changing policy towards the Israeli Government would be more effective in assisting Palestinian development than any conceivable disbursement of DfID funds. Israel's disengagement from Gaza. 12. War on Want criticised the British Government’s enthusiastic acceptance of Israeli disengagement from Gaza, warning that it would “harm the prospect of long-term peace unless the international community increases its pressure on Israel” forming as it did “part of a wider project that is likely to fuel further conflict in years to come.” The significance of this project was described by Dov Weisglass at the time as the "freezing of the peace process... Effectively, this whole package called the Palestinian state, with all that it entails, has been removed indefinitely from our agenda” (Ari Shavit & Yair Ettinger, ‘Top PM Aide: Gaza Plan Aims to Freeze the Peace Process, in Haaretz, 6 October 2004). UN Human Rights Rapporteur John Dugard accused Israel of turning Gaza into "a prison" and "throwing away the key" (‘UN says Gaza crisis 'intolerable'’, BBC, 27 September 2006). 13. The disengagement not only left all decisions of national sovereignty in the hands of the Israeli Government, but gave them carte blanche to re-invade at will. The Israeli 're-invasion' of the Gaza Strip in June 2006 demonstrated this. The humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip today is far worse than anywhere else in the OPT at any time since 1967. Three-quarters of Palestinians in Gaza depend on food aid. Agencies working in Gaza are finding emergency activities almost impossible, let alone prospects for development. 14. It is imperative that the British government does not make the same mistake with Prime Minister Olmert’s plans for the West Bank. Olmert gave his fullest explanation of ‘disengagement’ in January 2006 when he stated: “Israel will maintain control over the security zones, the Jewish settlement blocs, and those places which have supreme national importance to the Jewish people, first and foremost a united Jerusalem under Israeli sovereignty” (Address by Acting PM Ehud Olmert to the Sixth Herzliya Conference). Development under such criteria would be unthinkable, as would final status peace talks. 15. As an example, settlement expansion on the West Bank increased sharply during the ‘disengagement’ from Gaza, with more Palestinian land being occupied than disengaged from by Israeli settlers in 2004. Settlement construction has continued at a rapid rate ever since. A War on Want delegation in April 2006 visited the Jordan Valley, on the eastern side of the West Bank, where $58million of Israeli Government money has been invested since 2004, helping Olmert in his plan to permanently annex the Valley to Israel (War on Want ‘Profiting from the Occupation’, 2006, p.8). The investment includes plans for one million new palm trees, adding to the one million already growing on plantation settlements, producing largely for export to the EU. Israeli peace groups such as the International Committee Against House Demolitions have shown how this construction is aimed at the strangulation of the West Bank and ensuring that any potential Palestinian state would lack contiguity and viability. 16. In May 2006 UN Secretary General Kofi Annan reported “The Israeli closure system is a primary cause of poverty and humanitarian crisis in the occupied Palestinian territory, and restricts Palestinian access to health and education services, employment, markets and social and religious networks” (UN Doc E/CN.4/2006/29, 17 January 2006). The Israeli Government is currently constructing a system of by-pass roads, tunnels and gates which purportedly assist Palestinian movement, but which actually entrench the Occupation, thus counteracting long-term Palestinian development. It is essential that the UK government does not fund any project in the OPT, whether through DfID or international agencies, which contributes to the on-going land grab, even where it may appear to make Palestinian movement freer in the short-term (e.g. separate settler and Palestinian road systems). In particular the UK Government must challenge the World Bank's increasing support for these short-term solutions to improve movement. It will not assist long-term development to trade away the Palestinians' rights. Customs duties and taxes. 17. The impact of the withholding by Israel of the PA’s own customs duties and taxes on the Palestinian population are well attested. In 2005 this source of revenue accounted for $60million per month, representing two thirds of total Palestinian public revenue (‘Report on UNCTAD’s Assistance to the Palestinian People’, 19 July 2006). It is a matter of international disgrace that Israel has been able to get away with withholding the Palestinians’ own money, a key component of the current exacerbation of poverty in the OPT, without any concrete action from the international community. The UK Government must apply immediate and concrete pressure on Israel to change this policy. The impact of the separation barrier.
The network of settlements. 18. The impact of the Separation Wall has caused untold suffering, separating over 100,000 Palestinians from their employment, communities and local services. The Wall has driven thousands of Palestinians’ out of business. A War on Want delegation in 2005 saw small examples of this hardship. We met several Palestinian families whose houses had been half-demolished to make way for the Wall, and one man whose roof had been confiscated by the Israeli Army as a look-out post. It is the opinion of the International Court of Justice that the Wall’s route is contrary to international law and that the international community has a duty to ensure Israel’s compliance, as spelt out in international humanitarian law (ICJ, ‘International Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory’, July 2004). 19. The UN's Special Rapporteur on Human Rights, John Dugard, believes that the Wall has not been built from security concerns, but in order to perform a land grab, to make the illegal Settlements more viable, and to make Palestinian lives more miserable in order to persuade them to move eastwards (John Dugard, ‘Question of the Violation of Human Rights in the Occupied Arab Territories, including Palestine’, 7 December 2004). Then Israeli Justice Minister, Tzipi Livni, suggested in 2005 that: "One does not have to be a genius to see that the fence will have implications for the future border” (Donald Macintyre ‘Sharon 'sees wall as Israel's new border' in the Independent, 2 Dec 2005). 20. In July 2005, War on Want, the Dove & Dolphin charity and a number of individuals instructed lawyers from Hickman & Rose to write to the Foreign & Commonwealth Office to ask what action they had taken to prevent Israeli abuses of Palestinian human rights, specifically in relation to the Separation Wall. In their response, the Government demonstrated that they were aware of the suffering the Wall had caused the Palestinian people, but that Government pressure on Israel consisted only in raising the matter at diplomatic level (for more information see ‘British Foreign & Commonwealth Office Disclosure’ www.waronwant.org/?lid=11496). The UK Government must apply immediate and concrete pressure to Israel to dismantle the Wall and Settlements, as part of a termination of the Occupation. The role of civil society. 21. Like other development agencies, War on Want is alarmed by the UK Government’s interest in civil society in the OPT as a means of providing parallel structures of service delivery. Palestinian civil society cannot, and does not want to, take on the duties of the PA. 22. That notwithstanding, long-term development of civil society is vital to empowering civil society in the OPT and creating a thriving democratic culture capable of asserting its rights internationally. Increased funding of civil society by DfID must not be used as a political tool to replace or undermine the PA, though separately funding long-term rights-based civil society development programmes is welcome. The role of development assistance in supporting political solutions.
Future development needs of a Palestinian state. 23. War on Want believes that all development assistance in the OPT must aim at supporting a political solution based on international law. At a minimum that means not supporting projects which make the Occupation more viable. On a wider level, the UK must ensure support for projects which challenge the root causes of Palestinian poverty – the Occupation itself. Education and rights projects, networking aimed at ensuring Palestinian unity and viability, refugee rights projects, workers rights’ projects, are all essential in this regard. So are development awareness funds spent in the UK raising awareness of the international responsibility for the current situation in the Middle East, and especially the OPT. Conclusion 24. Israeli peace groups such as the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions have warned that the two-state solution of Israel and Palestine living side-by-side in peace is all but dead. The responsibility lies with Israel’s post-Oslo policies aimed at maintaining maximum Palestinian resources from any final status settlement, while impoverishing the Palestinian people. These policies continue to dominate the Israeli political landscape, and they are inimical to Palestinian development. 25. Since the Committee last reported, the UK Government has, by its actions, been clear: not only will it not apply any concrete pressure on the Israeli government, but it has imposed sanctions upon a people who have dared to elect a government which promised to provide them with the better future which the international community has so singularly failed to deliver. The Temporary International Mechanism is no more than a fig leaf, failing to cover the lack of hope which is truly being offered to the Palestinian people. 26. Earlier this year John Dugard delivered his latest report to the UN Human Rights Council stating "I hope that my portrayal... will trouble the consciences of those accustomed to turning a blind eye and a deaf ear to the suffering of the Palestinian people" (Shlomo Shamir, ‘UN blasts Israel for plight of Palestinians’ in Haaretz 28 September 2006). His comments are a plea to the governments of the US and EU. It is impossible for the British government to continue to portray sympathy for the strivings of the Palestinian people, while at the same time subjecting them to an untargeted sanctions regime. It is impossible to profess a concern in development at the same time as supporting the major impediment to development taking place. 27. Holistic action on the part of the UK Government has never been more urgent. This should include: full restoration of aid to the PA and other recommendations laid out in this submission; suspension of military agreements with Israel; suspension of trade preferences followed by progressively increased sanctions; support for an international peace presence; and all other diplomatic and political means at their disposal.
For further details contact:
John Hilary
War on Want
Development House, 56-64 Leonard Street, London EC2A 4LT
Tel: 020 7549 0555
Fax: 020 7549 0556
Email: jhilary@waronwant.org
Download File: