Nora Lester Murad - The View From My Window in Palestine Page 8 of 25 -

A New Aid for Palestinians

August 21, 2015 by Nora Lester Murad

This article first appeared in Cornerstone, the newsletter of the Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center, Issue 72, Summer 2015, pp. 12-14.

Global citizens who care about justice often complement their social activism with financial gifts to organizations they believe in; and they often support their government’s use of tax funds to provide bilateral aid to developing countries. “Aid” means “help” and good people want to be helpful. They give from a sense of obligation, which is often grounded in faith, and in response to the opportunity to make a positive difference in the world.

Palestinians are among the highest recipients of international aid from governments and have been for decades, making them among the most aid-dependent peoples in the world. While most of us would consider aid a good thing, it is obvious that being dependent on aid is a bad thing. But the majority of concerned global citizens don’t realize just HOW bad it is. If they did, they would make aid accountability a priority among their Palestinian solidarity activities.

On one level, the problems with international aid in Palestine are just like the problems with aid that are reported in many parts of Africa, Latin America and Asia – aid is unpredictable and uncoordinated; it reflects priorities of donor countries not necessarily the recipients; it distorts the agenda of local governmental and civil society groups; it undermines accountability to communities in favor of bureaucratic accountability to donor institutions; much aid is repatriated back to donor country economies; and aid is often wasted on consumption and activities that don’t lead to real, long-term development.

Because of these problems, and because of the dialogue around the expiration of the Millennium Development Goals, activists in aid-recipient countries are working together to protest both the methods and the politics of international aid. They are moving beyond a technical critique that implies that we just need more aid, more transparent reporting, more harmonized procedures, and better use of data about what kind of development works. Instead, they are talking about “development justice” and integrating aid issues with other aspects of global inequality such as third world debt. Some are even talking about aid as a form of neo-colonial intervention designed to maintain inequality rather than challenge it and suggesting that poor people reject aid.

In Palestine, aid is such a prominent and visible part of life that even non-experts tend to be quite sophisticated about how it works. Perhaps this is because nearly everyone is directly or indirectly supported by aid. The largest employer, the Palestinian Authority, can’t pay salaries without international aid, and the Palestinian elite and middle class (upon whom the consumer and service industries depend) are nearly all employed by United Nations agencies, international non-governmental organizations or local non-governmental organizations that depend on grants from the internationals. There is really no part of the economy or aspect of life that isn’t affected by international aid.

For this reason, it doesn’t take long for a conversation about aid among Palestinians to turn to a gripe session. Unfortunately, complaining isn’t very effective in making change. Some people feel they should be grateful for donors’ generosity, so although they aren’t happy with aid, they silence themselves. Some people are fearful that if they complain, donors will stop giving, so they only make vague suggestions that can’t be implemented. Others talk about the problems with aid, but don’t address their complaints to the right parties, or don’t understand how to frame their complaints in terms of rights, so they aren’t taken seriously.

To help Palestinians understand the aid system and their rights in it, a group of Palestinian and international activists are launching Aid Watch Palestine, an initiative to start a conversation about aid that is honest, critical and constructive. We want to connect the issue of aid with the struggle for national liberation and with human rights.

For example:

If Israel is responsible under international humanitarian law for rebuilding Gaza, why are the international donors paying, thus letting Israel off the hook completely for the costs of their damages?

If international actors are intervening because of a humanitarian imperative, how can they justify the shamefully slow pace of rebuilding in Gaza?

If international actors truly wish to prevent further violence, why do they allow Israel to profit so much from occupation and war?

How can international actors credibly claim to be helping while they are simultaneously supporting the Israeli war machine?

By posing questions like these to Palestinians, aid actors and global citizens, Aid Watch Palestine hopes to challenge people who say, “We are doing the best we can under difficult circumstances.” We want to challenge ourselves to think more creatively about how international intervention can actually help – not by throwing money at the problem, but by addressing root causes of the conflict and further long-term solutions that respect human rights and international law.

Wanting to help isn’t good enough. After 67 years of “aid,” Palestinians are still occupied, dispossessed and colonized and vulnerable to violence, poverty and hopelessness. Where is the accountability? Concerned global citizens should still give, but we think they should ask harder questions about their government’s aid programs:

Is aid intended to further the donor government’s foreign policy objectives? Or is it intended to respect the priorities, rights and agendas of recipient communities?

How are decisions about aid allocations made? Who makes them? Who chooses the decision-makers?

Does aid only address the symptoms of suffering or does it address the root causes, fundamentally changing power relations?

What kind of global economic and political system is advanced by international aid and is it contributing to the kind of world we want to live in?

We also need a critical approach to our own charitable contributions:

Are we giving to international organizations when there are local organizations doing the same work? If so, why are we doing that, and what impact does it have on the capacity for local self-reliance?

Are we giving to “emergency” needs (like food aid) instead of to longer-term (and harder) efforts to prevent food insecurity in the first place? If so, are we being fooled into supporting simplistic and ineffective approaches?

Are we making charitable contributions when what is really needed is our political intervention so that we can find just solutions? If so, how can we combine ever act of financial giving with a call to a representative, letter to the media, or public statement of support for a government policy that will lead to self-determination and peace with justice?

Six Steps to “Dignified Interdependence”

July 13, 2015 by Nora Lester Murad

This article first appeared on Philanthropy for Social Justice and Peace.

Not infrequently, people ask me how community organizations can become independent of international funding. Part of the answer, I believe, lies in reformulating the question.

“Independence,” is a smokescreen. First world countries that claim to be independent are often dependent on the natural and human resources of the global south. Even donors who claim to be independent because they have endowments are hiding the fact that their resources were taken through exploitation of workers and sometimes from war.

Instead of asking how we can become independent, I suggest we ask how we can achieve “dignified interdependence” – a system of relationships that acknowledges that we are all giversand receivers and that recognizes our value to one another.

Here I propose six possible steps that civil society and community philanthropic organizations can take to become less dependent on international funding and more dignified in their interdependence:

1-Act as if you are poor

Poor people don’t take taxis when they can walk; they don’t eat in restaurants when they can cook. If community organizations want to be less dependent on international funding, they need to become more thoughtful about how they use the resources they have. Acting “as if you are poor” means looking hard at all expenses and cutting every possible unnecessary expense, starting with those that don’t contribute to the mission. One way to do this is by sharing with other community organizations and resisting pressure to compete. Does every organization need its own photocopy machine? Does every organization need its own video camera?

2-Act as if you’re rich (it sounds like a contradiction but it’s not)

Rich people don’t obsess about what they don’t have. They don’t say, “I can’t implement my project because it’s not funded.” Rich people have a sense of abundance, of being able to mobilize resources – even if they aren’t already in the bank. Acting “as if you’re rich” means being confident in your ability to use whatever resources you do have to get access to more resources.

3-Generate value from mission-related activities

If our activities are valuable, we should be able to generate resources from them in ways that serve the mission. The obvious way is to charge fees, which many civil society groups resist because they say their beneficiaries can’t pay. But therein lies the whole problem! If “we” are service providers and “they” are beneficiaries, then we’ve stripped them of their resources by framing them only as receivers. When we think in terms of sharing, and we realize the value of all resources (not only money), we not only increase resources available for our work, but we increase the community of supporters that are invested in the organization.

4-Generate money from non-mission-related activities

There are some examples of successful income generating initiatives, like the medical relief group that founded a printing press to produce their own materials and now brings in core funding for relief activities through printing services. However, I still think this option should be pursued with great caution. Not only can a community group get sidetracked trying to run a business (which is hard!), but working for profit is, in many ways, at odds with the kind of society social justice groups are trying to create.

5-Reject bad money

I suspect most civil society and community philanthropic organizations are reactive rather than proactive in fundraising. In other words, they respond to calls for proposals or announcements of grants. This leads to susceptibility to distortion of mission, especially if the grantseeking organization was not clear about its mission/identity/values in the first place.

But there is another way. We can, individually and collectively, decide what kind of donors we want to work with: Sincere? Politically supportive? Compliant with good donorship principles? And we can decide what kind of funding we want: Core? Multi-year? Large? Aimed at human rights? Easy to renegotiate? Submissions in local languages? Etc. We can take our demands to the donor community and tell them what kind of funding would support our objectives, rather than waiting to see if what they offer is “good enough.” We can control funding by not applying for aid that doesn’t meet our standards. But that will only work if we have standards — and if we believe that we have a right to have standards.

In fact, none of these ideas will work if we don’t believe in ourselves and one another. We must have confidence that we can survive without international funding. I don’t mean that we shouldn’t seek and accept funding, but we can’t build our activities, or our identity, around being in need of it.

Do you believe that we can survive without depending on international funding?

Community Transformation is Local Work

July 8, 2015 by Nora Lester Murad

See the entire article on Civicus.

“The small Palestinian village of Saffa was the site of Dalia Association’s first pilot of community-controlled grant-making back in 2008. At first glance, the methodology didn’t make much sense. Why would we give small grants when the need was so great? Why would we give unrestricted grants when the risk was so high? Why would we expect the community to contribute so much when Palestinians are devastated by occupation, dispossession and colonisation?

As Palestine’s community foundation, Dalia approached the problem differently from traditional donors who are looking for some kind of return on investment. Dalia is not a donor: the funds that Dalia mobilises already belong to the Palestinian community. Dalia holds them in trust and facilitates transparent, democratic and accountable use of the funds, but it is the community’s right and responsibility to decide how they are used. This might sound like the same ‘participatory approach’ that is fashionable in development circles, but it is not. Dalia’s commitment to community-controlled grant-making is based on respect for the right of Palestinians to control their own resources. Community controlled grant-making is an expression of resistance – to the Israeli occupation and to dependence on aid, both of which undermine Palestinian self-determination….”

Happy birthday to me, again

May 5, 2015 by Nora Lester Murad

One year ago I celebrated my 50^th birthday with the launch of a new Gaza Fund at Dalia Association. At the time I wrote that we should strengthen local leaders and local organizations before bad things happen. I suggested that we not only give money, time and raise our voices during wars, but that we take advantage of the periods of calm to invest, work preventively, focus on the long-term.

Of course I didn’t know that just a few months later Gaza would succumb to a terrible war, nor did I know that 8 months later things would be even worse. I didn’t know then that I would be compelled to put aside my novel to work on a new initiative – Aid Watch Palestine – to bring people together to re-envision aid so that it’s accountable to Palestinians and actually helps people.

Now, on the cusp of turning 51, my “profound” words are spoken out and my energy has dispersed. I work day and night to try to make a difference, but without much hope that I can. All around me are friends who are severely depressed, and with good reason.

So what do I want for my 51^st birthday? I’m not going to say “peace on earth” or even “an end to the blockade on Gaza.” I’m going to ask for something every personal: I want to learn to find beauty in this ugly world and to find hope against all the evidence that there is none. But lest you say my wish is selfish, I wish this for us all. I wish for humanity to rise to our best selves. That would be a truly happy birthday.

My trip to Gaza 2015

April 10, 2015 by Nora Lester Murad

The Gaza Strip from April 2-8, 2015 (but it felt like one year)

This is Kamal in front of his home in Beit Hanoun.

Kamal LOVED his garden and tried to help me imagine how beautiful it used to be. Later he showed me pictures on his phone and his colleagues at Oxfam went on and on about what a beautiful garden it had been and how much work he had put into it. This is what is left.

Kamal became very emotional when his cat jumped from behind a piece of metal into his arms. He said he felt ashamed that he was no longer able to take care of his own cat.

I had seen photos like these before — destroyed factories in Shujaeya. But seeing this factory (ice cream? juice? I forgot) with Kamal made it totally different. I could see reflected in his eyes how it used to be with people working, trucks coming and going, life in action. I could feel the tragedy in a way I hadn’t before.

This severely damaged nonprofit organization served people with disabilities. I found the name of it ironic given all the death: The Society for the Right to Life.

The only action in Shujaeya in the late afternoon were these young men picking up rubble. They took turns posing for pictures delivering rubble to a middleman who would sell it to be ground up and re-used.

I especially liked these two — cousins I think — who held up stones and said, “Five shekels! Tell the world that we work for five hours to earn 5 shekels! And every time they said, “five shekels” they broke into a hysterical laughter that made me laugh. Hard. Amazing.

And here’s a photo from a friend’s house that speaks volumes about the challenges of living in Gaza where electricity comes for 6 hours and then not again for 18 (or 8 on 16 off during good times). How do you use the bathroom at night when there is no electricity?

Still, Gaza is stunningly beautiful. From this balcony, you can see the least affected part of Gaza City, and it looks especially good because the destroyed buildings in the lower half of the photo have been cleared away (unlike Khuzaa and other places) — they were police buildings.

It was a productive trip. Here I am with the Steering Committee members from Gaza of our new initiative, Aid Watch Palestine (Jaber Qudih, left; Ibrahem Shatli, middle and Amal Zaqout, far right) and Heba, our team coordination assistant (2nd from right).

And here I am with Heba and 7 of the 9 writers who will write “glimpses of daily life” stories for the Aid Watch website (at a lovely new cafe).

And although I was really, really, really busy, I did spend a little time going around to talk to people about the reconstruction situation. Here is a cement distribution warehouse that was closed (smack in the middle of a work day).

And here is another cement distribution warehouse that was open but not operational. The manager let me take photos of the empty warehouse and explained that he expected a new shipment “any time now.” He gave me lots and lots of information about how bad the cement situation is, including how he personally had been assessed for cement back in September, but he has yet to receive any information about whether he’ll be getting any cement or when. He also talked about the irony of how people who need cement badly get approved after waiting long period but then don’t have the money to buy the cement, or they borrow money to buy cement and then sell it at a profit on the black market to buy food, since they don’t have enough money to do the repairs to their home anyway.

There was some steel (also tightly controlled because it is considered “dual use” by Israel).

And yes, the place was monitored by camera.

We finally found one cement distribution warehouse in Jabalia City that actually had cement!

Customers were very happy to get it, but there were surprisingly few.

But the manager of the facility was not so happy. He said he’s obligated to accept truckloads without inspecting them, and when he finds damaged materials like these, he’s not allowed to return them. That’s the problem with monopoly.

Then we stopped in to watch some work being done to construct a temporary shelter caravan funded by Jordan.

I was told this is a high quality caravan because the walls are insulated, unlike some of the others.

The caravan is a big improvement over the makeshift home the family is living in now on the site of their demolished home.

The mom was younger than I am but had 11 children (two died in the last war and one permanently disabled). Her grown daughter was sweeping the dirt floor when I arrived. They made me fresh lemonade.

I really liked this woman. Her name is Ghalya.

In case you were wondering, Hamas signs are visible. One time the car I was in was stopped at a checkpoint. The officer said he wanted to remind us to pray for the prophet.

United Nations and international NGO signs are also everywhere like at this World Health Organization voucher distribution center (which was not too busy, for reasons I don’t know).

I was very fortunate to be hosted by dear friends, Najla and Jason Shawa in their super comfortable home — despite the difficulty I had keeping track of which water was for drinking, which for hair washing, and which for body washing. I got to play with baby Zoozoo and meet Najla’s famous (and super nice) mom, Rawya.

As I posted on Facebook earlier today, there is only one word to describe what is happening in Gaza: betrayal.

Israel devastated Gaza, but “aid” helps keep it that way

April 9, 2015 by Nora Lester Murad

This article first appeared in the Huffington Post.

Marking six months since the ceasefire in Gaza, 30 international aid agencies joined together to issue a statement titled, “We must not fail in Gaza.” At face value, this warning is a responsible step by credible international humanitarian and development actors. Yet, a deeper reading reveals that the statement is neither candid nor wholly truthful. How can we solve the appalling conditions in Gaza or elsewhere if aid actors actively participate — including through this statement — in mystifying the public about what is really going on and where responsibility lies?

Accountability cannot be achieved without honest, critical, constructive discussion about what is really happening. We must tell the whole, complex, discomforting truth, even if it leads us to conclude that “aid” isn’t as helpful as we want to believe it is.

It is not wholly truthful to say, “We must not fail in Gaza” when we have already failed in Gaza. Nearly 2 million people remain essentially imprisoned under military occupation in one of the most densely populated areas of the world. The international community has legal, moral, and professional obligations to hold Israel accountable for these and other violations against Palestinians, but it does not do so. Admitting failure could allow aid actors to stop investing intensive efforts and massive resources in a flawed system. It could open up discussion leading to radical change.

It is not wholly truthful to say 100,000 Palestinians remain displaced when there are nearly 7 million Palestinians displaced. Like other oft-repeated statistics, the number “100,000” actually hides the bigger picture. This number does not include those still displaced from the last Gaza war in 2012; and it does not include those without homes because the Israeli blockade bans sufficient materials to meet the natural growth in demand for housing. It certainly does not include the total number of Palestinians who are not home because they have no homeland. Confronting the problem holistically could allow aid actors to extract themselves from complicity.

It is not wholly truthful to say that the international community is not providing Gaza with adequate assistance because little of the $5.4 billion pledged in Cairo has reached Gaza, as if Palestinians are merely entitled to compensation for recent war damages. In fact, the international response is inadequate because “aid” is offered as consolation for 67 years of statelessness. In fact, decisive political intervention is the only way to achieve a long-term solution.

The recent statement by aid agencies is written in the sophisticated, passive language for which the aid system has become known:

The Israeli-imposed blockade continues, the political process, along with the economy, are paralyzed, and living conditions have worsened. Reconstruction and repairs to the tens of thousands of homes, hospitals, and schools damaged or destroyed in the fighting has been woefully slow.

But whose responsibility is it to reconstruct homes? It is the responsibility of the very same aid actors who signed the statement! Why is it their responsibility? Because they have been contracted to do so by governments that are legal duty bearers, given Israel’s failure to act to ensure the wellbeing of Palestinians under occupation. These actors accept that responsibility, claim the authority to fulfill that responsibility, and are compensated to fulfill that responsibility.

So how can United Nations agencies and tens of international non-governmental organizations declare, “…we are alarmed by the limited progress in rebuilding the lives of those affected and tackling the root causes of the conflict” as if they were mere bystanders?

We must do better! Rather than blame others and plead powerlessness, every one of us, in every sector — public, private, international and local — should reflect honestly about the role we play in maintaining this failed system. We must summon the courage to risk change.

Here is the text of a statement those same agencies might have published had they been willing to speak truthfully. (These are sentiments already whispered in the back rooms of most agencies working in Palestine.)

The Joint Statement by Aid Agencies That Should Have Been Published

We have failed. The recent Gaza war is simply more proof that we, the international community, refuse to exert effective pressure to implement any of our hundreds of UN resolutions relating to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, calling into question the credibility of our commitment to a global governance system where all people can enjoy freedom, equality and basic rights.

“Aid” has not been an effective tool to offset or mitigate this failure. Taking Gaza as one of many examples, we have accepted funding on behalf of Palestinians and we have paid ourselves handsomely to achieve objectives that we knew to be unachievable within the constraints of our system. We hereby admit that the aid system should be dismantled and radically re-envisioned as a form of solidarity driven by a commitment to justice.

Because we are truly as committed to justice and the rule of law as we always claim, we intend to remain in Palestine with Palestinians until their rights are achieved. We do this as true humanitarians not as careerists, so we will not accept compensation beyond what we need to subsist by local standards.

Furthermore, we will not allow ourselves to be used or blocked. We will insist that our governments act in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations (especially Chapter seven, Articles 41 and 42) giving effect to UN decisions via economic, diplomatic and other measures.

We will rebuild Palestine so that it can be free of the need for aid: enjoying territorial integrity, with control over its own natural resources and borders, and able to receive Palestinians from around the world if they choose to become citizens.

We will do this because true help in a situation of inequality requires us to take a stand on the side of justice. We understand this will require us to take risks, but we are driven by our conscience to do what is right.

Malala, where is your money?

December 16, 2014 by Nora Lester Murad

The article first appeared in The Hill’s Congress Blog.

Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Youzzeffi announced a donation of $50,000 for the reconstruction of Gaza’s schools. That was in October, in the wake of Israel’s summer assault that affected some 113,500 homes in addition to schools, public buildings, hospitals, utilities and other essential infrastructure.

As part of an investigation into Palestine’s broken aid system, I set about tracking down where Malala’s money is. One month later, I have few answers and my list of questions is growing. UNRWA, the agency responsible for Palestinian refugees and the recipient of Malala’s donation, could not tell me when anticipated repairs would commence or if Israel’s complex restrictions on importation of cement and other building supplies would affect the timeline. It is already nearly four months since the ceasefire agreement, and two months since the donation was made.

I had expected to find out that a portion of Malala’s contribution would go to high overhead costs and that some would be pocketed by Israel in the form of import taxes, security fees, and corporate profits. I did not expect to be unable to get reliable information.

Problems with transparency and accountability are not unique to any one agency. Rather, it is a consequence of an entire aid system that has an interest in protecting itself from scrutiny to avoid being exposed as complicit in the ongoing denial of Palestinian rights.

US taxpayers give more than $400 million of their hard-earned money to Palestine annually. This supports dozens of aid organizations with noble mandates. But most US taxpayers would be saddened to learn that assistance delivered through the aid system may sometimes do more harm than good.

Off the record, everyone admits that real development in Gaza requires the siege to end and the occupation to cease. But why would Israel end the occupation when it’s so profitable? International donors pay to fulfill obligations that Israel has under International Humanitarian Law, and when Israel destroys donor-funded projects, the donors build again.

Instead of exerting political and economic pressure on Israel to recognize Palestinian rights, international governments offer aid to Palestinians as a sort of “consolation prize.” Then, when Israel makes the provision of aid difficult, the aid actors again fail to stand up for Palestinian rights. In trying to find ways around Israel’s siege, aid may actually entrench it further.

Rather than pointing the finger at particular aid agencies, the taxpayers in whose name aid is being given must demand accountability not only in terms of budget sheets but also in terms of impact.

This is not to say we should expect a quick fix. The urge for simple answers and fast spending is part of the problem. Our objective should not be to simply provide Palestinians with new schools. What we must demand is a bold plan that sees aid disentangled from Israel’s regime of siege and occupation. Rather than merely providing a stopgap until the next bombardment, the process of rebuilding must respect Palestinian rights. Moreover, the aid system must serve the interests of Palestinians in ways that are accountable to Palestinians, taxpayers around the world, and other stakeholders.

Aid actors have a hard job to do. They work in a highly politicized environment, with tremendous security risks, and often without political support from governments. Yet they are legally obligated as duty bearers and by ethical mandates that they must uphold, even in situations like Palestine where “pragmatism” suggests they compromise in order to deliver aid. By accepting billions of dollars in trust for the Palestinian people, aid actors agree to be held to these high standards.

If Malala really wants to help Gaza, she may want to do more than just give money. She may want to ask where it is. Asking for accountability doesn’t show lack of trust, nor does it undermine aid actors’ ability to perform. Asking for accountability is a way of ensuring that international aid doesn’t just do the best it can within a broken system, but that systems be built to ensure that aid actually helps not hurts.

An update from UNRWA posted March 23, 2015: http://www.unrwa.org/newsroom/press-releases/unrwa-reopens-school-khuza%E2%80%99-gaza

How much is owed to Gaza? Does anyone know? This is not a rhetorical question. I’m really asking!

November 19, 2014 by Nora Lester Murad

This article first appeared on Philanthropy for Social Justice and Peace.

On October 12, 2014, a bunch of donors met in Cairo with the Palestinian Authority to discuss and pledge support for Gaza. I can’t find any official statement press release from the conference, so it’s hard to know exactly who came and pledged, but media coverage after the event suggested thatQatar pledged $1 billion, while Kuwait and the UAE pledged $200 million each, as did Turkey, and the United States pledged 212 million dollars. One source reported that the European Union promised 450 million euros while another said EU member states will contribute $570 million including pledges of $63 million from Germany $13m from Norway (or $14.5m from Norway, according to a different source). I guess that the EU promise of 450 million Euros is the same as the promise of the EU member states for $570 million, but I can’t be sure. Also, it was reported that Saudi Arabia pledged $500 million, France $38 million, Algeria $25 million, Italy $22.7 million, and Japan $200 million, while theUK figure came in at a shockingly low $32 million.

I’m not good in math, so I use a calculator to add up these figures and I don’t get anywhere near the $5.4 billion that all media consistently reported as the amount pledged at that conference. So where can I find out who else pledged and how much? Or is money already missing?

I look at OCHA’s Financial Tracking Service and pull a report for the occupied Palestinian territories (dated November 18, 2014) and there is no $1 billion from Qatar either in the commitments or pledges. Maybe that’s because Qatar isn’t transparent? So I decided to look for a donor with a high transparency rating, like the UK. I go back to the FTS and yes, there are paid contributions that could approximate the pledged amount, but there’s no way to tell if those are the same funds because there’s no date of the payment on that report. Grumble, grumble. Or maybe that’s because OCHA tracks only humanitarian funding and these pledges are considered “development” funding? “Aha!” I say to myself. “I should be able to find that info in the International Aid Transparency Index.” I go to the development portal, filter by UK, scroll to Palestine, and, yes! There is 130,856,816 spent and another 171,802,469 budgeted. But how can I find the $32m pledged at the Cairo donor’s conference?

Surely, with all the hulabaloo about aid data transparency, I must be doing something wrong.

Moreover, there’s the question about what the money will be spent on. The PA’s plan, which was submitted to donors as the basis of their request, listed $4 billion for the reconstruction of Gaza; $4.5 billion to support the PA budget from 2015-17; and $7 billion to finance the rebuilding and operation of Gaza’s airport and seaport, building a large water desalination plant and taking advantage of gas fields in Gaza’s sea, among other projects. But if “only” $5.4 billion was pledged against the $16.5 billion requested, then some things will get funded and others won’t. Where is that listed and explained?

The Palestinian Authority did put out a clarification. They said that some of the pledges were re-pledges of earlier commitments and that some of the funding will go to Gaza and some of the funding to the West Bank will also go to Gaza. But shockingly, they too seemed to be piecing data together from other data sources to calculate what money is expected.

Grumble, grumble.

Although I never passed eighth grade math, there is one thing I can be absolutely sure of. The aid data system – even the initiatives designed to make aid transparent – make it impossible for anyone to hold anyone accountable for anything.

If any of you “out there” think that I’m wrong and that you can figure out how much money the 1.8 million devastated Palestinians in Gaza should expect to receive, do let me know. This is not a rhetorical question. I’m really asking.

During Gaza

November 2, 2014 by Nora Lester Murad

This poem was originally published on Counterpunch.

There are periods of time during which there is only one place on earth and places for which one period of time changes history. These are my hearts’ thoughts about July 2014, which I will always think of as being “during Gaza.”

I.
The front line obscured,
their troops had dispersed
to cafes in Haifa
till the flammable stench
of hope decomposing
ignited in Gaza,
wafted through the watan,
and woke up the poetry.
And an unlikely hero
neutralized the fear
that had shackled generations
by risking everything,
in time with the pounding
of the tabla.

II.
Red lines, fault lines, electricity lines, bread lines
crossed and cut and bombed.
Complexity, like raw sewage, washed into the sea, a surprising relief.
Whispers at ftoor were unified by suhoor.
But till now
CNN still does not know
or refuses to report,
that the game has changed.

III.
I am fine bang-bang, Mama.
No, bang-bang. There is no bang danger here.
I am far from bang-bang-bang.
That sound? Helicopters. I don’t know why.
The pope left, Ki-Moon left, Kerry left.
Nothing unusual is happening here now.
I am absolutely sure, Mama.
There is bang-bang-bang-bang absolutely no danger
in the West bang-bang-bang-bang Bank,
yet.

IV.
On Facebook I check
before I even spit the night’s bad taste into the drain
if she is alive
if he is alive
and the ones in the south and the ones near the coast
but most of them don’t answer my “how are you?”
because they are sleeping their half-rest,
or because they have no electricity,
or because they are dead.

V.
They say I have lost perspective
because I can’t taste chocolate anymore,
because I feel walls tremble in my dreams,
because I scream “stop” into the wind.
They say I have lost perspective because I mourn children not mine
brains blown from skulls.
Meanwhile, they seek my professional recommendation through LinkedIn.
And I say,
it is not me
who has lost
perspective.

VI.
There were ten thousand or twenty
and we waved flags,
little girls on shoulders and families in cars,
old men in wheechairs and so many, many women!
Women who had held decades together with their bare hands,
their husbands in prison,
and arrested themselves,
beside their daughters marched.
Those daughters, with international aspirations,
who had seen burning tires only from car windows as they passed,
cursing the traffic,
and who had not seen options, much less discussed them,
not even amongst themselves, over latte, all these years.
But now,
titillated,
they chanted “udrub udrub Tel Abeeb”
while skinny boys, faces covered, walked into bullets,
despite knowing
that no one can remember 108 names.

VII.
Still,
there is something
something precious
I pull it towards me
faith renewed
by that clarity
that unity
that surety
that when I say “Can you help me help Gaza?”
without exception
even those I do not like
and even those who do not like me
answer simply:
“Consider it done.”

VIII.
When Gaza is over
When the mess of rubble and body parts is cleared away
When researchers have analyzed the op-eds and filed them
When Americans realize what they paid for and why no money is left for Detroit
When their children ask “how could that happen?” the way I asked about Auschwitz
When they let their minds go blank for ten minutes in lotus position at sunrise
Will they be haunted
by the Bakir boys
playing soccer
on the Gaza beach?

Donor complicity in Israel’s violation of Palestinian rights

October 25, 2014 by Nora Lester Murad

“In this policy brief, Al-Shabaka Policy Member Nora Lester Murad examines aid through the lens of “complicity” and exposes shortcomings in current legal frameworks. She argues that regardless of the limitations of applicable law, international aid actors are fundamentally responsible to those they seek to assist and must be held accountable for the harm they cause or enable. She identifies the areas in which questions need to be asked and concludes with some of the steps that Palestinian civil society and the international solidarity movement should take.”

Download the full paper in English and Arabic on the Al-Shabaka site, and please share your comments here.

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