A RECENT international donors’ conference in Sweden pledged $940
million to help reconstruct Lebanon’s shattered infrastructure. The
total cost to Lebanon’s economy probably runs into billions of dollars.
Nonetheless, the $940 million was almost double the $500 million
originally requested by Lebanon’s delegates.
The biggest donation of $175 million came from the US – the same
administration that supplied bunker-busting bombs to Israel which
reduced Lebanon’s towns and villages to rubble. (30,000 homes were
damaged or destroyed in the 34 days of fighting.)
Unsurprisingly, the US donation says more about the politics of aid
than about humanitarian concerns. It is an attempt to help shore up the
fragile pro-Western office of the Lebanese prime minister and to counter
Hezbollah’s pledge to compensate Lebanon’s homeless refugees.
The US and European Union’s (EU) ‘generosity’ also stands in marked
contrast to their previous attitude to the Palestinian Authority (PA)
after the Islamist party, Hamas, won a majority in January’s PA
elections. The US and EU stopped providing aid to the PA citing Hamas’s
refusal to renounce armed struggle and recognise Israel. At the same
time the US and EU allowed a trickle of aid to reach the office of the
‘moderate’ Palestinian president Mahmood Abbas.
This halting of aid, together with Israel’s blockade of Gaza (and its
military attacks, causing $30 million of damage and over 200 deaths) and
the continuing occupation of other Palestinian areas, has made the
plight of Palestinians even more desperate. According to the United
Nations 80% of people in the Gaza strip live in poverty. Widespread
malnutrition has also been reported by aid workers.
Western imperialism hoped that by squeezing resources to the PA it
would ferment political opposition to Hamas, leading to its overthrow.
But imperialism’s strategy is playing with fire. Widespread violence
among unemployed gunmen and kidnappings of foreigners by various
militias is becoming common in Gaza. And the ongoing enmity between
armed supporters of Hamas and former PA ruling party, Fatah, could
easily spill over into civil war.
The inability to pay wages and provide services is also leading to
social upheavals. Most recently 175,000 Palestinian public-sector
workers ignored the pleas of Palestinian prime minister Ismail Haniya to
abandon their indefinite strike over six months of unpaid wages.
As a result of this political meltdown, the donor’s conference also
pledged $500 million in humanitarian aid and reconstruction to the
Palestinians.
However, like the situation in Lebanon, unless the Israeli blockade
is lifted then economic assistance will be rendered ineffective. And
with Israel’s prime minister Ehud Olmert under right-wing pressure
following the Lebanese debacle, he may opt to retain Israel’s
stranglehold over the Palestinians and Lebanon.
