The US Company for Worldwide Improvement (USAID) opened its workplace in Palestine again in 1994. Its web site, which is now not out there, used to boast that since then, it has “helped 4 million Palestinians lead more healthy and extra productive lives”.
Now that the company has been shuttered by US President Donald Trump’s administration, it’s pertinent to judge the declare that USAID was a drive for good within the occupied Palestinian territories.
Undoubtedly, the shutdown of the company has affected Palestinians, particularly these benefitting from its funding for training and healthcare establishments. Humanitarian provision was additionally affected, with the World Meals Programme, one of many most important humanitarian actors within the occupied Palestinian territories, dealing with main disruptions.
Whereas the short-term detrimental affect is obvious, the utility of USAID and different US funding turns into questionable when put within the bigger political context of the Israeli occupation of Palestine.
As a researcher, I’ve been instantly and not directly concerned in assessing USAID-funded programmes for years, and I’ve seen first-hand how they’ve contributed to sustaining Israeli occupation and colonisation. The US company was removed from “serving to” Palestinians lead higher lives, because it claimed.
A coverage of pacification
USAID opened its West Financial institution and Gaza Strip workplace as a part of the broader American effort to guide and form the political settlement between Palestinians and Israelis initiated by the Oslo Accords of 1994.
The so-called “peace course of” promised Palestinians an unbiased state on the lands occupied by Israel in 1967, with a last settlement imagined to be signed by 1999. For sure, such an settlement was by no means signed, as Israel by no means meant to conclude peace with the Palestinians and recognise their proper to self-determination.
As a substitute, Oslo was used to cowl up Israel’s relentless colonisation of the occupied Palestinian territories within the rhetoric of peace negotiations. The creation of the Palestinian Authority (PA) as an area governing physique tasked with managing civil affairs for Palestinians in designated areas was a part of this technique.
Whereas the official Palestinian management envisioned the PA as a transitional polity that might administer day by day life till an unbiased state was established, it was in the end designed and carefully overseen by the US to perform as a consumer regime, managing and controlling the occupied inhabitants.
To that finish, the PA was obliged to interact in shut coordination with Israeli safety forces to suppress any type of resistance within the territories it managed. Its two most important safety our bodies – the Intelligence Service and the Preventive Safety – had been set as much as fulfil this obligation.
Whereas US intelligence businesses had been tasked with supporting and coaching the Palestinian safety equipment – funnelling hundreds of thousands of {dollars} to it yearly – USAID was tasked with supporting the civilian capabilities of the PA.
Between 1994 and 2018, USAID supplied greater than $5.2bn in assist to Palestinians within the West Financial institution and Gaza Strip. It funded infrastructure, well being, and training initiatives, with the purpose of successful public help for the peace negotiations.
A portion of its funding was funnelled by means of civil society organisations with two main targets: to depoliticise the Israeli-Palestinian battle, and to domesticate a community of civil society actors who would promote this agenda.
The depoliticisation framework handled the Palestinian problem as an financial and humanitarian matter. This method addressed Palestinian financial and social issues in isolation — indifferent from their main trigger: Israeli occupation.
It additionally sought to delegitimise Palestinian resistance by portraying it as a supply of instability and chaos somewhat than a political response to occupation.
To distribute its funding, USAID established a fancy system of background checks, alongside an Orwellian set of situations. The vetting prolonged past the person to their prolonged household, the identify of the place, and even the cultural context through which the funds can be used — none of which might be related to resistance.
On this context, it’s hardly shocking that USAID programmes typically failed to enhance the lives of strange Palestinians.
Normalisation by means of people-to-people programmes
Lots of USAID funding went into initiatives that sought to normalise Israeli colonisation by looking for to ascertain connections between Palestinians and Israelis. The premise was that the 2 folks “can study to dwell collectively”, which in fact utterly ignored the realities of apartheid and occupation.
One of many USAID-funded programmes I assessed was the Battle Administration and Mitigation (CMM) Program, promoted underneath USAID’s Folks-to-Folks Partnership framework. By 2018, CMM had allotted over $230m to completely different initiatives and was set to distribute one other $250m by 2026.
The programme included initiatives concentrating on bereaved mother and father, farmers, and college students to advertise peacebuilding. One such mission sought to foster cooperation between Palestinian and Israeli farmers by means of shared farming experiences.
Throughout one focus group dialogue, I spoke to a Palestinian farmer who defined that Palestinian olive oil manufacturing has been stagnating because of the Israeli occupation regime that restricted Palestinian farmers’ entry to water and, in some circumstances, to their land. “These programmes,” he mentioned, “don’t speak about these points.”
Once I requested why he participated, he defined that the mission enabled him to acquire an Israeli journey allow — permitting him to work on Israeli farms and earn an earnings to outlive.
The absurdity of this dynamic was hanging: on paper, the programme spoke of fostering productive relationships between Palestinians and Israelis, constructing a shared, peaceable future the place farmers change into pals. In actuality, nevertheless, Palestinian farmers signed so they may a journey allow and work on Israeli farms — lots of which had been established on confiscated Palestinian land. Participation within the programme didn’t resolve any of the issues the Palestinian farmers confronted in olive farming – i.e., Israeli occupation insurance policies.
One other USAID-funded programme I studied, Seeds of Peace, had the mission to deliver collectively younger folks from battle areas who had the potential to change into future leaders of their nations. The programme’s central exercise was a youth summer season camp in an prosperous space within the US state of Maine, the place contributors engaged in dialogue and management coaching.
The 2 largest participant teams had been Israelis and Palestinians. Whereas the Israeli Ministry of Schooling was answerable for choosing Israeli contributors, the Seeds of Peace workplace in Ramallah oversaw the recruitment of Palestinian contributors. Every participant benefitted from a closely subsidised programme, with prices reaching as much as $8,000 per particular person.
A more in-depth have a look at participant lists over time revealed a hanging sample: the little children of PA leaders and prosperous households steadily appeared.
Interested by this sample, I as soon as requested a programme officer about it. The response was revealing: “In Palestinian society, management typically passes to the kids of high-ranking officers.”
This meant that the organisation’s —and by extension, the US’s – imaginative and prescient of political management in Palestine assumed that energy in Palestinian politics is hereditary and due to this fact, US initiatives ought to concentrate on the little children of the present elite.
Political interference
Seeds of Peace was by far not the one programme that served to help PA cadres and their households. Some kinfolk of high-ranking officers have obtained preferential therapy in securing profitable USAID contracts; others have led nonprofit organisations funded by the company.
USAID has additionally been concerned not directly within the political scene in Palestine by supporting political actors favoured by Washington.
Between 2004 and 2006, it carried out an expansive democracy promotion programme within the Palestinian territories within the lead-up to the 2006 legislative elections. Whereas there isn’t a direct proof of economic help for particular candidates or celebration lists, observers have famous that civil society organisations (CSOs) linked to Fatah or the Third Manner candidates had been recipients of USAID funding. In some circumstances, this help was channeled by means of organisations working in unrelated sectors.
Regardless of substantial funding and political help, these teams did not safe sufficient seats to forestall Hamas’s electoral victory. After Hamas took management of Gaza, USAID continued supporting Palestinian CSOs, in some circumstances dramatically rising their funding.
USAID additionally supported the police drive underneath the PA by means of rule of regulation programmes, though the majority of funding for the PA’s repressive safety equipment has come by means of the CIA and the Worldwide Narcotics Management and Regulation Enforcement (INCLE) of the US Division of State.
A more moderen and stark instance of problematic USAID involvement is the malfunctioning pier constructed by the US army in 2024 to facilitate assist supply into Gaza, at a price of $230m. The mission was promoted as a humanitarian initiative and USAID was one of many organisations tasked with distributing the trickle of assist that got here by means of it.
In actuality, the pier served as a public relations stunt by the administration of former US President Joe Biden to obscure US complicity in Israel’s blockade of Gaza. It was additionally utilized by the Israeli army in an operation that resulted within the killing of greater than 200 Palestinians, elevating severe questions in regards to the militarisation and misuse of assist infrastructure.
The pier farce is an efficient illustration of the US method to offering assist to the Palestinians: it was by no means performed of their greatest curiosity.
It’s true that some impoverished Palestinians could also be affected by the shutdown of USAID operations within the West Financial institution and Gaza. Nevertheless, it’s unlikely to decisively alter the scenario on the bottom. The cutoff of assist could have a extra dramatic affect on the US technique of leveraging Palestinian civil society organisations to advertise a pacification agenda and perpetuate empty rhetoric about peace.
On this regard, the shuttering of USAID might give a chance for the Palestinian civil society to rethink its engagement with US authorities donors in mild of its ethical obligations to the Palestinian folks. Tens of millions poured into pacification clearly didn’t work; it’s time for a brand new method that really serves the pursuits of the Palestinians.
The views expressed on this article are the writer’s personal and don’t essentially mirror Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
