Ever since the beginning of the second intifada in 2000, there has been a familiar pattern in the Occupied Territories: Israel destroys Palestinian civilian infrastructure, and the international community foots the bill.
This has been reproduced once more, on a grand scale, as billions of dollars were promised this week at the Egypt-hosted donor conference for devastated Gaza, far exceeding the Palestinian Authority's initial target.
It remains to be seen how much of this aid will actually get through to the Palestinians imprisoned in Gaza, who continue to live in the rubble of thousands of homes, and hundreds of businesses, factories and schools. Two-thirds of the US contribution of $900 million, for example, is not even earmarked for Gaza.
The root of Gaza's problem is not a lack of aid, but Israel's politically-motivated blockade. It's not primarily about the rockets, or even Gilad Shalit: it is "a siege designed to depose Hamas rule".
Some people can have short memories. Israel's "ever-tighter economic blockade" goes back to the redeployment of summer 2005 and it considerably worsened after the Palestinian parliamentary elections. Israel's goal, as Ha'aretz described, "was to prevent Hamas from enabling the population to lead a normal life", an act that "constituted collective punishment for 1.5 million Palestinians", with the assumption being "that economic distress would bring down the Hamas regime".
The second problem with the donor conference is the way in which it was another exercise in denying the obvious: Hamas has to be engaged, not sidelined. There's something absurd, for example, about the British government's parallel recognition of the need to talk with Hamas (itself a relatively new development), as long as it's not '"us" doing the talking.
The donor conference then, called on behalf of a territory whose ruling authorities are to be excluded from both the planning and implementation of reconstruction, is a continuation of a bankrupt and failed strategy. In a superb bit of unintended irony, Blair was asked on al-Jazeera about the prospect of working with a hard-right Netanyahu government. His reply – "We've got to work with whoever the Israeli people elect" – should tell the Palestinians exactly how much their democratic will is valued in comparison.
The third problem with the donor conference is the hypocrisy of seeing countries that are responsible for Gaza's miserable state lining up to score political points by donating money for aid. It's not only that Israel received military hardware and diplomatic cover from the same dignitaries now shaking their heads at the "devastation" they did nothing to stop. In fact, Gaza was suffering under abysmal conditions before Operation Cast Lead, on account of the international community's policies of punitive isolation and aid-as-weapon.
There is also the question of how the aid will make a practical difference on the ground, given that Israel refuses to let in even tomato paste and paper – not to mention construction materials, generators (or "an entire water purification system"). Human Rights Watch executive director Kenneth Roth observed: "Israel's blockade policy can be summed up in one word and it is punishment, not security."
Text taken from Aid as a weapon by Ben White.
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