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Israel/Zionism See other Israel/Zionism Articles Title: Study: At least 78% of humanitarian aid intended for Palestinians ends up in Israeli coffers Israel has been outsmarting the West, says Israeli economist Shir Hever, making a profit on the occupation instead of paying its bills. Hever’s study indicates that the international community in its generosity has so incentivized the occupation, that Israelis – not Palestinians – have become “the most aid- dependent people in the world.” If the tables are turned, and the occupation is suddenly not profitable, perhaps it will come to an end? The sums involved are huge. The Palestinians under occupation are among the most aid-dependent in the world, receiving more than $2bn from the international community a year. According to Hever, donors could be directly subsidising up to a third of the occupation’s costs. Other forms of Israeli profiteering have been identified in previous studies. In 2013 the World Bank very conservatively estimated that the Palestinians lose at least $3.4bn a year in resources plundered by Israel. Further, Israel’s refusal to make peace with the Palestinians, and as a consequence the rest of the region, is used to justify Washington’s annual $3bn in military aid. Israel also uses the occupied territories as laboratories for testing weapons and surveillance systems on Palestinians – and then exports its expertise. Israel’s military and cyber industries are hugely profitable, generating many billions of dollars of income each year. A survey published last week found tiny Israel to be the eighth most powerful country in the world. But whereas these income streams are a recognisable, if troubling, windfall from Israel’s occupation, western humanitarian aid to the Palestinians is clearly intended for the victims, not the victors. Middleman So how is Israel creaming off so much? The problem, says Hever, is Israel’s self-imposed role as mediator. To reach the Palestinians, donors have no choice but to go through Israel. This provides ripe opportunities for what he terms “aid subversion” and “aid diversion”. The first results from the Palestinians being a captive market. They have access to few goods and services that are not Israeli. Who Profits?, an Israeli organisation monitoring the economic benefits for Israel in the occupation, assesses that dairy firm Tnuva enjoys a monopoly in the West Bank worth $60 million annually. Aid diversion, meanwhile, occurs because Israel controls all movement of people and goods. Israeli restrictions mean it gets to charge for transportation and storage, and levy “security” fees. Other studies have identified additional profits from “aid destruction”. When Israel wrecks foreign-funded aid projects, Palestinians lose – but Israel often benefits. Cement-maker Nesher, for example, is reported to control 85 per cent of all construction by Israelis and Palestinians, including the supplies for rebuilding efforts in Gaza after Israel’s repeated rampages. Significant segments of Israeli society, aside from those in the security industries, are lining their pockets from the occupation. Paradoxically, the label “the most aid-dependent people in the world” – usually affixed to the Palestinians – might be better used to describe Israelis. What can be done? International law expert Richard Falk notes that Israel is exploiting an aid oversight vacuum: there are no requirements on donors to ensure their money reaches the intended recipients. What the international community has done over the past 20 years of the Oslo process – inadvertently or otherwise – is offer Israel financial incentives to stabilise and entrench its rule over the Palestinians. It can do so relatively cost-free. While Europe and Washington have tried to beat Israel with a small diplomatic stick to release its hold on the occupied territories, at the same time they dangle juicy financial carrots to encourage Israel to tighten its grip. There is a small ray of hope. Western aid policy does not have to be self- sabotaging. Hever’s study indicates that Israel has grown as reliant on Palestinian aid as the Palestinians themselves. The EU noted last week that Israel not Brussels should be caring for the Bedouin it has left homeless. Europe could take its own advice to heart and start shifting the true costs of the occupation back on to Israel. That may happen soon enough whatever the West decides, if – as even Israel is predicting will occur soon – the Palestinian Authority of Mahmoud Abbas collapses. 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