Is there too much talk and too little action on the plight of the Palestinians?
Blogged by: Alex Klaushofer
Is there such a thing as report fatigue?
Earlier this month, Amnesty International entered the murky waters of what's arguably the world's longest-running and most intractable refugee crisis with a hard-hitting report. 'Exiled and Suffering' highlights the plight of Lebanon's estimated 300,000 Palestinian refugees, and calls on the Lebanese government to clean up its act and lift the restrictions that exclude them from access to work, housing, healthcare and education.
The report is just the latest in a run of documents chronicling the growing humanitarian crisis facing Palestinians in the Middle East. In September, a gloomy progress report from the World Bank concluded that, far from improving, the economy in the Palestinian Territories is in decline, with the result that the population is increasingly dependent on donor aid.
The same month saw the issue of an equally bleak report from the British government - the first statement on the Middle East from the new British premier - with the claim that the private sector in Gaza is now on the brink of "total collapse".
While that report drew criticism from Oxfam for not clearly identifying the Israeli blockade of Gaza as a major cause, another from a U.N. human rights rapporteur earlier in the year could hardly be accused of pulling its punches. Professor John Dugard likened Israel's occupation of the Palestinian Territories to South Africa's apartheid regime, condemning its system of checkpoints and closures as overt racial discrimination.
While these overview-style reports are aimed primarily at the policy and advocacy worlds, others kinds of research are equally thick on the ground. In-depth situation reports designed for humanitarian workers chart the conditions on the ground, marshalling the facts and figures of everyday Palestinian suffering with impressive levels of detail.
A quick scan of recent monthly reports from the U.N.'s Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs reveals, for example, that the entire 6,900-strong population of Ein Beit el Ma refugee camp near Nablus spent three days under curfew in September, that 633 truckloads of goods, including aid supplies, were allowed into Gaza during the second half of September and that the Gaza Strip has seen a sharp increase in 'honour crimes', with 14 cases reported by August of 2007, compared to four during the whole of 2006.
If there is such a thing as report fatigue, reading through all this mass of carefully-gathered info and data, I think I may have it. The feeling first struck a few years ago in Beirut in a meeting with Sylvia Haddad, director of the Palestinian charity JCC (the Joint Christian Committee for Social Service), who was briefing me on the plight of Lebanon's Palestinians. The fruit of years of work by local and international NGOs sat in Sylvia's office in piles, yet - despite the wealth of research she had at her disposal - it was clear that nothing was changing for the Palestinian refugees in the country. In fact, as she talked of the despair and apathy of the young generation, it seemed that things were getting worse.
What's the significance of this disconnect between research into the Palestinian situation and the lack of any real change on the ground? From the point of view of those who write, fund and read the reports, part of the answer must be that they offer some much-needed insight into the nature of the humanitarian crisis they chronicle, along with a deeper understanding than is normally available of its effects and causes. In so doing, they blur some of the boundaries between the standard definitions of humanitarian emergencies and the long-standing, deep-rooted and complex conditions which create them. Nowhere is this truer than for Palestinian refugees, now in their sixth decade as a displaced people, and for the Israeli victims of the conflict.
But the disjunction between research and reality is also symptomatic of a deeper problem, and one that besets humanitarian crises across the world. Perhaps the problem to which this glut of 'suffering evidence' testifies, is that we just keep on talking.
This is not to decry the usefulness of the research, or the impact it can have. In 2005, a report by the Danish Refugee Council revealed the plight of the non-IDs, a small group of Palestinians in Lebanon who, lacking refugee or any kind of official status, spend their lives in hiding for fear of deportation or imprisonment. By bringing their situation to light, DRC's work has proved a first step to action, enabling local NGOs to lobby the two bodies who can do something to address the problem - the Lebanese government and UNRWA, the U.N. agency for Palestinians.
But this kind of result is exceptional. Too often, research on the Palestinians in the Middle East and longstanding humanitarian crises elsewhere repeats familiar, well-trodden themes, but updated with new facts and figures.
In which case, perhaps report fatigue is not a sign of weariness of the material per se, but of a need for action.
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10 responses to “Is there too much talk and too little action on the plight of the Palestinians?”
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Alex Klaushofer is a freelance journalist writing on social affairs and politics in Britain and the Middle East. She has previously worked as Middle East communications manager for Christian Aid, and has a particular interest in humanitarian issues. She is author of "Paradise Divided: A Portrait of Lebanon".
23 Oct 2007 22:20:31 GMT
Wish in tackling this topic, the author had made mention of the Palestinian refugees' inalienable, legal and natural right to return...
"Israel's admission to the UN was conditional on its acceptance of UN resolutions including 194. Denying the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and lands is a war crime and an act of aggression which deserves action by the international community." http://www.al-awda.org/facts24 Oct 2007 07:03:22 GMT
During war of 1948 700000 Arabs left Israel. Between 1948..1951 more that 7000000 Jews were were through out of Arabs contries. They and their children make more that half population of Israel. 700000 Arabs left Israel and 700000 Jews from Arabs countries were exepted to Israel. Case closed. It was big difference between way how Israel exepted Jews from Arabs countries, and way how Arabs behaved with their brothers from Israel. And I don't think it was Israel fait. Arabs always want to use Palestinian refugies as a tool to through Jews to the sea. Sorry, it will never happened.
24 Oct 2007 13:33:27 GMT
The real long term brutality of Israel's occupation is never told to the western public. This quote, from Haaretz, could give some inkling of the daily starvation that Israel chooses to inflict on civilians;
"According to the United Nations World Food Program (WFP), about 1,100,000 residents, or 75 percent of the Strip's population, are now receiving food assistance from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) and the WFP". In addition, they mention that powdered milk for babies is on the list of "banned foods". It seems that Israel is having a job finding enough ways to increase despair and hate. So that after having destroyed Gaza's main power stations by bombing, they will now cut electricity. Above all considerations, permanent collective punishment of the innocent, both women and children, goes against all the values of the civilised world. So why is there no greater outpouring of human solidarity? Unfortunately there is not enough action, but there is not enough talk either.25 Oct 2007 11:12:10 GMT
Dear Alex Klaushofer: With nine billion people on this planet, attempting to help the downtrodden has become a miserable task for a great many of us. Please keep up your good work and here are a few solutions you can use to help change things. 1. Name names. Find and name the people around the world responsible for racist and discriminatory policies within any government. 2. Empower the United Nations. I suggest we give the U.N. so much military power every war on Earth will be halted. To do this we ask every country on Earth to dedicate half thier armies for United Nations Peace Work, or risk removal from the U.N. Such Peace Forces will be directly operated by the United Nations. signed: Joseph Raglione Executive director: The World Humanitarian Peace and Ecology Movement.
26 Oct 2007 15:21:55 GMT
"Professor John Dugard likened Israel's occupation of the Palestinian Territories to South Africa's apartheid regime, condemning its system of checkpoints and closures as overt racial discrimination."
Unfortunately the situation in Gaza is much more akin to the Warsaw Ghetto. The Gazans are prisoners in their own country (which is smaller than Chicago) as the Jewish Poles were prisoners in their own city while the Nazis gave their property and businesses and land to Christian Poles. It is called ethnic cleansing. It is not apartheid. As the Nazis wanted to get rid of the Jews, so the Israeli government wants to get rid of the Palestinians. They want them to go away. My guess is they hoped that if they kept the pressure on, eventually the Palestinians would either aqcuiesce and give them whatever form of a state the Israelis were willing to part with to get the violence and horror to stop, or they would leave. My how misguided they were. The reason this problem cannot be solved is two fold. Reason one is that you can't accuse the Israeli government of ANY wrongdoing for fear of being labeled anti-Semitic. In Europe criticism of Israel is virtually banned the sensitivity is so great. The second is that, since the structure of the UN allows one country on the Security Council to stop anything from happening by untilizing their veto power, the United States has vetoed any measure that would help the Palestinians. Since the neverending "War on Terror" began, it has been ever so much easier to rally everyone around the propagandic notion, that the entire Gaza Strip is packed with terrorists bent on the destruction of Isarel, when in fact it is packed with families, just like us, who want nothng more than to work, play, raise their families and one day retire to enjoy their grandchildren. If you are truly curious as to why this issue will never be settled under the current U.N. structure, just remember that the State of Israel was established based on an agreement with the Rothschilds and Great Britian (the Central Bank of London was owned by the Rothschilds at the time). But what does that have to do with the U.S.? The Federal Reserve, the PRIVATELY RUN agency that controls the money in the United Sattes and to whom the national debt is owed, is made up of 12 regional banks, one owned by the Rockefellers, one owned by J.P. Morgan and, you guessed it, the rest owned by none other than the Rothschilds. Get it now?27 Oct 2007 10:45:14 GMT
Why don't you just republish the "Chronicles of the Elders of Zion" and be done with it. The "Palestinians" are being used by their fellow Arabs as a tool to to slam Israel. If there was any genuine empathy for them, their fellow Arabs would gladly accept them as immigrants into their own countries or give them the economic support they need to develop an effective working economy, rather than supporting suicide bombers and terrorist murderers. The Arab world is awash in oil money; maybe some Saudi prince could do without another weekend in Cannes or another Bentley or, better yet, maybe the Palestinians could get hold of some of the millions that Yasser Arafat squirreled away to feather a nest for his own fat ass and put it to good peaceful use.
27 Oct 2007 10:50:26 GMT
are the Palestinians responible for any of the troubles? can a country protect it people from rocket attacks. what would you do if you were in their place ? cut and run. this has been going on for to long for it to be one sided. if you attack me I would not want you near my family. hasn't this been blamed on one side then the other over the centuries. maybe some one should suggest both sides should give up and if you attacked and lost then you lost everything you had at that point. if some country attacked your country and ended up lossing would you give them what they wanted to kill your family over. as far as the UN is concerned they are a goverment bureacy that doesn't do the job they took on so they should be disbanded as one world goverment can't be expected to work when very few country can get along on a long term . would you really give up your right to control you own future to a one world goverment after all they did so much for NK or afgan. nuclear black market or to the danfar troulbes just what has the UN ever done? they are just another buraecy that wants to take what someone else has.
27 Oct 2007 10:53:29 GMT
Of course there's too much talk. The plight of the so-called "Palestinians" is entirely self-imposed. If they had anything like the interest in peace and reconciliation, the Israelis do, with peace groups, rallies, outreach, and so on, the situation would be resolved already. Instead it's hate, conspiracy-craziness, fanaticism, blood, and fire. Anyone who even sells land to a Jew is lynched. The only two political parties are terrorist groups. There are no moderates, no democrats, no one who wants reconciliation. When the Israeli PM Ehud Barak took a huge risk (and ultimately politically fatal one) by offering the Arabs half of Jerusalem and 9/10 of Judaea and Samaria, they said no and launched a campaign of terror. Their maps still show all Arabs, no Israel.
Julie, the neverending War on Terror began, if you'll recall, with the actions of terrorists, cheered on by "Palestinian" Muslim Arabs who danced in the streets. If they are normal sane decent people as you claim, why do they name city streets and institutions after suicide bombing mass murderers? Why are mothers quoted constantly on TV saying they are proud of their suicide bomber terrorists? After Israel put up a wall to stop the lunatics who want to kill every Jew, the Arabs began launching missiles over the wall, to randomly, indiscriminately kill any Jews possible. Why did Hamas, a terrorist group that considers Fatah, another terrorist group too SOFT on Israel, win parliamentary elections?28 Oct 2007 11:12:53 GMT
Look what happened to the Acadians who were forced out of their lands by the Brits ages ago. They moved in to areas with a similar religion but vastly different environment. By working and not feeling sorry for themselves they had done quite well. Its a shame that fellow muslims will not allow Palestinians to be treated as humans as catholics did the Cajuns of Louisiana.
30 Oct 2007 12:39:43 GMT
It's time to kick the "training wheels" off the Palestinians tricycle and make them go it on their own...NO! THEY CANNOT HAVE ISRAEL; they should go back to Mecca, Syria, Jordan, or any other true Arab country. Truth is they can't survive without help from the very ones they want to kill. What's up with Hamas, Fatah, Hezbollah, Qads, Revolutionary Guard, Taliban...does anyone see the pattern here!?! So tired of hearing how Israel needs to give up their SLIVER of land when over 90% of those that surround Israel wish to see her destroyed; leave Israel's land alone!