Column
Will EU stop footing the bill?
In February Rami Hamdallah, the
Palestinian prime minister, announced
that the Palestinian Authority had
received only half the usual aid pledged
by donor countries in 2015.
This highlights an accelerating
downward trend in international
financial support for the PA. The
European Union, which provides 45
per cent of all foreign aid to the authority,
is not immune to that trend.
Partly this reduction is due to the
pressure on EU budgets from the
humanitarian crisis resulting from
Islamic State and the Syrian war. But the
exasperation of EU member states with
Israel’s policy of accelerating settlement
expansion and land expropriation in
East Jerusalem and the West Bank, seen
as eroding the two-state solution under
the cover of endless negotiation, is also
a factor. Recently even Angela Merkel,
the German chancellor, castigated
Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime
minister, for ‘failing to make a single
step towards peace’.
The failure to reactivate the peace
process, despite the best efforts of John
Kerry, US Secretary of State, coupled
with the expansionist policies of the
current Israeli government, confront
the EU with the unpalatable fact that
the only viable solution, the two-state
solution, is fast disappearing.
The purpose of EU financial support to
the PA was to build the capacity of the PA
and to create the institutions needed for
statehood. But the Palestinian economy
remains highly aid-dependent largely
because of the barriers to development
imposed by the continuing occupation.
There is an increasing realization that
EU funding for the PA, although
benefiting Palestinians by providing
services as well as direct employment for
180,000 people, is also benefiting Israel,
and doing so in a way that acts as a
positive disincentive for the Israeli
government to engage in realistic
negotiation. EU funding of the PA
10 | the world today | april & may 2016
Rami Hamdallah, the Palestininian prime
minister, talks with a mother whose home
in Susya faces demolition
relieves Israel of its duty as an occupying
power to fund services for the occupied
population. The EU-funded and trained
PA security forces help to protect Israel
from attacks by Palestinian groups and
individuals while remaining powerless
to protect the Palestinian population
from violence by settlers or the Israel
Defence Forces. The recent evidence
from B’Tselem, the Israeli human rights
group, of suspects arrested by the PA,
tortured and then imprisoned in
Ashkelon by the Israelis, is a graphic
demonstration of this.
There is evidence that this issue is at
last being debated within the EU. Already
in early 2014, the EU ambassador to
Israel, Lars Faaborg-Andersen, linked
progress in negotiations to continued EU
funding of the PA. ‘I think it is realized
in Israel that this money is key to the
stability of the West Bank and in Gaza.
If we don’t provide the money … I think
there is a great likelihood that Israel
would have to provide far more.’
In February this year, an unnamed
European diplomat quoted by AlMonitor was even more explicit, saying
that the EU would not disburse free
money in the absence of a peace process
that achieves political and security
stability in the Palestinian territories. So
there are signs that the EU is ratcheting
up pressure on the Israeli government.
But the ratchet operates very slowly.
In 2012, the EU Foreign Affairs Council
agreed to enforce EU legislation by
differentiating between Israel itself and
the settlements, but it took two years
before settlements were excluded from
EU funding programmes, labelling of
settlement products was announced and
EU businesses were advised of the risks
of involvement with settlements.
In 2014 the EU initiated a structured
dialogue with Israel to achieve a freeze in
demolitions in the West Bank by March
2016. Far from agreeing to a freeze, Israel
has responded by demolishing more
EU-funded projects in the first six weeks
of 2016 than in the whole of 2015, yet the
EU has still not implemented its agreed
policy of demanding compensation
for demolition of EU-funded projects.
If there is to be a phasing out of EU
support to the PA, then it is likely to
be gradual. There are good reasons for
moving slowly since everyone is aware
that ordinary Palestinians depend on the
services provided by the PA, and no one
wants to add to the danger of the further
disintegration of Palestinian society.
The lesson of the EU’s attempts so
far to use its economic levers to nudge
Israel towards negotiation is that the
disincentives need to be bigger and
their imposition needs to be clearly
conditioned on Israel’s actions. Only
when the Israeli public understands that
continuing the occupation will mean
increased costs for Israel, will there be
any possibility of reversing the disastrous
settlement policy. The EU needs to be
much more robust, before it is too late.
Dr Phyllis Starkey was Labour MP for
Milton Keynes SW from 1997-2010. She
was Chairwoman of the All-Party Britain
Palestine Group, and a PPS in the Foreign
Office 2001-2005
AFP/GETTY IMAGES
Israel may end up paying for Palestinians, writes Phyllis Starkey