The Gaza Reconstruction Conference: A few observations

By Ilan Weinglass

It was announced today that international donors have pledged $5.2 billion  for the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip, and to fund the Palestinian Authority.  It's hard to improve on the Jerusalem Post's observation that the damage wrought on Gaza was due to a legitimate response to missile attacks, with "Israel's eventual, reluctant response is egregiously perceived as an unjustified, inexcusable bolt from the blue."  Others, such as Eliot Abrams note correctly that this aid must be given in a way that avoids Hamas.  This seems a particularly difficult trick to accomplish, as Hamas controls whatever semblance of goverment exists in Gaza, and there are calls for a Palestinian unity government that will subsume Hamas into the Palestinian Authority.

A few more observations are in order:

1. There will be a need for another donors' conference in another year or so.  It was less than 15 months ago that the Paris Donors' Conference ended with a pledge of $5.6 billion for the Palestinians.  Another Hamas-Israel clash is inevitable, which will require another round of reconstruction.

2.  A great deal of this money will never actually be donated.  Indeed, about $800 million of the funds pledged are actually "old, unfullfilled pledges" from previous conferences.

3. There is absolutely zero chance that some of these funds will not go to Hamas.  While there are formal procedures to prevent this in place, reports on this site and others have shown that existing procedures are woefully inadgeuate.  For example the current US Specially Designated Terrorist Entity list simply does not list a number of entities which open-source information shows to be linked to Hamas.  And at any rate, money is fungible and since Hamas is the de facto provider of most social services in Gaza, any outside funds used for aid will simply free up Hamas' existing funds.  Or Hamas could just steal it.

4. Some Gulf nations reportedly will not deal with either Fatah or Hamas.  Rather, they will set up their own office in Gaza "to carry out reconstruction on their own, deciding on projects and implementing them."  Again, there is no chance some of these funds will not go to Hamas, or at least Hamas-linked entities, since Gulf countries simply don't have financial intelligence units with the capacity to filter out Hamas-linked groups.  Also, these are the countries with the credibility and leverage to support the Palestinian Authority - which is what the world needs now, if we want to avoid another round of fighting.

Comments

[David Frankfurter]

My friend Michael Horesh has called this as one of the world's greatest Ponzi Schemes.

http://michaelhoresh.wordpress.com/2009/03/03/ponzi-schemes-in-the-middle-east/

I guess to get any return on the old money, new money has to be constantly pumped in. Otherwise it folds...

Netanayahu also made an interesting remark. Why would anyone put money into reconstructing Gaza while rockets were being fired from there daily?

[Lorraine]

Yes totally agree with David - who in their right mind would fund a potentially re-occuring bomb site.