[Mb-civic] US freeze on Hamas aid carries humanitarian price - The Boston Globe

[William Swiggard]

  US freeze on Hamas aid carries humanitarian price

By Anne Barnard and Farah Stockman  |  March 5, 2006  |  The Boston Globe

JERUSALEM -- Ditch diggers have stopped building a multimillion-dollar 
US-funded pipeline meant to bring clean drinking water to the 
overcrowded Gaza Strip. Trainers have stopped teaching Palestinian 
judges how to better fight crime and corruption. A Boston-based 
contractor has stopped teaching Palestinian mothers how to prevent 
malnutrition in their babies.

An unprecedented US government review of aid to Palestinians has frozen 
all US-funded projects in the West Bank and Gaza, as officials in 
Washington weigh whether and how they can deliver humanitarian aid 
without channeling funding through Hamas, the militant group that won 
January's parliamentary election, or the government Hamas will soon appoint.

International aid groups, many with years of experience carrying out 
US-funded projects, have expressed alarm at the US policy. They say that 
trying to deliver humanitarian assistance without any involvement from 
the Palestinian government is unrealistic on a practical level and could 
undo years of work building Palestinian health and education systems and 
other institutions.

The United States Agency for International Development spent $275 
million in the West Bank and Gaza last year. For the past decade, the 
United States has channeled aid to Palestinians through dozens of 
nonprofit organizations and contractors that build courthouses, schools, 
roads, and water systems; promote the rule of law and democracy; train 
health workers, teachers, and judges; award micro-loans to small 
businesses; and carry out other projects that entail varying degrees of 
cooperation with Palestinian ministries.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says that once a Hamas Cabinet takes 
power in the coming weeks, the United States, which lists Hamas as a 
terrorist organization, will cut off all aid that is routed through the 
Palestinian government or could somehow benefit it. But she vows that 
the United States will continue to provide humanitarian assistance 
directly to Palestinians.

But that's easier said than done, say US and Palestinian officials and 
heads of aid groups.

Drawing the line between helping 3.4 million impoverished Palestinians 
and helping their government is nearly impossible, aid groups say, when 
most hospitals, clinics, and schools are run by the Palestinian 
Authority, the governing body for the West Bank and Gaza.

Aid workers say that US officials have told them that if the strictest 
interpretation of the policy wins out, it could prohibit even routine 
contacts with government bureaucrats, most of whom are currently not 
Hamas members, or even with doctors and professors at Palestinian 
Authority-funded hospitals and universities.

Thomas Neu, who has spent more than a decade in Jerusalem running 
US-funded programs for American Near East Refugee Aid, or Anera, says 
nearly all of his programs are threatened. Anera -- a nonprofit group 
that distributed $30 million in aid to Palestinians last year, most of 
it from the United States -- builds schools and hands them over to the 
Ministry of Education. It brings in $15 million worth of medical 
supplies each year, requiring permission from the Ministry of Health, 
and distributes much of it to public hospitals.

Aid workers and Palestinian officials say that some US officials here 
have joined them in trying to persuade Washington decision-makers to 
find ways to keep aid flowing and to understand the difficulty of 
drawing clear lines between purely nongovernmental humanitarian programs 
and those that fall into a gray area, connecting somehow with the 
Palestinian Authority to deliver humanitarian aid.

Like Anera, John Snow Inc., a health consulting group based in Boston, 
finds itself in an ambiguous position. It has had to suspend a $20 
million USAID-funded program called Hanan that teaches mothers to combat 
increasing malnutrition among Palestinian children, because it works 
with public health employees and public clinics.

US diplomats here acknowledge that aid professionals are confused and 
anxious over how US policy will define proscribed assistance. The 
diplomats agree that even programs with apparently humanitarian aims, 
like Hanan, could be at risk because they deal with ministries or public 
institutions.

''There are probably some areas that are not going to pass through that 
humanitarian sieve," said Anna-Maija Litvak, a spokeswoman for USAID in 
Tel Aviv.

''There is definitely a lot of worry and anxiety," she added, saying 
that USAID personnel have been telling aid groups and contractors, ''It 
is a process; we don't have clear answers."

Even groups that don't receive US funding are affected, such as 
Ohio-based United Palestinian Children's Appeal. The group has put on 
hold plans to fly in American surgeons this month to perform specialized 
surgery on children with complex ailments, using public hospitals. US 
officials have warned aid workers that they could be prosecuted or sued 
under US antiterrorism legislation for contacts with any government 
institution, possibly even hospitals, once a Hamas Cabinet takes office.

''I'm not interested in going to jail myself for sending doctors there 
to help children," said Steve Sosebee, an American who runs the program, 
which treated more than 2,000 Palestinian children last year. ''They say 
it's not going to affect humanitarian issues, but it will if it prevents 
us from treating these kids."

State Department officials say the United States is facing an 
unprecedented situation: the first time a group it lists as a terrorist 
organization has won control of a government.

The policy puzzle over humanitarian aid springs from a clash between two 
US goals: helping ordinary Palestinians, a vital part of the US strategy 
to win hearts and minds in the Middle East; and keeping US dollars from 
going to Hamas, which has killed hundreds of Israelis in suicide 
bombings and vows to destroy the Jewish state.

The United States has not directly funded the Palestinian Authority 
since 1997 because of concerns about corruption. Instead, it funnels 
nearly all funds through aid groups and contractors, whose projects 
usually require some contact with the authority.

''By avoiding dealing with the PA, you are going to impact humanitarian 
issues," said Ghassan Khatib, the planning minister in the outgoing 
government led by the defeated Fatah party. He said that while about 
half the Palestinian Authority's budget goes to security, most of the 
rest goes to health and education, including the salaries of 40,000 
teachers and 15,000 health workers.

A Western diplomat here, who asked not to be named because of the 
sensitivity of the issue, said that cutting government entirely out of 
the loop ''frees Hamas from responsibility [for providing services] and 
will make the economy even sicker."

Even Fulbright scholarships and other programs that bring individual 
Palestinian scholars to US universities could be at risk, because many 
candidates' home schools receive Palestinian Authority funding.

''You might say, 'So some professors won't get to go to the US, so 
what?' " said an American running one such program, who asked not to be 
named to protect his chances of continued funding. ''But exposing them 
to US culture and rigorous methods of study has a long-term impact."

Ghassan Faramand, a law professor at Birzeit University in the West 
Bank, runs training programs for judges and court workers that are at 
risk because of their ties to the Ministry of Justice. He said that 
decades of US programs promoting the rule of law and civil society made 
Palestinians a model in the Middle East and paved the way for January's 
peaceful, well-organized election and the losing party's peaceful exit 
from power.

''It's not easy for America . . . to say, 'We're leaving,' " he said. 
''Not only will people be upset and angry . . . but Bush's campaign for 
democracy in the Middle East will be threatened."

He hopes to find a loophole, perhaps by working through a new judicial 
body appointed by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, whom the United 
States has signaled it will still work with. He says his program would 
have to fold without US funding, but he would still have to pay workers 
he has already contracted.

Larger organizations can shift their focus to other countries or try to 
work while totally bypassing government. But Neu, from Anera, said they 
are reluctant to set up parallel systems in areas like health where the 
Palestinian Authority functions well.

Two weeks ago in Washington, Assistant Secretary of State David Welch 
and Michael Doran, the White House specialist on Israeli-Palestinian 
affairs, promised to set up a joint task force with Palestinian aid 
groups to help determine what aid should continue. But at the meeting 
arranged by the Arab American Institute, the US officials had few 
specific answers.

Peter Gubser, president of the nonprofit Anera, said he asked if his 
group could keep building schools, but received no clear answer.

''I think the answer is that if it is a Hamas-dominated government, the 
answer will be no," Gubser said, though he added that the officials 
suggested it might depend on whether a Hamas member heads the Education 
Ministry.

Islamic charities, dominated by Hamas and funded by donations from 
across the Muslim world, would probably step in to fill the gap, aid 
workers said.

Cairo Arafat, an official in the outgoing Planning Ministry, said Israel 
has the ultimate responsibility for humanitarian concerns in territory 
that it occupies.

http://www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2006/03/05/us_freeze_on_hamas_aid_carries_humanitarian_price/
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