Al-Shabaka Policy Member Nora Lester Murad is an adjunct associate professor at Fordham University. She is also the co-founder of Dalia Association, Palestine’s first community foundation; and Aid Watch Palestine, a community-driven aid accountability initiative. She has published widely on the subjects of international aid and community philanthropy, including in The Guardian, Aljazeera, Huffingto
From this author
The Trump Administration’s decision to cut aid to the Palestinians and cease USAID operations in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) must serve as a wake-up call for Palestinian policymakers to lay the Oslo Accords aid model to rest. Neither this model nor the masses of aid funds that have poured into Palestine.
Donors at the recent conference on the reconstruction of Gaza pledged an unprecedented $5.4 billion. At the same time, it can be argued that violations of Palestinian rights in Gaza – and throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) – would not be possible without international aid policies that, at least since the 1980s, have actively supported Israel and offered Palestinians development projects in exchange for rights.
