* Palestinians have a right to request international aid, and donors have an obligation to provide it.

* The manner in which this aid has been provided may actually facilitate violations of Palestinian rights under international humanitarian law.

* A donor framework of Israeli “exceptionalism,” a policy of non-confrontation, and an absence of accountability has become the norm.

* Legal experts should be consulted to determine the threshold for possible violations.

* States have an obligation to ensure that the arms and ammunition they supply are not used to commit violations.

* Legal limitations mean that truth commissions or public enquiries are needed at present to redress aid complicity.

* The burgeoning Palestinian Authority (PA) security sector in the West Bank has from the start served Israel as an instrument of control and pacification of the Palestinian population.

* The current security paradigm was established first through the Oslo Accords and then enshrined in the Road Map. Without “security” the rhetoric held, the PA could not be trusted as government of an independent state.

* Repression under the PA may be fast leading to a Palestinian police state.

* With the unity government moving into Gaza, it is even more necessary to reform security sector “reform.” Without tackling this sector, it will be impossible to achieve Palestinian human rights.

* Israel has practiced a systemic policy of destroying Palestinian water resources and has shown that it is willing to contravene the Geneva Conventions in its use of water as a tool of coercion and control.

* During military operations, Israel has targeted water infrastructure in both the West Bank and Gaza, perpetuating humanitarian crises.

* Israel’s seven-year siege on Gaza must be considered part of the war on water, since in preventing supplies to repair, maintain, or develop water infrastructure, it is prolonging the damage done during times of attack.

* The water war has crippled development in the West Bank and Gaza, causing economic losses in agriculture and industry, as well as long-term health concerns.

* Restricting Palestinian access to water has turned what was once a community-managed resource into a commodity and is in danger of changing the relationship between Palestinians and their land.

* Israel’s current war against Gaza is worse than its previous two wars because the death toll is higher; the destruction has been cumulative, particularly over the past seven years; and Gaza is facing its worst economic, social, and political conditions in decades.

* International reconstruction efforts following Israel’s first two wars in Hamas-controlled Gaza failed, leaving much of the damage unaddressed.

* The biggest error that donors made in the past was to exclude representatives from Gaza itself in the reconstruction effort.

* The Palestinian Authority and international and regional donors should engage in intensive and regular consultation with the Hamas leadership, NGOs, business associations, and universities in Gaza to assess the damage and design interventions and implement them.

* In order to achieve genuine and long-lasting reconstruction in Gaza, the international community must exert pressure on Israel to end the siege.

In recent months the role of international law and human rights has come under increasing scrutiny. This introspection has involved, among other things, questioning whether Palestinians should continue to bring their claims to Israeli civil and military courts; whether occupation law is a part of the problem or part of the solution; and, if legal claims are to be brought before international tribunals, what should they allege?

* Multiple attempts and policies to practically eliminate Palestinian farmers have been underway since the beginning of the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948.

* Today, Palestinian farmers face an additional threat: Land confiscation by the Palestinian Authority in order to build industrial zones with international sponsorship, claiming this will help farmers and create job opportunities.

* Reports have warned that industrial zones – a tool of the traditional top down neoliberal development approach that is revered by international financial institutions – will bring benefits for Israeli businesses while destroying farming families and the most fertile stretches of land in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

* Palestinian civil society and non-governmental organizations have a special responsibility to act in defense of Palestinian farmers against the policies of both Israel and the “state” of Palestine.

• Public debt enables capitalists to pressure the Palestinian Authority to adjust its policies by favoring large private firms, who threaten to withdraw investments and hold back others.

• Palestinian capitalists have attempted to practice social control by recruiting civil society to serve their objectives, working alongside major international donors.

• Monopolies are selectively granted to Palestinian capitalists that enjoy special proximity to Israeli companies, who grant them privileges in return. The impact on the Palestinian economy is devastating.

• The political and social influences of Palestinian capitalists complicit in normalization projects are a structural obstacle to the anti-colonial struggle.

The World Bank growth report, Towards Economic Sustainability of a Future Palestinian State: Promoting Private Sector-Led Growth provides a breakdown of the current state of the Palestinian economy, the obstacles it faces, and the major weaknesses and structural distortions it suffers from. The recent report also provides policy recommendations for what it claims will lead to sustainable economic development based on an export-driven, private sector-led growth model.

The report’s frank conclusions on the current state of the Palestinian economy are largely unsurprising: fragile and dependent on foreign aid. The report bluntly states that this aid-based growth is unsustainable, especially because aid levels are expected to decline over time. The surprising part of the report lies not in the negative prognosis given to the Palestinian economy, but rather its recommendations. Indeed, it reveals a long-standing and disastrous failure on the part of the World Bank to take into account the actual conditions of occupation and the historical policies taken by the Government of Israel against Palestinians.

Lebanese activist, author, and agronomist Rami Zurayk joins Al-Shabaka Policy Advisors Samer Abdelnour and Alaa Tartir to tackle the way the agricultural sector has been devastated by Israeli policies as well as the Palestinian Authority (PA) and donor policies and practices -- in "Farming Palestine for Freedom.