Focus On: International Aid to Palestine

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 – more than $35 billion since 1993 – have brought Palestinians closer to freedom, self-determination, or statehood, or provided for sustainable development. In fact, the opposite has been the case: Palestinians are forced to live in an aid-development paradox, with increased amounts of aid associated with major declines in socioeconomic and development indicators.

In this selection of pieces, Al-Shabaka policy analysts examine the effectiveness of international aid to Palestine, problematize its consequences and the harmful ramifications of aid dependency, and suggest ways forward to reform and re-invent Palestinian aid. The analysts argue that development cannot be understood as a mere technocratic, apolitical, and neutral process. Rather, it must be recognized as operating within relations of colonial dominance and rearticulated as linked to the struggle for rights, resistance, and emancipation.

The Failure of Aid

Donor Complicity in Israel’s Violations of Palestinian Rights

By Nora Lester Murad 

Nora Lester Murad elucidates donor practices that violate basic human rights, outlines eight questions that must be asked about aid complicity, and suggests mechanisms for oversight of the aid industry. Read more…

Persistent Failure: World Bank Policies for the Occupied Palestinian Territories

By Alaa Tartir and Jeremy Wildeman 

Alaa Tartir and Jeremy Wildeman assess the World Bank’s irrelevant and sometimes harmful policy recommendations and argue that until the Bank better understands the real conditions of Israeli occupation, it will continue to provide unrealistic recommendations that are based on a long-dead era of Oslo rapprochement. Read more…

Unmasking “Aid” After the Palestine Papers

By Samer Abdelnour

Samer Abdelnour examines the integral role played by the aid industry in ensuring the de-development of the Palestinian economy and argues that in the absence of accountability mechanisms the aid industry will continue to be complicit in the deliberate devastation of the people it claims to serve. Read more…

The Reinvention of Aid 

Can Oslo’s Failed Aid Model Be Laid to Rest?

By Jeremy Wildeman and Alaa Tartir 

Jeremy Wildeman and Alaa Tartir argue that donors are reinforcing failed past patterns associated with the so-called peace dividends model while making only cosmetic changes to their engagement. Read more…

Defeating Dependency, Creating a Resistance Economy

By Alaa Tartir, Sam Bahour, and Samer Abdelnour

Alaa Tartir, Sam Bahour, and Samer Abdelnour point to the need to consider how Palestinians can institutionalize and eventually create a bureaucracy around a democratic people-driven development agenda, and argue that any new Palestinian economic vision must embrace dignity in aid. Read more…

A New Model for Palestinian Development

By Samer Abdelnour

Samer Abdelnour analyzes Oslo-inspired pitfalls of Palestinian development and misguided donor attempts to promote private sector development, and argues that a Sustainable Local Enterprise Networks (SLENs) approach to development and reconstruction can work in the Palestinian context. Read more…

Sam Bahour resides in Al-Bireh/Ramallah, Palestine. He does business consulting as Applied Information Management (AIM), specializing in business development with a niche focus on the...
Samer Abdelnour is an academic and activist. He co-founded Al-Shabaka in 2009 and served as a founding board member until 2016.
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;...
Al-Shabaka Policy Member Jeremy Wildeman ​is a Research Associate at the University of Bath's "Department of Social and Policy Sciences" where he is carrying out...
Alaa Tartir is Al-Shabaka's program and policy advisor. He is a senior researcher and director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Stockholm International...

Latest Analysis

 Politics
On Thursday, June 19, 2025, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stood in front of the aftermath of an Iranian strike near Bir al-Saba’ and told journalists: “It really reminds me of the British people during the Blitz. We are going through a Blitz.” The Blitz refers to the sustained bombing campaign carried out by Nazi Germany against the UK, particularly London, between September 1940 and May 1941. With this dramatic comparison, Netanyahu sought to elicit Western sympathy and secure unconditional support for his government’s latest act of military escalation and violation of international law: the unprovoked bombing of Iran. This rhetorical move is far from new; it has become an enduring trope in Israeli political discourse—one that casts Israel as the perennial victim and frames its opponents as modern-day Nazis. Netanyahu has long harbored ambitions of striking Iran with direct US support, but timing has always been central. This moment, then, should not be viewed merely as opportunistic aggression, but as part of a broader, calculated strategy. His actions are shaped by a convergence of unprecedented impunity, shifting regional dynamics, and deepening domestic political fragility. This commentary examines the latest escalation in that context and discusses the broader political forces driving it.
Al-Shabaka Yara Hawari
Yara Hawari· Jun 26, 2025
 Politics
Launched on May 26, 2025, and secured by US private contractors, the new Israeli-backed aid distribution system in Gaza has resulted in over 100 Palestinian deaths, as civilians navigated dangerous conditions at hubs positioned near military outposts along the Rafah border. These fatalities raise grave concerns about the safety of the aid model and the role of US contractors operating under Israeli oversight. This policy memo argues that the privatization of aid and security in Gaza violates humanitarian norms by turning aid into a tool of control, ethnic cleansing, and colonization. It threatens Palestinian life by conditioning life-saving aid, facilitating forced displacement, and shielding the Israeli regime from legal and moral responsibility. It additionally erodes local and international institutions, especially UNRWA, which has been working in Gaza for decades.
الشبكة جودة
Safa Joudeh· Jun 10, 2025
 Civil Society
In this policy lab, Mariam Barghouti and Sharif Abdel Kouddous join host Tariq Kenney-Shawa to discuss Israel’s targeted assassination campaign against Palestinian journalists, the complicity of Western media in normalizing these crimes, and how this silence allows Israel to get away with genocide.
Al-Shabaka Mariam Barghouti
Mariam Barghouti· May 28, 2025
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