Aid as carrot, aid as stick: the politics of aid conditionality in the Palestinian Territories
Rex Brynen (2008)
The victory of Hamas in the January 2006 Palestinian legislative elections drew warnings from the international diplomatic Quartet that future assistance to any new government would be reviewed by donors against that government's commitment to the principles of non-violence, recognition of Israel, and acceptance of previous agreements and obligations. Many Western donors soon suspended direct aid and contact, while Israel took the opportunity to suspend revenue transfers due to the Palestinian Authority. The response embodied potentially contradictory policy objectives and was counter-productive: living conditions deteriorated, intra-Palestinian conflict intensified and Hamas hardliners seized control of Gaza in 2007. Rex Brynen addresses the question of 'what went wrong' by reviewing the different uses of aid as carrot and stick in the Palestinian territories from the 1990s to the present. He shows that that donor assistance and pressure cannot obscure the failures of Middle Eastern peacemaking: aid cannot substitute for focused political engagement that addresses the key issues in dispute.