This week, Reuters came out with a fascinating report titled, "Gaza's hobbled power plant makes millions despite turmoil." That's right, Gaza's electricity grid, subject to Israeli bombings and embargoes, made profits in the green.
Photo: Ma'an Images
This raises obvious concern: While some Gazans still don’t have access to clean water because the electricity to pump the water is missing, investors are reaping profits from aid to Gaza's utility, Palestine Electric Company (PEC).
The PEC operates under a 20-year contract that started in 1999 and guarantees a fixed annual fee -- bankrolled with aid from Western governments -- from the Palestinian Authority (read: the Fatah party's power center in Ramallah).
Proponents of this contract, Reuters says, are worried that re-opening it "would undercut the PA's standing at a time when the United States, the European Union are trying to promote large-scale foreign investment."
There are several problems with this perspective.
First, it ignores the real cause of the risky investment environment, which is Israel’s propensity to bomb infrastructure, expropriate property, jail elected officials and stifle economic opportunity -- military occupation.
Second, it places a little too much emphasis on political conveniences, rather than humanitarian need. The point is to help Palestinians recover from poverty and devastation. Ramallah's government is not democratically accountable to Gaza's population. Revisiting this ten-year-old contract is not an unreasonable demand.
Humanitarian discussion should focus on what serves the people, not political interests.
Gaza stands still
On Wednesday, meanwhile, the United Nations announced what we already knew: economic recovery in the Gaza Strip is at a standstill, due to the ongoing blockade of materials and spare parts that would spur reconstruction following Israel’s devastating three-week war. Schools cannot be rebuilt; water and electrical infrastructure cannot be repaired.
All this is based on suspect political logic, that denying most life-sustaining supplies will stop rocket attacks. Israel put that excuse on the shelf some time ago and the international community isn’t asking questions. If world leaders are united on anything, it's complacency over the blockade that Gazans continue to endure.
Meanwhile, doctors are still struggling to treat those wounded from Israel's offensive last January. Some 2,315 (43 percent) of the injured were wounded by shrapnel, and spinal cord injuries are common, according to the health ministry.
Hospital staff told IRIN (the UN's news agency) they were struggling to provide medical care with intermittent electricity supplies and shortages of items like wheelchairs and medication as well as the more sophisticated equipment needed for patients with paralysis (e.g. vasotrain machine to improve blood circulation to limbs and a urodynamic machine to measure bladder capacity).
At the same time, patients are not being allowed out to seek urgent treatment. This time, the political disagreements are between Fatah and Hamas.
Following a Hamas takeover on March 22, 2009, the effective operation of the External Treatment Department in the Gaza Strip has been halted for more than three weeks. Ten patients from Gaza have died as a result, while the health of more than 800 has severely deteriorated.
Extensive negotiations have been taking place between the two Ministries of Health in Gaza and Ramallah, under the mediation of the health sector within the Palestinian Non Governmental Organizations Network (PNGO), Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR), and a number of national figures, with support from the World Health Organization (WHO).
The Health Minister in Ramallah, Dr. Fathi Abu Maghli, had established the High Medical Committee on External Treatment. The Committee consisted of seven members, including three physicians whose names were not on the approved list (according to negotiations with Gaza MoH). The Ministry of Health in Gaza rejected the formation of the modified Committee, considering it a breach of the agreement between the two parties.
All of this internal political wrangling has already led to the death of ten patients.
Political agreements are necessary, but humanitarian action cannot wait. We see this among the Palestinian leadership and on the world stage, as if Netanyahu and Obama need to agree on the correct rhetoric before children are fed and the wounded are treated. The fact that they're turning a blind eye to Gaza at this time shows that they wear political blinders, rather than exercising a healthy blindness to politics.
Effective and honest relief aid is blind to political interests. Its eyes are wide open to humanity and the well-being of recipients. This is pretty much why we -- the humanitarian community -- are here.
It remains in the hands of the people to bring necessary change on the ground. UPA is here as a conduit for that change -- a copper wire in the network of humanitarian action. This humanitarian community cannot wait for the next political mismanagement.
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