Reza Aslan, propose a solution to NGOization of Palestine

Al Arabiya news came out with this interesting article listing why Hamas in the Gaza Strip is regulating NGOs closely unlike the West Bank where NGOs seem to be thriving without any exit plan. This comes following Hamas' obstruction of an Amideast student from Gaza to fulfill a scholarship opportunity in the US.

The media is really milking the obstruction of NGO intervention in the Gaza Strip, which is highly touchy for even me to attempt to define for the outside reader. But perhaps my personal experience in grant writing, NGOs, and foreign relations can shed some light as to why Gaza is not easily willing to allow NGOs into the small, narrow, bombarded strip. For the outsider trying to bring aid to Palestine, like Reza Aslan, Hamas seems to be exactly what the media portrays it as: arrogant, stubborn, and not doing enough for the sake of its people.

It is interesting that Hamas is doing the opposite of the West Bank. In the West Bank, the World Bank celebrates its ability to directly fund NGOs. And it makes a slight remark about why it needs to do this: The Palestinian Authority is not doing its job, and so, NGOs have become a means for substituting what should be government services. When the government willingly begins to allow NGOs to do its own work, it not only relieves itself of obligation but does not focus on building the necessary infrastructure for becoming an independent state. Thus not only are the people dependent on the NGOs, but they learn to not rely so much on the government or even hold it accountable.

This begs the question, why is there even a government established according to this, let alone it already rules based according to expired laws and incomplete or rushed amendments. I cannot assume nor defend the motives of Hamas without people immediately assuming that I subscribe to their ideologies, thus this is my disclaimer.  I speak from my own personal experience in Ramallah that has boomed with NGO offices and programs. I know NGOs are marketing Palestinian inequalities for millions of dollars as the Palestinian Authority grows more corrupt. I cannot deny that Hamas may also be corrupt--my personal experience is restricted to this part of the Occupied Territory. But the media has easily picked up on the typical labels of Hamas to further paint an ugly portrait of a group that separated from the Palestinian Authority. 

Reza Aslan publicly stated on Twitter Sunday evening that Hamas is denying permits to "Palestinian NGOs. Shame on [me] for forgetting Hamas' role in Gaza to feed its people." But in welcoming a wide array of NGOs into Gaza, who may sub-fund Palestinian NGOs with US or European generated funding, it will not be Hamas that ultimately feeds its people. NGOs may be a short fix in the scope of Palestine's development. Each contract has a deadline, every one of them with political or ideological terms to be met. 

Thus perhaps Hamas is doing what it has to do--making self determination a priority. Yet Hamas may be ruthless at times, and perhaps even corrupt. It is clear they did not fall far from the same tree from which the PA was born. So no one is willing to trust either forms of government that have shown little progress in development.

How many purely Palestinian development agencies have been developed? Do NGOs encourage this? 

The growing number of NGOs has made it exceptionally difficult for Palestinian businesses to find professional human capital in the West Bank. In 2007, I moved to the West Bank to establish MENA Geothermal, a startup company dedicated to bringing sustainable urban development and renewable-energy technology to the Palestinian territories. During the last three years, we have created real-life examples of financially feasible, replicable, and energy-efficient buildings. Yet, in addition to the challenges of running a business under Israeli military occupation, Israel denied me entry into Palestinian territories three times in 2009. To complicate matters, my business has to compete with NGOs.--Khaled al Sabawi

Many Palestinians from the diaspora return with the hopes of bringing knowledge and resources to the Palestinian territories to help develop our country into an independent state. But in my personal experience, and for many of my peers, we have grown disenchanted with our efforts. In Al Bireh and Ramallah alone one will find NGOs opening out of the garages of homes. Apartment buildings all over have been transformed into offices for these NGOs. This has seriously affected Al Bireh and Ramallah in a way that many locals are finding trouble coping with due to urbanization, a high influx of commuters from surrounding areas since access to Jerusalem has been cut off, a sharp increase in property rates and housing, an increase in food prices, and so much more. Ramallah is the most expensive place to live in the West Bank, with property costing between $500,000 to one million.


Yes NGOs create jobs, but the jobs are not about creativity, upward job mobility, or creativity and this hurts workforce morale and skill development. Instead NGOs band aid the problems, and they even market the sad situation Palestinians face to score literally millions of dollars.


As a writer and a romantic, I could no longer manipulate the portrait of my people's suffering. And so I have quit being a part of the NGO addiction.


Nothing has changed in the West Bank throughout its history of popular resistance. It is merely getting worse economically. Corruption is still apparent.


A former grant writer at for the Palestine Agricultural Relief Committee, and a good friend of mine, described one instance of this corruption.

I had to write that each person was getting paid $2,300 a month, but we were averaging much less than this. When I asked why, they claimed that it was because this was based on raises we could achieve every year we stayed. The problem was, they were already getting this funding despite our experience. One has to ask, where was the rest of the money going?

As a grant writer you become accustomed to organizations saying, just ask for however much you can get. And often times the program is not well developed but uses American political terminology to reveal parralell interests in order to achieve funding.


NGOization is nothing new in the Arab World, working to help train us heathen Arabs to "develop a civil society" (yes you will actually see this in call for proposals). Hatem Bazian, of UC Berkeley, list the longterm implications of NGOs on the developing world:

...every foundation that funds work on Palestine (from the most conservative to the most "progressive") does so from the understanding that Israel, as it currently exists, should stay intact, and the solution is to change Palestinians aso that they will adapt to their colonial situation. Now, for instance, the [Open Society Institute] wants to bring Palestinian intellectuals to the US to "train them." Train them to do what? Train them to see the situation in the way the US does and facilitate the continued colonization of Palestine?--Hatem Bazian

I am wondering what Reza Aslan's understanding of government roles should be in light of this. Yes I must admit, when I first came here I too thought NGOs were amazing. But then I saw the contracts I had to sign, and who I was signing my name to, the inability to meet our goals, and the bullshit with dealing with donors, I lost interest. With US State Department providing millions in road development, preservation of historical sites, schools, infrastructure, and anything the Palestinian Authority should handle, I saw my name being signed off to a loose statement about terrorism.

In May and June of this year, USAID informed American tax-exempt charities it funds that if they partnered with any Palestinian NGOs, those NGOs would be required to sign a Certification Regarding Terrorist Financing. The certification pledges that no funds have made or will make their way into organizations to “advocate or support terrorist activities.”--Edwin Black

The problem is, while I do not condone violence nor hatred of course, if the US wanted to, that loose statement could be slanted to mean that anyone was supporting terrorism. Palestinians are automatically linked to the term by Western media. After all it has been the US and Israel who monopolized the term meaning essentially anything against a US-Israeli agenda.


Leave out the PA or Hamas, and thinking abstractly. What should one do with growing inequalities, illegal settlement building, increased Israeli violence, and no economic freedom?


Do you:

A. Avoid it completely out of fear of political and economic monopoly by donors
B. Try to use services while somehow maintaining autonomy despite occupation (don't know if this is even possible)
C. Invite others to handle the problem completely while you sit around and just serve as symbolic leaders

Accepting aid is a tough decision. The costs need to be weighed, but in the long run, I doubt that the NGOs will be here forever. Much like when the second Intifada broke out, the faucet of money that Palestinians are so desperately addicted to did not even drip cents into the notion of what a Palestinian identity and sovereignty should mean, let alone food or medical care.


Perhaps the poorer one is, the more free they are to be themselves.


There is a fine line between generosity and charity. If anyone has a strategic plan in light of the lack of resources here, that follows the basis of this quotation, then I will subscribe to it wholeheartedly. But from the looks of it, aid in the West Bank has only meant to bind us in words and action.


I find no liberty in that.

True generosity consists precisely in fighting to destroy the causes which nourish false charity. False charity constrains the fearful and subdued, the 'rejects of life,' to extend their trembling hands. True generosity lies in striving so that these hands-whether of individuals or entire peoples-need be extended less and less in supplication, so that more and more they become human hands which work and, working, transform the world.--Paulo Freire

I invite Reza Aslan to come up with a potential solution or scenario that would be befitting for Gaza. And while I cannot present the grants or reports I once worked on, I will take it upon myself to showcase the NGOization of this region more thoroughly.