PaArab. aid recipients: "Anti-terror clauses unacceptable"

The Dalia Association is a Palestinian Arab organization that is currently trying to revamp the way that international aid is given to the territories. Many of their objections to the current system are very valid, and we have touched on some of these problems in the past.

Here is their video about their issues with how aid is administered today:



Dalia published a list of things that aid recipients complain about. One of them is most interesting:

Anti-terrorism clauses are unacceptable.

The people giving free money to Palestinian aid organizations, according to the recipients, do not have the right to ensure that their aid will not go towards terrorists. Palestinian "civil society" wants the money to have no strings attached so they can choose to fund, say, Islamic Jihad charities (allowing other funds to be freed up for rockets.)

In Dalia's more comprehensive report on the topic, they write:

While seen as an extremely harmful policy, the anti-terrorism certification, which participants considered racist, was not prioritized as a major objection. Some expressed outrage: “Why do international aid actors treat us like we are terrorists!” but most seemed resigned to sign, regardless of their intention to comply, or they avoid donors that require signing, resigned to miss out on much-needed funds.

At the exact same time that these organizations are complaining that they are being "treated like terrorists," they admit that they might not comply any send the funds to terror groups, or hire known terrorists, anyway!

It is worthwhile to point out that UNRWA originally tried very hard to do exactly that Dalia is suggesting now, to create programs that will ensure self-sufficiency for Palestinian Arabs, and these were mostly dropped because of objections both from host countries and from the Palestinian refugees themselves.

(I once posted about how there are plenty of NGOs in Gaza who are knowingly propping up Hamas, so it is not like there aren't NGOs willing to fund terror anyway.)

(h/t Rudi)