Reprinted from Electronic Intifada. To support the WP Palestine solidarity campaign, click here.

From 1994 — shortly after the Oslo Declaration of Principles was signed — to 2006, when Hamas won Palestinian legislative elections in the occupied Gaza Strip and West Bank, international donors gave $8 billion in aid to the Palestinians, making them one of the most subsidized people on Earth. This aid ostensibly had three purposes: to support the peace process leading to a two-state solution, to foster economic and social development, and to promote institution-building. Yet, many years and billions of dollars later, Palestinians are poorer and further from statehood than ever before, and their dysfunctional national institutions face an unprecedented crisis of legitimacy.

In her first monograph, international relations specialist Anne Le More seeks to answer a straightforward question that ought to be of profound import to scholars, activists and decision makers: how and why did this happen? Along the way, International Assistance to the Palestinians after Oslo, the first in Routledge’s Studies on the Arab-Israeli Conflict series, provides an important critique of the belief that reconstruction, development and humanitarian aid form essential counterparts to political processes aimed at resolving longstanding violent conflicts. Le More’s study focuses solely on the Occupied Palestinian Territories; the questions it poses, however, could offer a template for exploring the extent to which “aid” has become the means to repackage Western military occupation and dependency as “state-building” and “independence” in Iraq, Afghanistan, or Kosovo.

[Read more…]

by Daphna Whitmore

In the run up to the last general election the Labour Party enthusiasts who hold so many of the top posts of unions were giving dire predictions that a National government would take NZ back to the dark ages as far as workers’ rights were concerned.

The Workers Party, in constrast, didn’t think Labour had ushered in a golden age, nor did we think National were planning on a major attack on unions. What was likely, we said, was that it would be business as usual.

[Read more…]

Ed note: The Workers Party does not necessarily endorse Moore’s analysis in full.

At mid-day today Wellington political activists and Workers Party members Heleyni Pratley and Joel Cosgrove were arrested when they attempted to deliver a petition to the administration of Victoria University.  The petition, signed by 50 academics, union officials and educationalists, called for the lifting of a two-year trespass order the university administration had imposed on them for being involved in a protest against fee increases several weeks ago.

Rather than allow them to present the petition, the university authorities placed the administration building under lockdown, put security personnel out front and called the police, who arrived in force with long batons and arrested Pratley and Cosgrove.

The two activists have been released on bail but the conditions include not only not stepping foot on Victoria University property but also not associating with each other, despite the fact that they are in a relationship and have been for four years.

“Will the police be raiding us in the middle of the night to see if we are still sleeping together?” asked Pratley.  “The behaviour of vice-chancellor Pat Walsh and chancellor Tim Beaglehole call into question how fit they are to run a university.  I’ve already had men sent by them try to force their way into my home and then announce I was trespassed from the university because I succeeded in keeping them out,” says Pratley.  “Walsh and Beaglehole seem to think they’re running a personal feudal fiefdom rather than a public institution which is supposed to champion critical thinking and freedom of expression.”

“We’ll be stepping up the campaign against the completely over-the-top actions of the administration at Victoria; we’re calling on students, trade unionists, civil libertarians and all supporters of free speech and freedom of association to join us in demanding the charges be dropped and the trespass order be revoked,” Cosgrove concluded.