Beautifying the Image of USAID

by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem

Advertising billboards belonging to USAID have spread across the West Bank, aiming to construct a beautiful image for this institution and to cement the impression that it works for the good of the Palestinian people in the name of the American people. Wherever one travels in the West Bank, one sees huge promotional billboards bearing the picture of a Palestinian man or woman offering thanks to USAID, affirming that the two peoples, Palestinian and American, are working hand in hand, and that this is how progress and prosperity are achieved — or at least how the Palestinian people’s living conditions are improved. It is clear from the pictures that broad smiles appear on the faces of the Palestinians, suggesting that their hearts are brimming with joy and delight. The implication is plain and unmistakable: were it not for the bounty of the United States, these smiles would never have been drawn.

What Is the USAID Organization?

This organization was established in the 1950s as one of the arms of the Marshall Plan for rebuilding Europe, and it stands for the United States Agency for International Development. The United States has declared that the purpose behind its establishment is to provide humanitarian assistance to needy or disaster-stricken states and peoples, and to support US foreign policy by promoting democracy, capitalism, and free trade. This organization is a governmental one — the United States claims it is independent, but in reality it answers to the US State Department and coordinates its work with the US Secretary of State with the aim of advancing American interests across the various regions of the earth. The US government allocates roughly 0.005 of its budget to this organization.

The Work of USAID

USAID provides multifaceted assistance to many of the world’s countries and peoples. It is present in Pakistan, for instance, to help ease the suffering caused by floods; it arrived quickly in Haiti to help overcome the effects of the devastating earthquake; and it maintains a presence in many areas stricken by hunger, ignorance, or natural disaster, providing material and financial support.

USAID helps build roads, schools, health clinics, and community centers. It provides assistance to the needy and the afflicted, and contributes to building electricity and water networks, and so on. Anyone who thinks this organization does nothing to relieve some people’s suffering, or who tries to dismiss its humanitarian role in many parts of the world, is mistaken. But one must not overlook its political role in supporting American foreign policy, and its steering of fund disbursement in a manner that serves this policy.

USAID’s Work in Palestine

This organization has been active in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip for many long years, and it is now active only in the West Bank, because Gaza has fallen outside the scope of eligibility according to the vision of American foreign policy. In the West Bank, this organization finances road construction — it has cut some roads, paved others, and rehabilitated a number of others. It contributes to building schools, health clinics, and community centers across the various regions of the West Bank, from Jenin to Hebron, and from Qalqilya to Jericho.

In return, USAID imposes conditions for disbursing its funds, which can be summarized as follows:

A Palestinian institution wishing to obtain material assistance must sign a document called the anti-terrorism document. That is, Palestinians must acknowledge that they are against terrorism (meaning, against Palestinian resistance), and sign to that effect in order to receive assistance. Many Palestinian institutions have signed and received funds, while other institutions did not sign and did not receive assistance.

No Palestinian is employed at USAID unless his position is clearly against Palestinian resistance and against taking up arms against the occupiers.

[The following continues mid-sentence in the original, which is itself damaged at this point] — …so as to provide it with full information. If it is established that the person or entity still holds on to some national heritage, the funds remain out of reach; and if it is confirmed that the person or entity is among the fallen, or among those who have abandoned their national heritage and inclined toward the Oslo Accord, then the funds find their way to them.

The disbursement of funds is sometimes tied to normalization, with the aid applicant required to carry out joint activities with the Zionists in order to advance normalization with our Zionist enemy. There are, of course, those who accept this and carry out normalization activities.

USAID in Palestine does not conduct work divorced from the political aims of the United States, and it does not give money as an act of charity, whether one-time or ongoing, offered to God; rather, it gives money to achieve clear aims fully consistent with the American vision, which can be summarized as follows:

Reinforcing the Israeli-American project regarding the Palestinian cause, which aims to dissolve the cause rather than resolve it, by turning Palestinians into cripples feeding off the pockets of others.

Pursuing the Palestinian resistance and striking at its infrastructure, and turning Palestinians into mere supplicants begging the occupier for a measure of pity.

Strengthening the position of those who believe in peace with Israel, on the premise that there is no path to that peace except the path of futile negotiation.

Strengthening the role of those who normalize with Israel and empowering them over the necks of the Palestinian people.

Supporting its followers within the Palestinian Authority, and working to improve their image so that they may be popularly accepted.

The American aim is clear: to subjugate the Palestinian people, and USAID uses money to contribute to this subjugation. The ultimate goal is for the Palestinian people to become dependent on other people’s money instead of holding fast to their fixed national rights, and to help turn the slogan “we starve, but we do not kneel” into the slogan “we kneel, so that we do not starve.”

The Essential Question

A Palestinian wallowing in USAID’s money will argue that Palestine has already been sold, that the people’s struggles have gone to waste — so should we go on singing the praises of Palestinian rights, or take the American money that helps improve and ease our daily lives? Palestine is already gone, they say, so should we lose it and lose the aid too, or take what can be had? This is the logic that has destroyed the Palestinian people, and the slogan of “saving what can be saved” has entangled us in still more, and increased our worries and our pains. Living peoples are those who refuse to depend on others, who refuse to give up their freedom for money or food, and who, once they decide to live, never lack a means of doing so. Were this not so, nations would have collapsed and come to an end, turned into mere beasts of burden and slaves driven by other nations who toil, labor, and produce.

A people never lacks the means to stand on its own feet, and nothing stands in its way if it arms itself with faith and the will to work. But if it lies about, stretching and yawning, asking where the money will come from, it will only entangle itself in more mire and humiliation.

We have leaderships that have made a profession of theorizing about defeat, inaction, and capitulation — leaderships that always ask: what is the alternative? Where will we get food? How will we obtain weapons? And so on. These are leaderships that exist to spread a mentality of defeat and capitulation, and no doubt they have achieved a measure of success in that.

I say to you: may God disgrace a people that has no alternatives for remaining dignified and honorable, for in the end, only free men make bread. Scoundrels eat bread too, but it is bread steeped in shame, and a day will come when the Lord of their bread casts them onto the rubbish heap.

The Price of USAID’s Assistance

USAID has paved beautiful streets, built clinics, and constructed courthouses — but this, people, is the price of the homeland. They are luring people toward the abyss, so shall we change the condition we are in, or remain knowingly mired in the error we are aware of?

To read the articles, research, and books of Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem on the website of An-Najah National University, here is the link: blogs.najah.edu/staff/emp-2092.

Source: Translated from the original Arabic, “تجميل صورة ال US AID” by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem.