Book Review: The Myth of Palestinian Development

The Myth of Palestinian Development. Khalil Nakhleh. Palestine:

www.PASSIA.org. April 2004. 223 pp. (English). Arabic version

published by www.MUWATIN.org

Reviewed by Sam Bahour

The issue of Palestinian development has been in the limelight for

sometime now. For over a decade, billions of taxpayer dollars from

countries around the globe have been flooding into one of the

smallest yet-to-be countries, the Palestinian Authority (PA). In year

2004, the Palestinian people have become the largest per capita

recipient of foreign aid in the world. Yet, Palestine is not only unable

to move forward in its development process toward statehood, but

rather, any achievements that have been made thus far are being

unraveled while donor funds continue to flow unabated. As Dr.

Khalil Nakhleh illustrates in The Myth of Palestinian Development,

this process of "de-developing" Palestine is not haphazard or a

strike of bad fate, but rather an externally planned systematic

approach to the Palestinian reality that Palestinians must reverse.

The Myth of Palestinian Development, as stated by the author, "is

not an attempt to find a 'magical' recipe for how things should be

done in order to ensure the 'desired' development of Palestinian

society." Dr. Nakhleh rightly believes that, "no such thing ['magical'

recipe] is possible. Anyone who claims the contrary is, in the best

situation, unaware and unappreciative of the complexities of the

'development' process, and, in the worst, part of a premeditated

process of deceit generated by a chorus of development 'agents

provocateurs' to maximize self-benefits."

From the book's subtitle, which is "Political Aid and Sustainable

Deceit," and throughout, the reader is forced to think deeper than

the superficial headlines of today's media coverage of Palestine.

Dr. Nakhleh puts the context of the Palestinian struggle for freedom

and independence into today's world of "globalization and trans-

nationalization," something few Palestinian analysts address. He

states, "If the function of the nation-state is being redefined in the

context of globalization, then the entire concept of national

sovereignty and national interests needs rethinking." Taking such a

step back from the day to day atrocities in Palestine is crucial if

Palestinians are to be able to position themselves in a way to

actually realize the fruits of their struggle.

Soberly linking today's world dynamics with current Palestinian

development toward statehood, Dr. Nakhleh states that "Stability in

the region, the creation of conducive conditions for globalized

production, and the mobility of transnational capital are the primary

objectives and concern of the interventions, not genuine Palestinian

development." After a critical reading of the book and internalizing it

with my own personal experience in the Palestinian struggle during

the period being covered, 1984 - 2001, I can attest that Dr. Nakhleh

spectacularly reveals the inner workings of an entire donor industry

that has been built around the catastrophic predicament of the

Palestinian people -- an industry that is sustained by the so-called

'peace process' and previously by the so-called 'revolution.'

The Myth of Palestinian Development is a focused biography that

takes a deep and serious look into how two funding agencies, in

particular, and the entire donor community in general, including pre-

Oslo Palestinian and Arab donors, view and act toward Palestinian

development. The book takes a unique approach by surveying the

Palestinian development process (the 'de-development' process as

Dr. Nakhleh would call it) through his own work experience with the

two most significant developmental agencies of the pre and post-

Oslo periods, The Welfare Association (1984-1992) and the

European Commission (1993-2001).

The Welfare Association, a Swiss-registered non-profit organization,

established in 1983, was the first serious attempt by a few wealthy

Palestinians to positively affect Palestinian development. Dr.

Nakhleh takes the reader through the maze of the fund's alliances --

largely governmental linked -- and provides samples of various

interventions and how those interventions jerked from

developmental-based to emergency-based during the first intifada.

Unfortunately, Dr. Nakhleh believes, and I tend to agree, that the

Palestinian capitalists' "tendency to push towards becoming more

'mainstream responsive' and much less 'developmental' left the real

work of developing Palestine based on future needs in total

disarray. The author gives a sample of development under Israeli

occupation during the 1980s and describes the complexities of

financially supporting Palestinians during the first intifada while the

Israeli military was fully tracking where interventions were being

made and by whom. Currently living in the occupied territories

myself, I feel that remembering the lessons of the 1980s now is

well-timed since Palestine seems to be heading into another era of

clandestine development prior to statehood.

Reviewing how the first Gulf War shook the region and in particular

the Palestinian mode of operation, Dr. Nakhleh boldly addresses the

Welfare Association's board -some of the most wealthiest

Palestinians in the world - as utilizing their 'privileged

communications channels' to move the development process from

an institutional and need-based intervention to a personalized

practical approach that favored appeasing the powers-to-be which

made the Association loose its core potential to affect its declared

goals of true national development.

During the post-Oslo period, a flurry of donor pledges,

commitments, and disbursements (three very different items, as

one will learn from this book) were made by the world community

who took upon themselves to intervene on behalf of Palestinian

development. Again, through the author's personal, hands-on

experience with the largest donor to Palestine, the European Union

(EU), he meticulously depicts how this global strategy of intervention

failed to develop Palestine, and even worse, how it is "de-

developing' Palestine.

As stated by the EU, the "political input and economic contribution

has been the determining element for the survival of the Palestinian

Authority," Dr. Nakhleh asks, "Is it, for example, the type of 'survival'

that the EC [European Commission] aid offers that hooks entire PA

institutions to a 'life sustaining machine,' which manages to inject

intravenously small, yet steady doses of cash to keep the entire

public sector afloat?"

Dr. Nakhleh provides noteworthy insight into the people by which

the international donor community provides its intervention into

Palestinian development; he calls them the "New Mercenaries."

"The New Mercenaries are a rapidly emerging category of global

professional hustlers, who compete via the international media to

sell their 'expertise' and 'experience' to the highest bidder...They

roam about unhindered by national boundaries or limitations...The

New Mercenaries are the 'nomads' of globalized economies and

societies, and the ubiquitous hallmark of development projects.

They are transient; only a few of them experience the repetition of

seasons in the same place. Thus, they rarely see the results of

their work." Anyone visiting Palestine these days will find these

international consultants -- "New Mercenaries" - in every aspect of

Palestinian life -- politics, security, economy, education, etc. - all

holding VIP cards and freely passing through Israeli military

checkpoints with 4x4 sport utility vehicles in one of the most

deprived and unfree places in the world. It is unfortunate that the

Palestinians alone are being held responsible for their statehood

building misgivings, when in reality, donor money and donor-picked

consultants are really in the 'developmental' driving seat.

One of Dr. Nakhleh's unique techniques in the book is that he does

not only characterize the problem but offers ideas for how to move

ahead. He notes, "I want to examine whether the genuine

development for which we - at least I am - aspiring, is at all feasible

in a non-sovereign context." This issue of sovereignty is absolutely

in the forefront of today's debate. As stated in the book,

"'Autonomy' began to be perceived by the newly constituted PA as

tantamount to 'sovereignty.'" As the author accurately notes, "The

degree of whatever sovereignty it [the PA] processed was

determined, de facto, by Israel, and not by the Accords it had

signed." The fear is that Sharon's Unilateral Disengagement Plan is

starting to be viewed by the Palestinian leadership as a step toward

sovereignty, when in fact, it is nothing of the sort.

"Not once, through the stretch of the last hundred years, were the

Palestinians in a real and effective position to decide on the context

of intervention in Palestine." "The two times when they had the

potential of insisting on the inclusion of positive societal

developmental ingredients, during the second half of the 1980's and

the mid-1990s, they failed to do so at all levels: that of the

'leadership,' the community-based organizations, and the 'nationalist

capital.'" Hence, the challenge ahead is huge indeed and Dr.

Nakhleh does not shy away from starting to address it.

The book is structurally organized in a very logical and

methodological way. The two periods under review are analyzed by

there origins, strategy of intervention, record of intervention,

decisions structure, and the writer's assessment. The actual

records of interventions are supported with excerpts from the

author's field notes and reports at the time, an invaluable window

into history.

One full chapter is dedicated to a side-by-side table of the

comparisons of the interventions for the pre and post-Oslo periods

analyzed using twelve basic developmental variables along with the

author's candid diagnosis of the 17 years covered in his analysis.

The final chapter is critical. Dr. Nakhleh puts the bulk of his critical

assessment here and proposes what needs to be done.

Approaching the topic as a researcher, a practitioner and a

Palestinian citizen under occupation, one comes away with a mind-

boggling array of issues as food for thought, or as Dr. Nakhleh

would agree, food for action.

Specific steps are noted to "'indigenize' the objectives" of

Palestinian development. Some are rather specific steps, such as

the elimination of the Economic Council for Development and

Reconstruction (PECDAR), the agency that the donor countries

created prior to Palestinian ministries and bureaucracy being set up.

Dr. Nakhleh terms this agency as, "the vestige of the World Bank

and the externally imposed agendas."

Dr. Nakhleh calls for "societal participation" in the developmental

planning process of Palestine. A difficult task for sure, but one Dr.

Nakhleh terms an absolute must given what he proposes "cannot

be attained by simply embellishing the existing structure." He

affirms that "the requirements must be internal, structural and

systematic; they must be transformational, and relate directly to the

Palestinian system of governance."

In summary, Dr. Nakhleh coins what needs to be done as

"indigenous empowerment" and the target of empowerment

squarely being "the ordinary Palestinian person."

Having read The Myth of Palestinian Development immediately after

reading Prof. Francis A. Boyle's new book Palestine, Palestinians

and International Law (Clarity, 2003), which reveals another set of

continuous strategic faults of the Palestinian leadership through the

eyes of a practitioner, like Dr. Nakhleh, who was dealing in the

realm of international law, working with the 'trees' while still being

able to see the 'forest'. Both books are absolutely crucial to the

broader understanding of why the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is

where it is today. The incompetency and disregard toward

Palestinian planning, particularly in the legal and developmental

aspects, bring one to the bold conclusion that serious internal

restructuring is required within the Palestinian liberation movement

before any real progress will be realized in ending the illegal Israeli

occupation and establishing the State of Palestine.

Sam Bahour , a Palestinian-American, lives in the besieged

Palestinian City of Al-Bireh and is co-author of HOMELAND: Oral

Histories of Palestine and Palestinians (1994) and can be reached

at sbahour@palnet.com.