The Gaza Donors Conference.

Today Egypt has hosted a conference to raise USD4bn for the reconstruction of Gaza following this summer's war with Israel. The conference was attended by some 40 nations and actually ended up raising USD5.4bn with Qatar being the largest donor pledging USD1bn while nations such as the US pledged USD212 million, Turkey pledged USD200 million and European nations such as France, Germany and the UK pledged donations of between USD30million and USD60million each.

It almost goes without saying that I fully support the rebuilding of Gaza particularly of the civilian infrastructure such as the power network and the sanitation network. The problem is that this money is being pledged to repair the damage that was caused by Gaza's governing party Hamas' decision to choose to go to war with Israel.

Hamas started that war on June 12th (12/6/14) by kidnapping and then murdering three Israeli teenagers. They immediately followed this up by beginning to fire rockets into civilian areas across Israel. When Israel refused to react to this killing of and attempts to kill its civilians for more then three weeks Hamas escalated things further by launching attacks through tunnels that it had been building over several years to kidnap and kill civilians. This left Israel with no other option then to take military action against Gaza to stop the attacks. However at every point throughout that military operation Israel took every measure to reduce civilian losses and handed Hamas every opportunity to agree to a cease-fire that would have brought that fighting to an end. Time and time again Hamas refused.

One of the main factors that led to Hamas taking this insane course of action is that since the end of Operation Cast Lead in 2009 and the lifting of Israel's blockade Gaza has become swamped by international aid agencies led by the United Nations Relief Works Agency (UNWRA). As always happens in these situations - Haiti is a perfect example - the presence of these international agencies corroded the civil state in Gaza creating a United States of Aid Agencies. This presented a particular problem because having been freed of all its responsibilities to the people of Gaza - including its responsibility to protect them - Hamas dedicated all its time and efforts to stockpiling weapons and planning ever more inventive ways to attack Israel.

So if this donors conference is going to lead to a lasting re-building of Gaza by breaking the cycle of violence it will need to find a way to shift responsibility for civil society away from the international community and on to Hamas. The obvious solution would be for all the money to be given directly to Hamas who can spend it on whatever they can import through either Israel or Egypt. The problem is that the main donors such as Qatar and Turkey are clearly being so generous so they can increase their influence over Hamas and the Gaza Strip to counter Saudi Arabia's influence over Fatah in the West Bank. As such there needs to be a United Nations (UN) run clearing mechanism to anonymouise the transfer of funds from donors to Hamas to prevent the donors from buying influence.

On a related note the UK Parliament will tomorrow (13/10/14) debate and possibly vote on a completely non-binding motion to recognise the state of Palestine. This will have absolutely no direct impact on whether the UK formally recognises the state of Palestine so I could safely ignore it. However I have to say that I can't support it because as the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL) and South Sudan demonstrate it takes a lot more to build a viable state then simply having people calling you a state. As such I can no more support this then I could support the 2011 application to the UN for the simple reason that Palestine is not yet ready on a technical level to be recognised as a state.

Sadly if anything the Palestinians have actually moved backwards since 2011 which is further evidence of the poisonous effect that the conflict in Syria is having on the entire region.

18:20 on 12/10/14 (UK date).

Edited at around 11:10 on 13/10/14 (UK date) to add;

The main reason why the Palestinian Authority (PA) is pushing for a formal recognition of the Palestinian state within the 1967 borders is a belief that this will help stop the building of Jewish settlements on the occupied West Bank. This is flawed logic because the building of civilian settlements on land seized through war is completely illegal regardless of whether that land was part of a recognised nation state or not. If the international community is prepared to over-look this illegal act there seems to be little gurantee that their position will change simply because Palestine has been recognised as a state.

A prime example of the problem is the Golan Heights which were seized from Syria during the 1968 war. At the time Syria was recognised as a sovereign state and it just about continues to be so. However that in absolutely no way prevented Israel from seizing the Golan Heights or building civilian settlements there.

That said the control of the Syrian side of the Golan Heights is currently under violent dispute between Hezbollah and Al Qaeda's branch in Syria - Al Nusra Front (ANF). So even if Israel wanted to hand the Golan Heights back there's clearly no-one for it to hand them to.

(Originally Posted 12/10/14 - UK date).