Buy the article on CAIRN websiteAbstract

Since the signing of the Oslo agreements, the Palestinian territories have received a very important amount of financial assistance provided by the international community of donors. In the Palestinian context, development assistance was initially intended to develop the foundations of a viable Palestinian State. Yet the donor’s effort slowly evolved into a permanent system of emergency assistance, including an increasing proportion of humanitarian aid. Following the victory of Hamas in the elections to the Palestinian Legislative Council in early 2006,Western donors have taken in March 2006 a decision to suspend aid to the Palestinian government. This paper aims at examining the background process leading to this decision, and to analyze its possible outcomes on the field.

Dorothée Schmid is associate researcher, Middle-East/North Africa Center (Ifri). Expert in European policies in the Mediterranean and in the Middle-East, she actually works on Western strategies of democratization.