Cognitive Dissonance in Davos

Watching Trump dangle aid before the besieged Palestinians while seated next to the largest recipient of U.S. assistance was grotesque.
Speaking at the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland on Thursday, U.S. President Donald J. Trump again threatened to cut aid to the Palestinians, citing, among other complaints, their objection to his recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. The comments came as Trump shared the stage with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, whose country is the world’s largest beneficiary of U.S. aid.
As our own Shirl McArthur has pointed out, conservative estimates put the total amount of U.S. aid to Israel since 1949 at close to $150 billion. Although that aid is commonly classified as “military,” much of it once flowed through the U.S. Agency for International development as cash assistance. For perspective, consider that, according to numbers published by the U.S. Government Accounting Office, USAID’s total spending since 1962 has been about $273 billion.
Threatened cuts to USAID and its humanitarian assistance, which prompted protest from the Agency this week, put aid to Israel into sharp relief. That’s especially true given the likely human impact of aid cuts to the Palestinians. The Trump administration last week confirmed that it had cut funding to the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian refugees, which provides vital relief to millions of people, including in refugee camps throughout the Arab world and the occupied Palestinian territories.
According to Elizabeth Campbell, the Agency’s representative in Washington, those cuts have already taken place and represent an 80 percent drop from last year’s U.S. funding amounts. The resulting budget shortfall puts at risk basic medical services to more than three million refugees and school operations for some half a million children, says UNRWA, which has launched an urgent fundraising campaign to cover the gap.
All of which made the scene at Davos seem downright grotesque.
“We give them tremendous amounts, hundreds of millions of dollars,” Trump said of the Palestinians. “That money is on the table, because why should we do that as a country if they’re doing nothing for us?”
What Trump means, of course, is that the Palestinian Authority, an artifact of the U.S.-brokered negotiating process, is refusing to bend to his will on Jerusalem and all that the unilateral American move implies. The most damning of those implications is that Israel’s acquisition of territory by force, as happened when it occupied East Jerusalem during the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, will serve as precedent for its annexation of the West Bank, home to the majority of Palestinian population centers.
If objecting to that means losing a seat at the U.S. negotiating table, the Palestinian public doesn’t seem to mind. In a poll published on the same day as Trump’s comments, only 26 percent of Palestinians surveyed supported negotiations with Israel — down from 45 percent a year ago. Capturing that sentiment, former Palestinian negotiating team member Diana Buttu tweeted on Thursday:

“On the table” – “off the table” – “not welcome at the table” …. How about just getting rid of the table entirely? #BDS

— Diana Buttu (@dianabuttu) January 25, 2018

A quarter-century into a U.S.-brokered “process” that has yielded neither peace nor stability, it’s little wonder that Palestinians are embracing efforts like the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement to push for their rights. Meanwhile, as aid to Israel remains at record levels, even the state’s strongest advocates are beginning to worry about the optics, especially for an American public so at odds with its president.
As one columnist wrote in the Times of Israel:
“Leaving Israel untouched amid the expected slashing, particularly for hunger and other humanitarian needs, will only heighten resentment toward the Jewish state, with its strong economy and high standard of living, at the expense of needier and more vulnerable countries.”
In Davos, that logic was utterly lost on Trump and Netanyahu — further proof that the two are in lockstep against the pursuit of peace.
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