Every non-combatant death is regrettable, and Israel's conduct of the war can and should be questioned, examined, and held to the standards of international humanitarian law. In addition to the ...atrocities of Oct 7, 2023, it uses the strategy of deliberately putting its own citizens in harm's way to curry international sympathy.7 A senior member of the leadership of Hamas freely acknowledged that its extensive tunnel system, built with funds diverted from international humanitarian aid,8 is designed to protect its fighters, not its citizens, who are intentionally deprived of air raid shelters or other forms of safe haven.2 That Hamas and its allies cannot prevail in this conflict is undeniably clear given Israel's overwhelming advantage in military power and firepower. Doing so would probably be followed by a quick end to the war, allow an orderly transition of power in the territory, and let the citizens of Gaza return to their homes and start to rebuild.
The closing panel of the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations' conference in Washington, DC on Nov. 3 featured an update on Lebanon by former U.S. ambassador to Morocco Edward M. Gabriel, who is ...also the president and CEO of the American Task Force on Lebanon (ATFL). The maritime border agreement recently negotiated between Israel and Lebanon was "diplomacy at its best," Gabriel asserted. "Now that the dispute and the threat of instability is gone, it will open up the market for investors to come in there in the oil and gas area."
Failures of international humanitarian response to crisis are a prominent feature of contemporary debate, with most analysis focusing on the application of the core humanitarian principles of ...neutrality, impartiality and independence, and the diminishing space in which these principles are able to function. This thesis argues that the space for humanitarian action has not diminished but a changed socio-political environment has meant that access to trusted representation in a space for discourse has altered. As an agent for re-direction the study examines whether the phenomenon of ‘voluntary service' provides a more shared, less contested and more universally accepted identity for expression of the humanitarian purpose and its practices than the current discourse achieves. Through comparative analysis of humanitarian expressions across differing contexts of emergency response and drawing on research from relief agency archives as well as from personal experiences in these environments of complex emergency, the study explores opportunities that arise from understandings of a more dynamic space to house the humanitarian identities. It argues that by recognising and accepting its social and its political identity, humanitarian response can be auxiliary to authority in times of crisis as well as a place for constructive challenge. It is from within the interactions of this socio-political space and its iterations of communal needs that voluntary service draws its identity and its strength. The thesis focuses on considerations of how notions of ‘trust' frame this community, and how variant understandings of good faith and intent influence the construction of a legitimate, protected space for independent voluntary action in complex emergencies. By considering the nature of the humanitarian relationship on the frontiers of politics and power, opportunities are located for a place in which a more inclusive, less contested discourse on the humanitarian identity might emerge.
American philanthropy today expands knowledge, champions social movements, defines active citizenship, influences policymaking, and addresses humanitarian crises. How did philanthropy become such a ...powerful and integral force in American society? 'Philanthropy in America' explores the 20th-century growth of this unique phenomenon.
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