A Palestinian doctor holds a banner during a protest in Gaza City against the Israeli siege on the Gaza Strip. (Wissam Nassar, Maan Images)

The current strategy of international involvement in Palestine has just entered its most dangerous, most shocking and most sordid phase. Hallucinatory scenes of apocalyptic profligacy were unfolding in Paris Monday as French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner grabbed a mike to badger member states to give yet more millions in aid to the suffering Palestinians. Meanwhile, Gaza is declared to be on the brink on an economic collapse of catastrophic proportions by the UN, the ICRC, the World Bank, and Oxfam.

Were the billions pledged yesterday targeted to address this current crisis? The more sickening reality, sadly under-reported, is that yesterday's donor initiative is actually creating this crisis. The money is to be spent in increasing the political, economic, social and civic siege of Gaza, in increasing the fragmentation of the Palestinian people, in pumping up a ruined leadership, and in thwarting any chance of national unity for the Palestinians. This is certainly not assistance to the Palestinian people (as the official version is attempting to spin it), but rather money to be given directly to the leadership of the Palestinian Authority.

Its sole purpose? To destroy Hamas - the single agenda that now unites the US, the Israelis and the PA leadership. This strategy "to punish Hamas and teach them a lesson", as one PA cabinet minister has it, is in practice punishing their own people in the most merciless, cruel and perverse manner.

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In Gaza, people are starving. Business has utterly collapsed. The majority of people are living far below the poverty line, the majority now subsisting on hand-outs. Only "humanitarian" supplies are allowed through by Israel; so there is no paper to write on, no batteries for your radio or hearing aid; no seeds for the farmers. People are dying at the border, refused permission by the IDF to receive specialist medical attention outside of Gaza.

It is the most vulnerable, the most poor and the most needy Palestinians who are paying for this vicious and inhumane strategy, for none of this money will go to help lift the siege of Gaza. Instead, the blockade is to be intensified. In this way, the Americans, Israelis and the Palestinian Authority believe they will weaken Hamas (who, let us not forget, came to power through democratic elections), and somehow, according to this insane and idiotic strategy, the PA now ruling only the town of Ramallah will regain authority, if not control.

To read the full article please visit The Guardian.