NGO Monitor Analysis (Vol. 2 No. 4) 5 December 2003

'Political Humanitarianism' and Medical NGOs

Within the large number of human rights and humanitarian NGOs that are active in conflict zones, including the Middle East, a distinct group focuses (or claims to focus) on medical and health-related issues. Members of this group include Médecins Sans Frontières, Medecins du Monde, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, and Physicians for Human Rights Israel (PHR-I). As will be demonstrated in the following analysis, the activities and resources of many of these NGOs are primarily directed towards 'political humanitarianism', rather than the providing the medical care that is often the focus of their mission statements.

'Political humanitarianism' has become an important element of the provision of humanitarian assistance in intense ethno-national conflicts, particularly in the Middle East. The concept describes the exploitation of aid relief in order to further narrow political agendas. Since the days of the Ethiopian famine in the mid-1980s, medical NGO intervention has shifted from ad hoc emergency assistance in war and natural disasters to a wider agenda of 'advocacy work' in conflict management and development. Although certain medical NGOs, as shown below, strive to avoid the extreme politicization witnessed at the Durban conference of 2001, their involvement in advocacy work often treads an ambiguous path.

The best-known medical aid agency, Médecins Sans Frontières, active in the West Bank and Gaza Strip since 1988, acknowledges this problem on its, French website, outlining the sensitivities of the Arab Israeli conflict. The organization is careful to explain why it only works on one side of the conflict - Israel's medical infrastructure is more sophisticated than that of the Palestinians - and continually emphasizes that there are no 'good' or 'bad' victims.

This NGO, however, is the exception and not the rule. Médecins Sans Frontières presents an Israeli perspective alongside that of Palestinian suffering in its 'personal witnesses section.' An example is the case of Atar, a psychologist, who works both with Israeli suicide bomb victims - a friend of hers was recently killed - and with Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. See report. The testimony is also careful to point out that Atar is an Israeli woman who served as an officer in the Israeli army and is proud that her son is also serving because she believes that the army plays an important social function in Israeli society. This commitment to both sides of the conflict and an honest approach to the complexity of living in a war zone is an example of a genuine commitment to universal human rights.

In contrast, other international NGOs are often not as careful to avoid unbalanced political attacks. Such distortions are, in part, the result of the heavy dependence of these NGOs on local groups with narrow political agendas in order to carry out much of their ground research. The French NGO Medecins du Monde has produced several reports on humanitarian conditions within the Palestinian territories. One of its reports is entitled Democide Bombings (link to NGOM article) included a categorical condemnation of suicide bombings. Two of its other reports, however, one on Israel's anti-terror work in Nablus and the other on access to medical care in the Palestinian territories rely on Palestinian testimonies that repeat almost word for word distortions in the interpretation of international law and the official positions of the Palestinian Authority.

An example of the impact of unhealthy dependence of international medical NGOs on their local partners can be seen in the role of the Union of Palestinian Relief Committees (UPMRC), See site and Physicians for Human Rights Israel (PHR-I). Although the mission statements UPMRC, PHR-I and Médecins Sans Frontières all proclaim adherence to universal human rights values, the former exploit their position in order to frame the discourse. Reading UPMRC's reports, one can easily mistake the NGO for an official organ of the PA.

PHR-I, in contrast, attempts to gain legitimacy for its advocacy work by emphasizing the presence of Jewish directors. PHR-I claims to be a grassroots organization (representing popular mainstream Israeli opinion. Much of PHR-I's clinical work is admirable and its advocacy would be acceptable if the organization operated only locally. However, its 'international advocacy work' reveals a deliberate political agenda of delegitimizing the State of Israel masked in medical terms and international law and feeding off its false reputation as an impartial mainstream medical NGO.

The Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS), which is a member of the international Red Cross organization, also demonstrates a clear political agenda. PRCS frames its presentations entirely from the Palestinian perspective and on several occasions, presents highly distorted reports and images. In one prominent example shown below, PRCS caption's claim to depict an Israeli tank ramming Palestinian ambulances. Not only was this incident not related in any news report from March 8 2002 (raising questions of its credibility), but makes the false claim that Israel has a policy of deliberately damaging medical equipment. However, PRCS entirely omits the fact that Palestinian ambulances have been repeatedly used to transport suicide bombers and weapons destined for terrorist organizations.

These distortions from local groups are then amplified and promoted by the international medical NGOs, which are household names and conduct high profile fund raising campaigns that raise hundreds of millions of dollars from the general public and governments. This The United Nations Commission on Human Rights estimates that 20 European and North American NGOs receive 75% of all public funds budgeted for such intervention. This high profile has given them the status of authoritative sources in matters related to international crises and humanitarian disasters.

In considering the impact of the politicization of medical humanitarian NGOs, it is important to recall the first rule of the physicians' Hippocratic Oath --"do no harm". Yet the work of NGOs such as PRCS, UPMRC and PHR-I, venture far from the principles of medical neutrality with a knock-on effect on the international NGOs such as Medecins du Monde. It is the responsibility of the larger NGOs and government development agencies to insure that their local NGOs partners and to verify that universal human rights work is indeed being implemented universally.