I’ve been thinking about the term ‘humanitarian’ due to a few people wondering about the use with regard to the Gaza flotilla. Exactly what is and what isn’t humanitarian and how do we decide?

To some (myself included), bags of cement represent what Gazans deserve to rebuild their lives.  Others puzzle how these things can be described as humanitarian when there are other situations where the recipients are in far worse conditions.

And ultimately it boils down to the fact that ‘humanitarian’ usually just means ‘returning people to the standard of living they had before the disaster happened’.

With respect to the Palestinians, I think we have to understand that they actually enjoy a relatively high standard of living, mostly due to benefiting economically from the State of Israel over 60 years.  Whilst it is clearly significantly lower than the average Israeli, most Palestinians are significantly better off (in terms of what stuff they have, their educational opportunities etc) than many of their neighbours in Jordan or Egypt and in particular those refugees still scraping a living in camps in those countries.

So the pressure on the Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza has significantly changed the lives they were living before - and so the ‘humanitarian’ urge is to help them to get back to the economic situation they lived in before.

Clearly in a sense this is a form of racism.  If we forget the Middle East for a second and imagine a disaster happening to a small European nation such as Belgium.  Our humanitarian response to them would be significantly greater than our humanitarian urges to victims in Haiti - because in the back of our mind we rationalise that the Haitians never had what the Belgians had in the first place.  The wealthy generally take care of the wealthy in a way that they would never consider taking care of the poor.

It is certainly a lop-sided form of logic.  And one which cannot be justified by any form of agenda based on the rights of the individual.  Maybe it can partly be explained by location, nearness, emotional attachment, sense of political injustice etc.  But in another sense, the justified sense of political outrage caused by the Gaza blockade is not magically more important than the injustice of starvation or disease or lack of education in many countries not so far away.   As a human being, I can’t take on every issue and as I know Palestinians, I listen to their pain and the lives they have lost and want back.  And I’m not really in a position to refuse them because others are in a worse state whilst living in a European ivory tower.

The world is screwed.  You and I are screwed. 

[edit] My wife says that humanitarian should exclusively refer to aid which is to keep people alive.  Other aid (such as cement etc) might be necessary but should not be described as humanitarian.