US freeze on Hamas aid carries humanitarian price

JERUSALEM -- Ditch diggers have stopped building a multimillion-dollar US-funded pipeline meant to bring clean drinking water to the overcrowded Gaza Strip. Trainers have stopped teaching Palestinian judges how to better fight crime and corruption. A Boston-based contractor has stopped teaching Palestinian mothers how to prevent malnutrition in their babies.

An unprecedented US government review of aid to Palestinians has frozen all US-funded projects in the West Bank and Gaza, as officials in Washington weigh whether and how they can deliver humanitarian aid without channeling funding through Hamas, the militant group that won January's parliamentary election, or the government Hamas will soon appoint.

International aid groups, many with years of experience carrying out US-funded projects, have expressed alarm at the US policy. They say that trying to deliver humanitarian assistance without any involvement from the Palestinian government is unrealistic on a practical level and could undo years of work building Palestinian health and education systems and other institutions.

The United States Agency for International Development spent $275 million in the West Bank and Gaza last year. For the past decade, the United States has channeled aid to Palestinians through dozens of nonprofit organizations and contractors that build courthouses, schools, roads, and water systems; promote the rule of law and democracy; train health workers, teachers, and judges; award micro-loans to small businesses; and carry out other projects that entail varying degrees of cooperation with Palestinian ministries.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says that once a Hamas Cabinet takes power in the coming weeks, the United States, which lists Hamas as a terrorist organization, will cut off all aid that is routed through the Palestinian government or could somehow benefit it. But she vows that the United States will continue to provide humanitarian assistance directly to Palestinians.

But that's easier said than done, say US and Palestinian officials and heads of aid groups.

Drawing the line between helping 3.4 million impoverished Palestinians and helping their government is nearly impossible, aid groups say, when most hospitals, clinics, and schools are run by the Palestinian Authority, the governing body for the West Bank and Gaza.

Aid workers say that US officials have told them that if the strictest interpretation of the policy wins out, it could prohibit even routine contacts with government bureaucrats, most of whom are currently not Hamas members, or even with doctors and professors at Palestinian Authority-funded hospitals and universities.

Thomas Neu, who has spent more than a decade in Jerusalem running US-funded programs for American Near East Refugee Aid, or Anera, says nearly all of his programs are threatened. Anera -- a nonprofit group that distributed $30 million in aid to Palestinians last year, most of it from the United States -- builds schools and hands them over to the Ministry of Education. It brings in $15 million worth of medical supplies each year, requiring permission from the Ministry of Health, and distributes much of it to public hospitals.

Aid workers and Palestinian officials say that some US officials here have joined them in trying to persuade Washington decision-makers to find ways to keep aid flowing and to understand the difficulty of drawing clear lines between purely nongovernmental humanitarian programs and those that fall into a gray area, connecting somehow with the Palestinian Authority to deliver humanitarian aid.

Like Anera, John Snow Inc., a health consulting group based in Boston, finds itself in an ambiguous position. It has had to suspend a $20 million USAID-funded program called Hanan that teaches mothers to combat increasing malnutrition among Palestinian children, because it works with public health employees and public clinics.

US diplomats here acknowledge that aid professionals are confused and anxious over how US policy will define proscribed assistance. The diplomats agree that even programs with apparently humanitarian aims, like Hanan, could be at risk because they deal with ministries or public institutions.

''There are probably some areas that are not going to pass through that humanitarian sieve," said Anna-Maija Litvak, a spokeswoman for USAID in Tel Aviv.

''There is definitely a lot of worry and anxiety," she added, saying that USAID personnel have been telling aid groups and contractors, ''It is a process; we don't have clear answers."

Even groups that don't receive US funding are affected, such as Ohio-based United Palestinian Children's Appeal. The group has put on hold plans to fly in American surgeons this month to perform specialized surgery on children with complex ailments, using public hospitals. US officials have warned aid workers that they could be prosecuted or sued under US antiterrorism legislation for contacts with any government institution, possibly even hospitals, once a Hamas Cabinet takes office.

''I'm not interested in going to jail myself for sending doctors there to help children," said Steve Sosebee, an American who runs the program, which treated more than 2,000 Palestinian children last year. ''They say it's not going to affect humanitarian issues, but it will if it prevents us from treating these kids."

State Department officials say the United States is facing an unprecedented situation: the first time a group it lists as a terrorist organization has won control of a government.

The policy puzzle over humanitarian aid springs from a clash between two US goals: helping ordinary Palestinians, a vital part of the US strategy to win hearts and minds in the Middle East; and keeping US dollars from going to Hamas, which has killed hundreds of Israelis in suicide bombings and vows to destroy the Jewish state.

The United States has not directly funded the Palestinian Authority since 1997 because of concerns about corruption. Instead, it funnels nearly all funds through aid groups and contractors, whose projects usually require some contact with the authority.

''By avoiding dealing with the PA, you are going to impact humanitarian issues," said Ghassan Khatib, the planning minister in the outgoing government led by the defeated Fatah party. He said that while about half the Palestinian Authority's budget goes to security, most of the rest goes to health and education, including the salaries of 40,000 teachers and 15,000 health workers.

A Western diplomat here, who asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the issue, said that cutting government entirely out of the loop ''frees Hamas from responsibility [for providing services] and will make the economy even sicker."

Even Fulbright scholarships and other programs that bring individual Palestinian scholars to US universities could be at risk, because many candidates' home schools receive Palestinian Authority funding.

''You might say, 'So some professors won't get to go to the US, so what?' " said an American running one such program, who asked not to be named to protect his chances of continued funding. ''But exposing them to US culture and rigorous methods of study has a long-term impact."

Ghassan Faramand, a law professor at Birzeit University in the West Bank, runs training programs for judges and court workers that are at risk because of their ties to the Ministry of Justice. He said that decades of US programs promoting the rule of law and civil society made Palestinians a model in the Middle East and paved the way for January's peaceful, well-organized election and the losing party's peaceful exit from power.

''It's not easy for America . . . to say, 'We're leaving,' " he said. ''Not only will people be upset and angry . . . but Bush's campaign for democracy in the Middle East will be threatened."

He hopes to find a loophole, perhaps by working through a new judicial body appointed by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, whom the United States has signaled it will still work with. He says his program would have to fold without US funding, but he would still have to pay workers he has already contracted.

Larger organizations can shift their focus to other countries or try to work while totally bypassing government. But Neu, from Anera, said they are reluctant to set up parallel systems in areas like health where the Palestinian Authority functions well.

Two weeks ago in Washington, Assistant Secretary of State David Welch and Michael Doran, the White House specialist on Israeli-Palestinian affairs, promised to set up a joint task force with Palestinian aid groups to help determine what aid should continue. But at the meeting arranged by the Arab American Institute, the US officials had few specific answers.

Peter Gubser, president of the nonprofit Anera, said he asked if his group could keep building schools, but received no clear answer.

''I think the answer is that if it is a Hamas-dominated government, the answer will be no," Gubser said, though he added that the officials suggested it might depend on whether a Hamas member heads the Education Ministry.

Islamic charities, dominated by Hamas and funded by donations from across the Muslim world, would probably step in to fill the gap, aid workers said.

Cairo Arafat, an official in the outgoing Planning Ministry, said Israel has the ultimate responsibility for humanitarian concerns in territory that it occupies.

Barnard reported from Jerusalem and the West Bank; Stockman from Washington, D.C.