The failure of the UN humanitarian paradigm

As Palestinian children in Gaza start to receive the polio vaccines, the contradictions regarding the delivery of humanitarian aid, ceasefires and hostages surface incessantly. “Great progress! Every day in the Middle Areas of Gaza, more children are getting vaccines against polio,” Philippe Lazzarini, the Commissioner-General of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) declared on X. “While these polio ‘pauses’ are giving people some respite, what is urgently needed is a permanent ceasefire, the release of all hostages + the standard flow of humanitarian supplies including medical and hygiene supplies.”

Lazzarini is not altogether clear, though, about what is needed. The institutionalised humanitarian aid perspective is inhuman, calculating and centred on itself. It needs to be sustained to prevent collapse. After all, when the UN decided upon the humanitarian paradigm for Palestinians after the 1948 Nakba, it knew it would need a constant supply of human rights violations to keep it going. Without one, there’s no need for the other.

What is needed most of all now is to stop Israel from committing genocide.

Lazzarini does not mention that in his social media post. Realistically speaking, the vaccination campaign is another part of the system that keeps Palestinians alive only for Israel to kill them later. Proclaiming “Great progress!” while knowing, without doubt, that the children are at risk of being butchered by Israel only shows praise for the participating agencies. It dehumanises Palestinians even further, because no Palestinian would ever choose to be part of a humanitarian campaign, let alone one that keeps them victims of settler-colonial violence and international complicity.

According to the latest OCHA report, almost 87,000 children were given the polio vaccine in Gaza in the first day of the vaccination campaign, as UN agencies have described the humanitarian endeavour. Of the 40,000 Palestinians killed since 7 October, almost 17,000 were children. How many vaccinated children will go on to be killed in Israel’s genocide? And what is a vaccination campaign in the midst of genocide? That’s the question that needs to be asked, not least because we all know that, contrary to Lazzarini’s statement in the context of the polio vaccines, progress cannot be measured by the normal yardstick; genocide has to be stopped for any real progress to be made.

Furthermore, even a pause to vaccinate Palestinian children against polio had to be linked to the release of Israeli hostages. Lazzarini called for “the release of all hostages” and the need to deliver supplies. If the UNRWA chief wants to make a case for releasing hostages, how about a case for the forcibly disappeared Palestinians, those detained arbitrarily and tortured by Israel, including medical personnel? How about an urgent, permanent ceasefire to end settler-colonialism in Palestine once and for all? Or would that not sustain the UN’s humanitarian paradigm?

So, children are now being vaccinated against polio in Gaza even as there is a real possibility of them being butchered by Israel.

A ceasefire for vaccinations also needs to be tied to the Israeli hostages’ release, otherwise it only serves a fraction of a purpose. Having vested interests in Israel and supporting settler-colonialism leads to this sort of humanitarian politics under the guise of neutrality, which claims victims even as its proponents bask in their humanitarian roles.

The UN allowed the monstrosity that is the Zionist state of Israel to be created on stolen Palestinian land, and has ended up with a genocide on its hands, compounding the ethnic cleansing that has been ongoing for almost 80 years. The humanitarian paradigm serves the UN well because it allows the organisation to maintain the façade that it is doing something for people in desperate need, even as it is failing them.

The failure of the UN humanitarian paradigm