“The personal is political!”: exploring the limits of Canada’s feminist international assistance policy under occupation and blockade

ABSTRACT

“The personal is political!” This now infamous second-wave feminist slogan highlighted the connections between everyday personal experiences to larger social and political structures. As Enloe ([1990]. Bananas, beaches and bases: Making feminist sense of international politics. University of California Press) reminds us, the personal is political, but the personal is also international and, the international is personal. To this end, in 2015, Justin Trudeau took Canadian politics by storm with a platform promising change and a commitment to make Canadian international assistance explicitly “feminist”. Feminist scholars have long argued that understanding gender inequality requires more than targeted projects, programs, and interventions; it requires a fundamental shift in the way we understand systems of power shaping our complex international political systems (Tiessen, [2007]. Everywhere/nowhere: Gender mainstreaming in development agencies. Kumarian Press). Despite this, the way in which this commitment has been applied by the Trudeau Government is another question altogether. Using Ferguson’s ([1994]. The anti-politics machine. University of Minnesota) concepts of the “anti-politics machine”, this article explores Canada’s FIAP using the case study of Canadian international assistance in Gaza. It concludes that despite having an international assistance policy predicated on feminist values, Canadian development and humanitarian initiatives in Gaza are scrubbed of political dimensions and therefore utterly detached from the reality of the occupation and blockade and the subsequent impact on the lives of women and girls.

RÉSUMÉ

« Le privé est politique ! » Ce slogan féministe de la deuxième vague, aujourd'hui tristement célèbre, a mis l'accent sur les liens entre les expériences personnelles quotidiennes et les structures sociales et politiques plus larges. Alors que Bananes, plages et bases : donner un sens féministe à la politique internationale de Enloe [1990], University of California Press, nous le rappelle, le privé est politique, mais il est aussi international et, l'international est privé. À cette fin, en 2015, Justin Trudeau a pris d'assaut la politique canadienne avec une plateforme qui promettait un changement et s'engageait à rendre l'aide internationale canadienne explicitement « féministe ». Les universitaires féministes soutiennent depuis longtemps que la compréhension de l'inégalité entre les genres nécessite plus que des projets, des programmes et des interventions ciblés ; qu'elle exige un changement fondamental dans la manière dont nous comprenons les systèmes de pouvoir qui déterminent nos systèmes politiques internationaux complexes (Tiessen, [2007], Partout/nulle part : institutionnalisation du genre dans les agences de développement. Kumarian Press). Malgré cela, la manière dont cet engagement a été appliqué par le gouvernement Trudeau est une toute autre question. En s'appuyant sur les concepts de la « machine antipolitique » de Ferguson (La Machine Antipolitique, University of Minnesota, 1994), cet article explore la politique d'aide internationale féministe du Canada à travers l'étude de cas de l'aide internationale canadienne à Gaza. Il conclut qu'en dépit d'une politique d'aide internationale fondée sur des valeurs féministes, les initiatives canadiennes en matière de développement et d'aide humanitaire sont dépourvues de dimensions politiques, et par conséquent, totalement détachées de la réalité de l'occupation et du blocus, et de leurs conséquences sur la vie des femmes et des filles.

KEYWORDS:

• Canadian foreign policy
• Gaza
• FIAP
• anti-politics machine
• Palestine

Introduction

Elections provide opportunity for change. New mandates, fresh perspectives, and the desire to assert political platforms divergent from past oversights opens up space to redefine the direction of a country. The 2015 Canadian election was no exception. With a campaign slogan calling for “real change”, the Liberal Government of Justin Trudeau declared Canada’s fresh approach to engaging the world. During two consecutive terms prior, the Conservative Party led by Stephen Harper, fundamentally transformed Canada’s domestic and foreign policy, a move that led some to refer to this time as the “dark decade”. This “dark decade” was a particularly challenging era for considerations related to gender within Canadian foreign policy and those advocating for transformational change in this field (Tiessen & Barayni, 2017). Since 2015, “Canada is back”! This slogan featured throughout important policy documents in 2017 which established Canada as a leader in all issues related to gender equality. Most notable of these policy documents was Canada’s Feminist International Assistance Policy (FIAP).¹ The 92-page document outlined how the Liberal Government planned to refocus Canada’s international assistance to advancing gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls. These new policy documents sparked great hope in the Canadian public, particularly those in feminist circles. While a focus on gender equality and women’s right may not be an entirely novel turn in Canadian foreign policy, for the first time in Canadian history, the government – including the Prime Minster himself – explicitly cited a commitment to feminism.

The Trudeau Liberals have made some important moves towards upholding their commitment to feminism such as: appointing women to half of the positions in the cabinet – including key ministerial positions, launching a national inquiry into the epidemic of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls, announcing the largest-ever investments by the Canadian government in sexual and reproductive health and rights, passing unprecedented pay equity and gender budgeting legislations, and appointing Canada’s first Ambassador for Women, Peace and Security, to name a few (Oxfam, 2019, 2020). Despite these steps, it is time to critically explore the depths of these commitments in hopes of continuing the legacy of feminist work in challenging the status quo to be more inclusive, responsive, and ultimately equitable.

Based on the assumption that “the personal is political” and mapping this understanding on top of Ferguson’s (1994) concept of the “anti-politics machine”, this article explores the opportunities and limitations of the Canadian Government’s FIAP. After drawing our attention to the slogan “the personal is political” and presenting Ferguson’s “anti-politics machine”, this paper provides a brief introduction to the FIAP before diving into Canada’s relationship with Israel and Palestine/Gaza. Then, applying Ferguson’s “anti-politics machine”, it argues that despite having an international assistance policy predicated on feminist values, Canada’s FIAP falls short on its feminist aspirations. This, it argues, is a result of a narrow and tokenistic application of feminist principles which subsequently erases and ignores systems of unequal power and politics that create and perpetuate inequality, oppression, and insecurity.² In the context of our case study, Canadian development and humanitarian initiatives in Gaza are scrubbed of political dimensions and therefore utterly detached from the reality of the occupation and blockade and the subsequent impact on the lives of women and girls. I argue that the contradiction between the silencing of politics and power vis-à-vis the lives of women and girls is most evident in Canada’s unequivocal support for the Israeli state which manifests in an unwillingness to condemn, in any meaningful way, and pressure Israel to uphold international and humanitarian law in Palestine in international fora. This article concludes that Canada’s relationship and unwavering support for Israel, and the corresponding silence around its violations of human rights and international law in Gaza, inhibits Canada from upholding a truly “feminist” international assistance policy. As such, this article hopes to draw our attention to the innate contraction resulting from fidelity to these two identities.

The personal is political

“The personal is political” – a mobilization slogan derived from the title of Carol Hanisch’s, 1969 essay and adopted by the second-wave feminist movement, reminds us of the connections between personal gendered experiences and larger shared social and political structures. Although this slogan has been crucial in drawing our attention to women’s experiences in the public and private realms of life, I argue here for the need to revisit this slogan and to take a more holistic, and perhaps radical, interpretation of what this means in the current milieu in Canadian and global politics.

In Hanisch’s original essay The Personal is Political,³ she argued that problems faced by women in their personal lives were not simply private matters. Rather, they were systematic forms of oppression shaped, facilitated, and integrally connected to politics (Hanisch, 1969). In other words, political decisions affect the personal lives of women and men. Cynthia Enloe (1990) applied this to the field of International Relations in reminding us that not only is the personal political, but “the personal is international” and the “international is personal”; arguing, the relationship between states, have profound consequence for the lives of individuals.

Ferguson and the anti-politics machine

The contradictions inherent in the nexus of Canada’s feminist international assistance to Gaza and Canada’s relationship vis-à-vis Israel is best understood through the lens of Fergusons concept of the anti-politics machine.⁴ Ferguson’s (1994) seminal work highlighted how development discourse and practice reduced problems such as poverty to technical problems by dismissing the political and structural underpinnings. In doing so, because technical problems require technical solutions, Ferguson argued that development discourse and donors construct an equation which erases context and instead prescribe technical “solutions”. Nowhere in this equation is there a variable for the political and structural roots of the very problems they aim to address. Therefore, despite large sums of money being spent to provide technical solutions to depoliticized problems such as hunger, health & sanitation, etc., these problems remain. This often results in interventions failing to be constructed through impartial and context-specific evaluation. Rather, they are often based on pre-fabricated interventions borne out of a donor’s playbook. Ferguson writes, “political and structural causes of poverty in Lesotho are systematically erased and replaced with technical ones, and the ‘modern', capitalist, industrialized nature of society is systematically understated or concealed.” (p. 66). This process results in what he calls the “anti-politics machine”. A machine, or process, which depoliticized “everything it touched[es], everywhere whisking political realities out of sight” (p. xv).

Practically, this de-politicization blatantly misses the mark in highly politicized contexts. For example, the Head of Research at Oxfam GB Dr. Duncan Green laments, “One ‘developer' asked my advice on what his country could do ‘to help these people' [black South Africans]”. When I suggested that his government might contemplate sanctions against apartheid, he replied with predictable irritation, “No, no! I mean development!” (Green, 2017). Brushing off considerations of sanctions as a means to pressure the South African Government to change its policies and treatment of black South Africans during apartheid, is indicative of the illusion that situations of poverty, inequality, etc. are not political and structural (at least not in the eyes of the international community), they are technical. They are development issues not political issues. Whether it is realpolitik at work, strategic compartmentalization, or willful denial, attitudes such as the ones expressed in the above quote remain pervasive in international development discourse and policy today. As we see in the case of the FIAP’s application in Gaza, this results in many well-intended policies targeting “women and girls” and gender equality being “applied in a technocratic manner, disconnected from the critical political processes surrounding gender relations” (Levy, 1998, p. 254). The disconnected mentioned by Levy (1998) is especially prevalent in the case of Palestine.

Canada’s FIAP

On October 19th, Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party won a majority government with 184 out of 338 seats in the Canadian House of Commons. Almost immediately, he signaled a significant deviation in both scope and focus from a decade of foreign and domestic policies rolled out over the previous decade under Harper’s Conservative Party. In addition to promises to re-engage with the international community/U.N. and a palpable shift in terms of Canada’s engagement in climate change and environmental issues, one of the more significant positions taken by the Liberal party was its explicit commitment to feminist principles and gender equality. After an extensive International Assistance and Defense Policy Review, in June of 2017, Canada’s new Feminist International Assistance Policy (FIAP) was released by Minister of International Development and La Francophonie Marie-Claude Bibeau. The 92-page document outlined how the Liberal Government planned to refocus Canada’s development and humanitarian efforts on advancing gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls. In theory, the new policy approach promotes one of the most important contributions of feminist theory to the field of international development, that is, the recognition that the whole field is gendered (Hooper, 2001).

In addition to a commitment to feminist principles outlined in the new FIAP, Canada also demonstrates a commitment to supporting and defending international law. According to the official Government of Canada website, “international assistance in the West Bank and Gaza reinforces Canadian diplomatic efforts to support the establishment of a law-based, peaceful and prosperous society” (Government of Canada, 2020b). It is fair to assume that a law-based society refers both to domestic law and order as well as human rights and humanitarian law. The official Government of Canada’s statement pairs well with an address made by Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Chrystia Freeland, to the House of Commons in 2017 while revealing Canada’s FIAP. Freeland highlighted the need for a strong and sustained Canadian commitment to, “a global order based on rules”.⁵ She went on to described a world in which “more powerful countries are constrained in their treatment of smaller ones by standards that are internationally respected, enforced and upheld”.⁶ Freeland’s speech is one of many Canadian gestures that lay credence to the fact that Canada’s new FIAP attempts to tie international assistance to fighting for gender equality, human rights, and respect for international law.

While labeling an international assistance policy “feminist” may signal a focus on gender equality, exactly what feminist means in this context, is ill-defined. There is no singular “feminism”. Great diversity and overlap exists between liberal, intersectional, radical, postmodern, post-colonial, Marxist, and standpoint feminism etc. However, what all “feminisms” do share is the goal of interrogating gendered power disparities and striving towards creating a more socially, politically, and economically equitable world through opposing oppression and domination. Given the differences that exist between feminisms, the fact that the FIAP fails to define what it means by “feminist” is problematic. By failing to define what it means by feminist or feminism, critics argue that the FIAP risks settling for instrumentalist, tokenistic, or a liberal feminist approach, which merely strive to include women into current systems and institutions, regardless of how broken or inherently oppressive they may be. This approach fails to address the root causes of inequality and thus holds little potential to contribute to sustainable change. Therefore, in line with scholars such as Tiessen (2019), this paper argues that if the FIAP hopes to play a part in improving the lives of “women and girls”, it must adopt a holistic and transformative interpretation of feminism, one that does not shy away from politics, and instead strives to address systematic inequality and oppression and aims to “permanently change the structures and institutions that perpetuate inequality” (Tiessen, 2019).

Context

In order to understand the politics underlying the situation in Gaza today, we must first briefly outline the historical context and explore Israel’s role as a political obstacle to improving the lives of women and girls in Gaza. After the failure of the 1947 partition plan and later the occupation of the West Bank, Gaza, and Golan Heights after the Six-Day War of 1967, the US brokered Oslo Accords in 1993 and 1995 (the Accords) were touted as the beginning of a peace process based on the U.N. Security Council Resolution 242⁷ and 338⁸, which, inter alia, aimed to fulfill the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination.⁹ Despite high hopes, neither peace nor self-determination resulted from these efforts. Further, due to the context of occupation from which the Accords and subsequent agreements and reforms were born, Israel retained – and continues to retain – the right to “intervene in the design and delivery” as well as “supervise, control, and veto” all development and aid programs in the region (Ibrahim & Beaudet, 2012, pp. 484–485). Needless to say, ubiquitous control and oversight from an occupying power with competing interests has the potential to severely restrict and distort the focus and goals of donor interventions. As such, many of the arrangements and structures that have occurred since the Accords have effectively locked Palestinian leadership into a position of “inevitable and irrevocable weakness” compared to Israel, resulting in an asymmetrical structural power relationship (Leech, 2014, p. 10). These asymmetric power relations, intrinsic to the occupation and codified in the Accords, have enabled Israel to exert ultimate control over the lives of Palestinians in general, and Gazans specifically, in areas such as economic development and sustainable livelihoods, health outcomes, and freedom of movement. As a result of these asymmetrical power relations and failure of the Accords to lead to Palestinian self-determination, “living and political conditions have continuously deteriorated since 1993. Over $35 billion (USD) in aid funding has failed to reverse this” (Wildeman, 2018, p. 36). Yet, as the above aims to make clear, without putting an end to Israel’s occupation and blockade of Gaza, there is very little hope of aid funding and development interventions achieving any of the goals of donors.

Gaza

With a landmass of 365 km2, Gaza is one of the most densely populated areas in the world, with 5,556 persons for every square kilometer (World Bank, 2018, p. 25). Characterized by a number of “crisis” – a crisis in livelihoods, healthcare, energy, water etc. – and surrounded by eight-meter-high concrete walls, triple-layer barbed wire fences, and a 1 km military-enforced buffer zone, Gaza has been under Israeli “exclusive authority” byway of a land, sea, and air blockade for 13 years. This “translates into full [Israeli] control over the movement of people and goods” (Roy, 2005, p. 67).

Following Israel’s disengagement from Gaza in 2005 which saw the withdrawal of approximately 8,500 Israeli settlers, Gaza held its first democratic elections in 2006, where Hamas – a Sunni-Islamist organization and offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt – was elected. Hamas’s electoral victory and eventual takeover of Gaza led the Israeli’s to seal off the borders in 2007. Immediately following the blockade, economic growth dropped to minus 7 percent that year (World Bank, 2018, p. 18). Today, Gazans – 70% of which are registered refugees – live under Hamas governance, a de facto government which lacks international legitimacy, and in many cases, domestic legitimacy.

The blockade has horrifying consequences for all those living inside Gaza. It is fair to say however, that given their subordinate role in society, women are particularly vulnerable to the effects of the occupation and blockade. Although Israeli forces are no longer stationed inside Gaza, the territory is heavily controlled by the Israeli military, which makes regular military incursions into the area. The latest large-scale military operation was in July-August 2014 and led to the death of 2,251 Palestinians, including 551 children and 299 women; and more than 1,500 Palestinian children were orphaned (Müller & Tranchant, 2017, p. 12). Israel controls the 5 crossings out of Gaza into Israel – Erez, Nahal Oz, Karni, Sufa and Kerem Shalom – and Egypt controls Rafah Crossing, which is the only other international border between Gaza and Egypt. The blockade makes import/export nearly impossible due to the fact that since the blockade was imposed in 2007, the Government of Israel has banned almost all exports out of Gaza (World Bank, 2018, p. 21). The blockade severely restricts the movement of goods such as building supplies, farming equipment, medicine and lifesaving medical equipment, and people – including students, workers, and critically ill patients. According to Roy (2005), “without porous boundaries allowing for the migration of workers to job markets … the Strip [Gaza] will remain an imprisoned enclave, precluding any viable economic solution” (p. 67). Adding to this, since the Six-Day-War in 1967, Israel has maintained full control of Gaza's 43 km coastline and territorial waters, inhibiting not only the once-thriving fishing industry, but also the prospect of a Gazan seaport, making it the only Mediterranean port closed to shipping.

Gaza currently has the highest unemployment rate in the World Bank’s World Development Indicators database (World Bank, 2018, p. 23). In 2016, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development released a report outlining the “staggering economic cost of occupation.” The report cited, inter alia, confiscation of Palestinian land, water, and other natural resources; limits on movement; fragmentation of domestic markets; separation from international markets; and destruction of assets, among the ways in which the occupation and blockade thwarts Palestinian economic growth. This, they argue, ultimately denies them of their fundamental human rights, including their right to development. The report unequivocally states that development and recovery from the current crisis in Gaza is “challenging without a lifting of the blockade, which collectively negatively affects the entire 1.8 million population of Gaza and deprives them of their economic, civil, social and cultural rights, as well as the right to development” (p. 8). Similarly, a 2018 World Bank Report cites the decade long Israeli blockade of Gaza as being responsible for hollowing out the productive sector and prevented the economy from achieving its potential.

Canada and Israel/Palestine

It would be forgivable if one were to assume, given its size and geographic location, that Israel/Palestine is of little importance to Canada. In fact, this region has, and continues to be particularly important to Canada’s international standing and self-image. Canada has a long history in Israel/Palestine, a history that earned Canada a Nobel Peace Prize for its involvement in the Suez Crisis and has been integral in shaping Canada’s “honest broker”, “peaceful mediator”, and “peacekeeper” identity. As outlined in the introduction to this special issue, while Canada was involved in drafting the partition plan between Mandatory Palestine and the future state of Israel in the 1940s, the Suez Crisis marked the beginning of decades of significant engagement with Israel and the Palestinians. In addition to being one of the largest and earliest donors for Palestinian refugees, Canada also has a track record of leadership on important aspects of the MEPP (see Introduction to this special issue).

Today, the region remains consequential to Canada’s identity and international standing. As highlighted in June 2020, it quite literally shapes Canada’s influence and admission to global bodies such as the United Nations. As Canada reflects on its lost 2020 bid for a temporary UN Security Council seat, it will become increasingly evident that Canada’s exceptional relationship with Israel has not gone unnoticed on the world stage. It will also become apparent that there is more at stake in regard to Canada’s foreign policy towards Israel/Palestine than arguments based on ethics and perceived inconsistencies between de facto versus de jure policy; there are consequences on the international stage. While Canada’s relationship with China, its highly criticized arms deal with Saudi Arabia, and its defense of SNC-Lavalin amidst fraud and bribery charges in Libya were cause for pause for UN ambassadors voting for the two rotational seats in 2020, perhaps the most contested and politically contentious topic was Canada’s relationship with Israel and its track-record of failing to support UNGA resolutions supporting Palestinians.

In an unprecedented move, civil society published an open letter to UN ambassadors, urging countries to vote against Canada's bid.¹⁰ This coincided with a Twitter campaign also targeting UN ambassadors, foreign ministers, and diplomatic missions in Ottawa with the hashtag #NoUNSC4Canada. In response to the open letter, the government responded with a rebuttal letter to all UN ambassadors refuting the claims made by civil society and defending its policy on Israel/Palestine.¹¹ It wasn’t just Canadian civil society linking Canada’s relationship with Israel and Palestine to its bid for a UNSC seat, on a visit to Israel in 2018, in an address to the Israeli Council on Foreign Relations, Canada’s Foreign Minister stated, “We believe our presence on the council can be an asset for Israel” (Government of Canada, 2018). While it is impossible to isolate the precise reason for Canada’s loss, it is clear that its relationship to Israel/Palestine played a decisive part and thus, remains important today.

Canada and Gaza/Palestine

Canada’s three areas of international assistance to the West Bank and Gaza are: 1) deliver humanitarian assistance, 2) increase economic opportunities, 3) justice sector reform (Government of Canada, 2020b). Since the release of the FIAP in 2017, all three of these areas specifically target women and girls with the aim of working towards gender equality and women’s empowerment. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) was established in 1949 to provide direct relief to Palestinian refugees in the wake of the 1948 Arab-Israeli conflict. Today, it is responsible for education, health care, relief and social services, and refugee camp infrastructure as well as playing a de facto governance role for more than 5 million refugees, approximately 1.4 million of whom live in Gaza (UNRWA, n.d). In 2016, after a six-year hiatus, Canada reinstated $25 million in annual funding to UNRWA. This funding strives towards “Improved resilience of Palestinians, including vulnerable women and children, to cope with the effects of the long-term crisis” (Government of Canada, 2020b).

Disaggregated data on Canadian development spending is not available for the West Bank and Gaza as many projects cover both areas and despite different political leadership in each, both areas are theoretically understood to be part of the same administrative body. Therefore, it is not possible to ascertain precise development or humanitarian spending targeted exclusively to Gaza. In 2017, Canadian official development assistance (ODA) to West Bank and Gaza was approximately $51,000,000, down from approximately $68,000,000 in 2016 (CIDP, 2018).

Canada’s focus on economic growth in the Palestinian territories is well founded given the most recent statistics. The West Bank, and particularly Gaza, are in the midst of an economic and livelihood crisis (see Dagher this issue). New statistics project Gaza to have one of the lowest GDPs per capita in the world at a little over $1,800 USD (World Bank, 2018, p. 22). This is compared to $3,996 USD in the West Bank, and $39,400 USD in Israel (Palestine Central Bureau of Statistics, 2018, p. 15; Bank of Israel, 2018). Moreover, four out of five families in Gaza do not have a stable source of income (ICRC, 2018). This is problematic for a number of reasons. Focusing specifically on the gendered consequences, a 2017 report by UN Women found that women in the poorest households in Gaza were more vulnerable to repetitive experiences of physical and sexual violence and were three times more likely to experience repetitive physical violence than women from wealthier households, 29% versus 9% (p. 19, 23).

Canada and Israel

During the era of Stephen Harper, then Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said, “It is hard to find a country friendlier to Israel than Canada” and Canada has continued to position itself as one of Israel’s staunchest supporters. Despite promises of “real change” since coming to power in 2015 (understood in Canada at the time to be a commitment to a complete policy shift from all things Stephen Harper), Trudeau’s Liberal government has largely kept with Harper’s policies vis-à-vis Israel, with very little, if any, substantive shifts in their engagement or support for the country (Leech & Swan, 2019; Musa & Arsenal this issue; Seligman, 2018, p. 81 & 92).

Across multiple administrations, Canada’s longstanding position vis-à-vis the Israeli occupation and blockade, has been that “the Fourth Geneva Convention applies in the occupied territories” (Government of Canada, 2020a). By acknowledging that the Fourth Geneva Convention applies, Canada has recognized the illegality of the occupation as well as Israeli settlements. Despite this longstanding de facto policy, very little – if any – action has been taken in order to demonstrate their commitment to upholding these principles. While Canada may have relatively little power in the international system (evidenced in its recent loss at the UNSC for one of two rotating seats), one area Canada has some leverage and a platform to “virtue signal”, or flex its soft power, is at the U.N. General Assembly (UNGA). In examining Canada’s voting at the UNGA and analyzing official statements by the Government of Canada related to the Palestinian/Israeli conflict, Leech and Swan (2019) argue that despite a mild rhetorical shift in relation to Canada’s relationship vis-à-vis the Palestinian/Israeli conflict, the Trudeau Government has perpetuated the Harper era narrow support for Israel despite its multiple violations of international law in Palestine. This unwavering support is best demonstrated in Canada’s voting record at UNGA. Every year the General Assembly votes on 16 resolutions pertaining to issues around international law and human rights as they relate to Palestine/Israel. These resolutions cover topics such as: A/RES/74/11 Peaceful Settlement of the Question of Palestine ¹²; A/RES/73/18 Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People¹³; and A/RES/74/83 Assistance to Palestine Refugees.¹⁴ Leech and Swan (2019) highlight a problematic trend in Canada’s voting history in relation to these 16 resolutions. By Stephen Harper’s second term (2006–2015), save one, Canada voted exclusively against all 16 resolutions. Despite promises of moving towards a more “balanced” approach, there has been absolutely no deviation in voting between the previous Harper government and the Trudeau Liberals. In order to contextualize this voting pattern, it is important to note that all 16 resolutions tabled at UNGA are regularly passed with an overwhelmingly number of countries (100 or more on every resolution) voting in favor of the resolutions, thus isolating Canada, along with a minority of 5–10 other countries such as Israel, the US, and a handful of Pacific Island microstates.

What does Canada’s relationship with Israel have to do with its commitments to a feminist international assistance policy?

What does Canada’s relationship with Israel and its voting at various United Nations fora have to do with its commitments to a Feminist International Assistance Policy, one might ask. The answer lies in the fact that under the FIAP, Canada provides development and humanitarian assistance specifically targeting women and girls in Gaza. The lives of these Gazan beneficiaries, however, are not only governed by, but are also utterly vulnerable to the diverse and omnipresent impacts of the Israeli occupation and blockade, a reality that makes development and humanitarian efforts aimed to improve their situation without also addressing the root cause of their insecurity – the occupation and blockade – ostensibly ineffective. What’s more, Canada repetitively favors relations with Israel over protecting its commitment to human rights based approach and feminist values vis-à-vis Palestinians and thus, its FIAP. This point was recently highlighted by Canada’s reaction to a draft resolution titled “Situation of and Assistance to Palestinian Women” (E/CN.6/2018/L.3) tabled in March 2018 at the 62 Session of the Commission on the Status of Women. The draft resolution reaffirmed that for Palestinian women, the Israeli occupation remains the major obstacle for the “advancement, self- reliance and integration in the development of their society” (p. 4). The resolution went on to express concern for the,

Continuation of home demolitions … as well as high rates of poverty, unemployment, food insecurity, inadequate water supply and unsafe drinking water, a sanitation crisis, shortages of electricity and fuel, incidents of domestic violence and declining health, education and living standards, including the rising incidence of trauma and the decline in their [women’s] psychological well-being, particularly in the Gaza Strip (p. 2).

The resolution concluded by calling on Israel to comply with the provisions and principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as well as “all other relevant rules, principles and instruments of international law” (p. 4). This draft resolution was approved by the Commission with 30 members voting in favor, 11 abstentions, and 4 voting against – Canada, Guatemala, Israel and the US. Once again, finding itself alongside a small minority of states defending the impunity with which Israel breaks international law and denies Palestinians their fundamental human rights. Given Canada’s recent efforts to champion the rights of women and girls and brand itself as “feminist”, it is difficult to understand why Canada would vote against a resolution supporting the human rights of Palestinian women. Despite Canada’s feminist rhetoric, this example illustrates an unwillingness to apply any sort of political capital towards meeting its commitments under the FIAP. This subsequently misses the fundamental premise of feminism, “the personal is political!”.

This section opened with asking “What does Canada’s relationship with Israel have to do with its commitments to a feminist international assistance policy?” Palestinian women exist under what some authors have called “double oppression”. First, the oppression, violence, and brutality of living under blockade and occupation; and second, patriarchal oppression and a culture that impedes their full equality as citizens (Holt, 2003; Rayman, Izen, & Parker, 2016, p. 4; Shalhoub Kevorkian, 2010). Extremely high rates of female unemployment – which are currently at 65.9% (Gisha, 2018, p. 1); exposure to water borne illnesses; dismal maternal healthcare; high rates of gender based violence; and the tremendous burden of maintaining a house in the midst of an energy, water, and livelihoods crisis all culminate in women’s inequality and disempowerment in Gaza. However, when asked about these challenges in interviews, Gazan women cite Israel’s actions (be it restrictions due to the blockade, military offensives, or targeted killings for example) as not only their primary concern, but also the underlying driver of most other insecurities. UN Women (2017) cite similar findings in their recent report on gender-based violence in Gaza. They note that the occupation and blockade lead to “suffering, deprivation, distress, absence of mental and physical wellbeing and lack of human security” (p. 8) for Gazan women. A few years prior in 2015, a Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) report exploring the impact of conflict on Gazan women noted, “any discussion of challenges facing women in Gaza must be set in the context of the on-going blockade” (p. 12). In regard to livelihoods and economic security, the occupation and blockade has limited women participation in economic sectors they historically engaged in prior to the blockade.¹⁵ Clearly, the occupation and blockade has a tremendously negative impact on the wellbeing of Gazan women. Herein lies the problem; despite having an international assistance policy predicated on feminist values, Canadian development and humanitarian initiatives in Gaza are scrubbed of political dimensions and therefore utterly detached from the reality of the occupation and blockade and the subsequent impact on the lives of women and girls.

Ferguson in Gaza

Although speaking to the de-politicized framing of poverty in Lesotho, in the following quote, Ferguson’s notion of the “anti-politics machine” bears a striking resemblance to what this article argues is taking place in the Palestinian context, “History as well as politics is swept aside, and the relationship between the two national economies of Lesotho and South Africa is seen as one of accidental geographic juxtaposition, not structural integration or political subordination” (p. 62). The process of de-politicizing poverty in Lesotho, is very similar to de-politicizing the plethora of insecurities and inequalities facing women in Gaza. This de-politicization results in a narrow understanding of the contributing factors shaping these insecurities. The conditions which contribute to and sustain the plethora of crisis facing women in Gaza such as livelihoods, economic, energy, and water/sanitation are forgotten, erased, ignored, “swept under the rug” as Ferguson details. Along with the conditions, accountability for creating these conditions is also ignored. No one stops to ask, “how does this livelihoods project actually address the root causes of women’s economic insecurity and inequality in Gaza?” Here, we see how development and humanitarian efforts targeting women under the FIAP remain trapped in neoliberal development orthodoxy that fails to address the political barriers to development, security, and equality in Gaza. Ferguson notes,

It is rarely asked why Lesotho is resource-poor (the answer of course is that most of the good Sotho land was taken by “neighboring South Africa”) or why it has the peculiar national boundaries it does (the answer being that it was created as a “native reserve” and labor pool for the South African economy) (p. 63).

Mimicking the above quote, it is rarely asked why Gazan women are resource poor (The answer of course is that Gaza has been under a land, sea, and air blockade for over a decade which locks Gazans into what some have called an “open air prison” where they are denied access to crucial tools and farming inputs such as fertilizer, tractors, and seeds. A blockade that radically limits any exports from Gaza, restricts building material necessary for building/rebuilding infrastructure and strips them of work and travel permits for employment outside of Gaza. A blockade that cuts Gazans access to fishing through enforcing a two nautical mile fishing zone – as opposed to the 20 nautical miles enshrined in Oslo and denies Gazans access to medical supplies and medical care) or why it has the particular geopolitical context and borders that it does (the answer being that in 1948, during Israel’s war of independence and Palestinian’s “Nakba”, 200,000 Palestinians made refugees by eviction or evacuation fled to Gaza followed by another wave of refugees in 1967 during the Six-Day War when Israel began its occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights).

The process of de-politicizing poverty in Lesotho to frame Lesotho as “a geography but no history” (Ferguson, 1994, p. 66) shares a striking resemblance to the de-politicization of the multiple crisis facing women in Gaza. These problems have become dislocated from the context that gave rise to them. When looking specifically to gender equality, Ferguson’s (1994) critique remains apropos,

By uncompromisingly reducing poverty to a technical problem, and by promising technical solutions to the sufferings of powerless and oppressed people, the hegemonic problematic of “development” is the principal means through which the question of poverty is de-politicized in the world today (p. 256).

Using the above quote and substituting the words poverty with gender inequality, we are left with a scathing reminder of how gender equality is de-politicized, taken out of the larger context of blockade and occupation, and framed as a technical problem to be solved by technical solutions in the FIAP.

In a 2018 report, Wildeman analyzed hundreds of official donor reports pertaining to development and aid spending in Palestine. Relating specifically to Canada, he found that, “while all the donors emphasized their close ties to the Palestinians, the Canadians were the only one to emphasize their close ties to Israel when discussing Palestinian development aid” (p. 158). Moreover, he notes that, “in all the 25 reports on their foreign aid programming from 1998 to 2016, the Canadian government does not refer to there being settlements, settlers, colonies or an occupation, even though these are the most important characteristics describing the Palestinian condition and the cause of their problems that any aid package should be responding to” (p. 163). By erasing the politics of occupation and blockade from interventions aimed at women’s empowerment and gender equality in Gaza, and “sanitizing the terminology” (ibid, p. 163) related to the context and drivers of insecurity facing Gazan women, so too is the possibility of the necessary political analysis erased. The erasure of political analysis leads to “isolated and piecemeal analysis of problems and solutions, resulting in the frequent confusion of surface appearance with underlying reality, symptoms with causes” (Kabeer, 1994, p. 73). In this sense, the feminist sentiment, “the personal is political” is lost and gender equality and women’s empowerment are stripped of their powerful feminist underpinnings. Here we see what Batliwala (2010) describes as,

[T]he once powerful idea and practice of women’s empowerment degenerated into a set of largely apolitical, technocratic, and narrow interventions that create nothing like the radical transformation envisaged by early women’s movement leaders (p. 114).

Similar to Batliwala’s critique, Canadian FIAP discourse, statements, and interventions make no reference to the larger political context in the contexts in which Canadian international assistance aims to “improve the lives of women and girls”. In the case of Gaza, Canadian assistance targeting women and girls fails to address the myriad destructive Israeli policies towards Gazan women (and men) – including 13 years of blockade which is a fundamental driver of insecurity for Gazan women. This article has argued that this has resulted in erasing the personal from the political and engaging in hollow, symptom-alleviating practices, rather than transformative actions aimed at redressing gross power imbalances and inequality.

Feminism without teeth

As this article has mentioned numerous times, feminist insight teaches us that the personal lives of women are shaped larger social and political structures and therefore, any commitment to “gender equality”, “women and girls”, and “women’s empowerment” must necessarily recognize that these are all social-political processes shaped by the distribution of power. Subsequently, working towards these goals requires “shifts in political, social, and economic power between and across both individuals and social groups” (Batliwala, 2010, p. 113). A feminist international assistance policy, with stated goals of women’s empowerment, gender equality, and human rights, must not let interests, such as economic, ideological, and domestic electoral considerations, override the commitment to women’s inalienable rights in Gaza (Barry, 2010; McDonald, 2006).

As part of the comprehensive International Assistance Review conducted by the Canadian government in 2016, a number of NGOs compiled a report providing recommendations towards developing the much anticipated FIAP. Their first key recommendation states, “Begin all international assistance decision-making with the fundamental question: how does this initiative address power and structural barriers to gender equality?” (p. 1). Now of course they may be referring to the micro scale in the sense that one must assess the gendered power relations within a household, work place, or community in order to ensure barriers are accurately identified and accounted for. But this can, and I argue should, also be understood in the broader more macro sense in-sync with Enloe’s (1990) call to bring feminist analysis into international politics. In the example of our case study, asking the question, “how does this initiative address power and structural barriers to gender equality?” would surely, first and foremost, point to the occupation and blockade.

Referring specifically to women’s economic inequality and empowerment, Oxfam Canada’s 2017 report Making Canada’s Foreign Policy Work for Women, noted, “A feminist approach to economic policy must go beyond integrating women into existing economic structures, and rather seek to break down unequal power structures that maintain their unequal positons” (2017b, p. 4). Yet, instead of addressing the blockade of Gaza, Canada has spent millions of dollars moving ahead, now under the banner of the FIAP, in development and humanitarian interventions aimed at supporting women’s participation in livelihood programs firmly situated within “existing economic structures”. What is ignored, is that the livelihoods crisis in Gaza is not only a result of women not being included in the economy. It is about the destruction of an entire economy and society by years of blockade and occupation. These interventions are void of complementary political efforts aimed at addressing the root causes of the livelihoods crisis and subsequent suffering and insecurity in Gaza. Providing development and humanitarian assistance to the people of Gaza without simultaneously seeking to break down unequal power structures resulting from Israel’s occupation, blockade, and siege on Gaza is irresponsible and strips “feminist policy” of its transformative power, thus further obscuring social and political problems in the region. By leaving the political context out of conversations around women and girls in Gaza, the destructive cycle of illegal activity remains intact; as does the guarantee that Gazans will continue to be deprived of their human rights as well as equality, dignity, security, and independence.

Ultimately, Canada’s reluctance to address the underlying root causes of the suffering of Gazan women allows Israel to continue to break international law, and settles for reacting to symptoms of abuse, rather than the abuse itself. Addressing symptoms is not only short sighted, unsustainable, and facilitates the entrenchment of the blockade and occupation¹⁶, but it is also fundamentally anti-feminist. The current approach must be understood as incompatible with a feminist approach to international assistance. Therefore, this article concludes with arguing that Canada’s feminist-inspired development and humanitarian assistance to Gaza must seek to address systemic and structural inequalities, policies, and practices by disrupting systems of unequal power at the local and political level. Otherwise, the lasting effects of efforts to promote gender equality and women’s empowerment will ultimately be eclipsed by the devastating impact of Israel’s occupation and blockade of Gaza which places families in crisis mode; a mode that allows for very little, if any, redistribution of power and decision making between men and women as well as inhibits sustainable improvements in economic security (Swan, 2018, pp. 38–39).

Conclusion

This article has critically evaluated Canada’s feminist commitments in its international assistance to Gaza and analyzed the consequences of circumnavigating the political and structural context in the region. I have argued that in order for international assistance to be “feminist”, it must go beyond a technocratic liberal approach that equates women’s empowerment with projects simply “targeting” women and girls and instead, address the complex political contexts in which women live and operate. Ultimately, this article suggests that the plight of Gazan women and girls cannot be disassociated from the political, social, and cultural milieu in which they live. The voices of beneficiaries in Gaza have spoken; what they need most – as women, as Gazans, as human beings – is an end to the occupation and blockade. This must be addressed and understood as integral to development and humanitarian work in the region.

If Canada is committed to standing true to its feminist aspirations, it must be steered by the fundamental feminist principle of, “the personal is political”. We need to move away from understanding feminism as a “project” or an intervention. Feminism is, and always has been, about redressing power imbalances. In the case of Gaza, this requires a dual approach to its gender work – i.e. addressing the Israeli occupation and blockade in tandem with more technical development and humanitarian interventions. In line with recommendations put forth in this article, Oxfam (2017a) concludes that in order for the international community to address the needs of Gazans, donors such as Canada must “Underpin all financial commitments in Gaza with matching commitments to diplomatic pressure to end the blockade” (p. 21). One method of doing this is through committing Canadian soft power towards addressing top-down political contexts which fuel inequality and insecurity, while at the same time investing financial resources into bottom-up development and humanitarian interventions targeting women and girls (this part Canada is already doing). Originally coined by Joseph Nye, soft power refers to a country’s ability to get others to do what they otherwise would not, without the use of force or military means. In the international arena, “the resources that produce soft power arise in large part from the values an organization or country expresses in its culture” (Nye, 2008, p. 95). If, as Nye (2008) posits, “the soft power of a country rests primarily on three resources: its culture … its political values … and its foreign policies” (p. 97), then, Canada possess the necessary resources to capitalize on its middle power status to influence the status quo in the region. As a founding member of the G7, G20, and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation; its longstanding international image as a defender of human rights and a promoter of human security, and its new focus on feminism; combined with its “cozy” relationship with Israel and its historical leadership on important aspects of the MEPP, Canada is uniquely positioned to exert pressure on Israel to end the occupation and blockade. Moreover, as the credibility and legitimacy of the world’s foremost super power – the US – crumbles before our eyes, Canada should not pass up the current opportunity to step in as a leader in promoting a “rules based international order” in hopes of contributing towards its laudable goal of “building a more peaceful, more inclusive and more prosperous world” through the “economic, political and social empowerment of women and girls” (Global Affairs Canada, 2017).

Canada should join the efforts of the United Nations and the ICRC in urging the Government of Israel to lift the blockade on Gaza, allowing free movement of people and goods, as well as access to fishing areas in Gaza’s territorial waters as agreed upon during the Oslo Accords. There is near unanimity on the economic and development benefits to lifting the blockade on Gaza, including from the World Bank, which asserts that doing so would lead to an additional cumulative growth of approximately 32% in the Gazan economy by 2025 (World Bank, 2018, p. 30). This would unequivocally improve the lives of women and girls in the Gaza Strip.

Although it would be naive to believe that Canada alone has the power to change the situation in Gaza, as a middle power with significant soft power and established relationships with both Israel and Palestine, there are a number of steps it could take to not only make the occupation and blockade less economically beneficial to Israel, but also harder to execute through promulgating a more balanced global narrative. Canada could: 1) utilize its standing in international institutions such as the United Nations and the International Criminal Court to support initiatives put forth by Palestinians and the international community aimed at ending the blockade and occupation in Palestine; 2) adopt a more balanced approach in their voting at the United Nations General Assembly; and 3) join countries such as France and other European countries in banning the importing and sales of Israeli products produced in settlements in the West Bank.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by International Development Research Centre: [Grant Number 108279-007]; Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation: [Grant Number N/A]; Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada: [Grant Number 752-2015-0048].

Notes on contributors

Emma Swan

Emma Swan, Pierre Elliott Trudeau Scholar, School of International Development and Global Studies, University of Ottawa.

Notes

1 For full text see: https://www.international.gc.ca/world-monde/issues_development-enjeux_developpement/priorities-priorites/policy-politique.aspx?lang=eng

2 While this paper focuses on the FIAP’s stated goals of ‘women’s empowerment’ and ‘gender equality’, it is important to note that in order to achieve these laud goals, taking an intersectional approach committed to confronting multiple axes of inequality and systematic discrimination to address women’s diverse experiences of insecurity and inequality is crucial. Contributing to the FIAP’s shortcomings, other authors such as Mason (2019) have called into question Canada’s adoption of ‘intersectionality’ in the FIAP. Mason (2019) argues that the bureaucratization of intersectionality in the FIAP “risks flattening out the hierarchal power analyses of intersectionality, ultimately concretizing traditional gender and development frames rather than transforming them” (p. 204). Looking specifically at Palestine, authors such as Jasbir Puar address the importance of taking an intersectional approach to understanding insecurity and inequality. In her book The Right to Maim, she notes “Efforts to claim disability as an empowered identity and to address ableism in Palestine will continue to be thwarted until the main source of producing debilitation— the occupation—is ended. The former simply cannot happen without the latter” (p. 161).

3 For the original essay published in Notes from the Second Year: Women’s Liberation and updated discussion by Hanisch (2006) on the popularization and title of her essay, see: https://webhome.cs.uvic.ca/~mserra/AttachedFiles/PersonalPolitical.pdf

4 For additional examples of the application of Ferguson’s anti-politics machine as an analytical framework see: Bryan (2011); Chhotray (2007); and Sydow (2016).

5 For full transcript of her address see https://www.canada.ca/en/global-affairs/news/2017/06/address_by_ministerfreelandoncanadasforeignpolicypriorities.html

6 https://www.canada.ca/en/global-affairs/news/2017/06/address_by_ministerfreelandoncanadasforeignpolicypriorities.html

7 http://unscr.com/en/resolutions/doc/242

8 http://unscr.com/en/resolutions/doc/338

9 While UNSCR 242 and 338 provided the current framework for peace, or what is referred to as the “land for peace” formula, the interpretation of these Resolutions is far from straightforward. For a more detailed discussion regarding interpretations, omissions and short comings of these resolutions, see: McDowall (2014); Quigley (2007); Dajani (2007).

10 For full transcript of open letter, see: https://www.justpeaceadvocates.ca/palestine-canada-and-un/?

11 For full transcript of Marc-André Blanchard’s response to open letter, see: https://www.ceasefire.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/blanchard-to-ambassadors-on-annexation-letter.pdf

12 https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/3837828?ln=en

13 https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/1654157?ln=en

14 https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/3846442?ln=en

15 For example, the number of women working in the fishing and agriculture sectors, plummeted from 36% in 2007 to just 4% today (Gisha, 2018, p. 2). Moreover, at the end of 2016, only 2% of the valid trader permits which grant Gazans access to Israel and the West Bank to conduct business, were held by women traders (Gisha, 2018, p. 2).

16 Canada’s unwillingness to apply political capital towards addressing the root causes of insecurity, ie. Israeli practices which are detrimental to the security and equality of Palestinians, is not unique to Canada. Many authors have argued that by failing to engage with political solutions to challenges facing Palestinians and instead dumping more and more money into aid and development, the international community (and countries such as Canada), have contributed to the perpetuation and entrenchment of the occupation (See Bahdi & Kassis, 2016; Hanieh, 2016; Nakhleh, 2004; Wildeman, 2016, 2019).