The Politics of Reconstruction

Professor Husam Zomlot

Research Fellow at Harvard University’s Center of Middle East Studies Husam Zomlot presented his Issam Fares Institute-sponsored lecture, “The Politics of Reconstruction: The Cases of Gaza and Lebanon” on March 18, in College Hall, Auditorium B1, Zomlot used Lebanon’s recent reconstruction experience as a departure point to focus on “misguided and misled” international reconstruction efforts in the case of Palestine, and to discuss appropriate reactions.

Zomlot defined three phases of reconstruction for a state to re-stabilize itself: a security transition, a democratic transition, and a socioeconomic transition. In the case of most post-conflict situations the international community respects this framework, except in the case of Palestine, he argued. “Palestinians have never passed through the first transition,” he claimed, underlining international focus on the third transition and the international boycott of the second, when Hamas was elected democratically in 2006.

Despite arguing that international aid has had a crippling effect on Palestinians by rendering them dependent on external sources for survival under occupation, Zomlot did not condemn the West. Branding its decisions as based on “a faulty set of assumptions,” he used the well-intentioned errors as a rallying call for the Arab community to produce its own organic thinking. “The West is so far unable to understand the dynamics of the region,” he said.

Regarding the recent war in Gaza, Zomlot took an unexpected positive turn, asking, “Can this destruction be turned into an opportunity?” Asserting that the power of the catastrophe must be channeled into urging the international community to challenge its assumptions, he also stressed the need for an organic regional collective to “replace some of this nonsense.” Believing that such a shift is arising, Zomlot optimistically concluded, “The journey of opening this subject has started . . .  people of the region are aware, interested, and keen to challenge this.”

Husam Zomlot holds a PhD degree in economics from the University of London, was a PLO representative to the UK (2003-08), and worked previously with the United Nations, the Oxford Research Group, the London School of Economics, and the Palestine Economic Policy Research Institute.