Quote Originally Posted by Rex Brynen View Post
That being said, I don't think you can say that "99% of the Conflict Industry wants to ignore" it. On the contrary, ever since Mary B Anderson wrote Do No Harm, hardly a week goes by without a conference on the moral dilemmas and operational imperatives of this issue. Indeed, much of the work on "peace and conflict impact assessment" or "conflict sensitive development," the "ethics of peacebuilding,"(etc, etc) is motivated by precisely this concern, namely that humanitarian and development assistance can serve to exacerbate, rather than mitigate, armed conflict, or otherwise have perverse social and political effects.
Well 99% may have been harsh but, excepting your examples, I have yet to see most NGOs really seriously question their role beyond the most basic levels. What ever questioning they do, it never seems to translate into action. - as you say,
The real question, IMHO, is why having recognized the nature of the dilemma, do mistakes get repeated.
Moreover, its not as if they face easy choices in highly politicized environments: when UNRWA complained about IDF hits on its facilities in Gaza, it was accused of a pro-Hamas bias; when it teaches about the Holocaust in its schools or promotes tolerance at its summer camps it is accused by Hamas of serving a Zionist agenda.
While in no way excusing any deliberate action taken against UNRWA, it may well be the perception of their alleged pro-Hamas bias that results in such unfortunate action, or "message sending."

Yes it's a tough job, but make the situation far worse when you start giving TV interviews, saying X and Y happened when you cannot possibly know or start repeating what the local Hamas IO man told you. You are making yourself an actor in the conflict. How can that help?