Aid memoire
Palestine, Issue 1610 "I RECOGNISE that the Palestinian people are suffering terribly," intoned Rishi Sunak at his sincerest in the Commons last week. "Too many lives have already been lost, and the humanitarian crisis is growing."

Hence he would be "providing an additional £20m of humanitarian aid to civilians in Gaza – more than doubling our previous support to the Palestinian people".

To say this puts a favourable gloss on his record in relation to the Palestinian territories is an understatement.

Cutting crew
In 2020/21, the year before then chancellor Sunak's dramatic cut in the aid budget from 0.7 percent of national income to 0.5 percent came into effect, assistance to the Palestinian territories directly and through multilateral bodies ran to £92m. That's 60 percent more than the total £57m that it will be in this year of crisis for the region, even after last week's announcement.

Most of the reduction in aid is accounted for by cutting the UK's contribution to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), operating in the eye of the current storm, from £43m in 2020 to around £20m this financial year.

West Bank deposit
Britain's support for the Palestinian territories this year had been even more parsimonious until foreign secretary James Cleverly visited the West Bank in September and upped the £17m total pencilled in with an extra £10m through the UNRWA, warning of a "humanitarian crisis facing Palestinian refugees". And that was before Hamas's atrocities prompted the Israeli reprisals that make the word crisis inadequate.

Cleverly even had the brass neck to urge the "international community to follow [the] UK lead on UNRWA and step up their support".

UK aid to the Palestinian territories, towards which a British government might be expected to feel a certain historical responsibility, peaked at £106m in 2019/20 and had exceeded £70m every year since 2012. Then came Sunak with his domestic crowd-pleasing but consequence- blind aid cuts.

So, while he has more than doubled support from the derisory figure it was set to be this year thanks to his strictures, Rishi's record is less one of support for the Palestinians than abandonment.