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An urgent examination of Palestine's humanitarian crisis—revealing international aid as both a lifeline and an instrument of colonial power.
For decades, the international community, Israeli occupation, and Palestinian elites have engineered the humanitarianization of the Palestinian Territories—reframing the question of Palestine as a humanitarian concern rather than a political one. Today, the West Bank and Gaza Strip have become the world's humanitarian laboratory, and Palestinians are among the largest recipients per capita of humanitarian aid. This aid provides Palestinians with essential tools for survival and resilience, yet it has also entrenched Israeli colonial control.
Across a series of bracing essays authored by anthropologist Sa'ed Atshan, In a Land of Aid traces how humanitarianism has become the dominant lens through which Palestinian life is now governed. Drawing on over a decade of research, Atshan introduces readers to foreign aid workers, policymakers, scholars, and Palestinians as they navigate political constraints on the ground. Together, these encounters reveal an aid apparatus riddled with contradiction: simultaneously sustaining life, narrowing political imagination, and generating new forms of inequality and contestation.
Writing with principled care, Atshan amplifies Palestinian voices that express growing ambivalence toward both the prevailing humanitarian discourse and the inherited resistance narratives that no longer fully capture their embodied realities. Atshan finds that to understand contemporary global humanitarianism, we must reckon with its impact in Palestine; and to understand contemporary Palestinian society, we must confront the role of aid. Ultimately, this book insists that the most powerful response to the paradoxically dehumanizing effects of aid lies in our affirmation of shared humanity.
"In this series of heartfelt essays, Sa'ed Atshan resolutely confronts the ongoing agony of Palestine and the limits of humanitarianism. Combining recent scholarship with a deeply personal perspective, he advocates for peace amid a continuing struggle for justice." —Peter Redfield, author ofLife in Crisis: The Ethical Journey of Doctors Without Borders
"A remarkable and deeply moving book. Sa'ed Atshan intertwines lived experience with incisive analysis, exposing the contradictions of humanitarian aid while affirming the dignity, resilience, and humanity of Palestinians facing ongoing occupation and identity erasure." —Karam Dana, author of To Stand with Palestine: Transnational Resistance and Political Evolution in the United States
"While honoring the work of global and local humanitarians, Sa'ed Atshan bears vivid witness to Palestinian life under violent colonial rule. A masterful account of the Palestinian condition—immensely powerful, brilliant, and stunning—this book should be read by all."—Marcia C. Inhorn, author of The New Arab Man: Emergent Masculinities, Technologies, and Islam in the Middle East
"Thisinnovative, eloquentbook is a must-read for anyone seeking to learn about humanitarianism in Palestine—or anywhere else. Sa'ed Atshan writes with a deeply compelling sense of connection, and a hopeful voice that grapples sincerely with the weight of these devastating times." —Amahl Bishara, author of Crossing a Line: Law, Violence, and Roadblocks to Palestinian Political Expression
"In a time of disappearance of the tragic doom of Palestinians from public attention and international agenda, In a Land of Aid is an urgent reading. A thorough reflection on the necessity and predicament of humanitarianism, it resists the present ethical collapse in the face of the erasure of a people." —Didier Fassin, author of Moral Abdication: How the World Failed to Stop the Destruction of Gaza
"Sa'ed Atshan reimagines what a better future could be in the context of what today seems so remote: a more hopeful Middle East. With powerful examples, he illustrates how humanitarianism for Palestinians can be reformed and redirected. An important and inspiring book!" —Arthur Kleinman, author ofThe Soul of Care: The Moral Education of a Husband and a Doctor
"At a moment when humanitarianism is used to camouflage genocide and crimes against humanity, Sa'ed Atshan's precise, delicate, intimate, layered, and profound ethnographic and analytic prose illuminates paradoxes of humanitarianism in Palestine and beyond.Arequired read." —Atalia Omer, author ofDays of Awe: Reimagining Jewishness in Solidarity with Palestinians