Oxfam fights poverty. Unless Israel wants to give jobs. In that case it fights for poverty.

 As written by Max Fisher of Washington Post, Oxfam says it is against poverty in Palestine. Except when that poverty alleviation is created by an Israeli company which builds a factory that pays Palestinians far above Palestinian wages to lift them out of poverty…

Scarlett Johansson, associated with both, picked the ones providing jobs and thus poverty relief over those who want to boycott those who provide jobs because “bridge to peace between Israel and Palestine, supporting neighbors working alongside each other, receiving equal pay, equal benefits and equal rights.” 

 This is a case of how NGO’s are often less about help and more about politics. This may not go over well for Johansson because people prefer to keep poor Palestinians. People do not care that Palestinians are semi-autonomous, that they are living under a dictatorship. They don’t care that the Abbas, the prime minister elected to a four year term has been in power for eleven.

 Why? Because poverty in Palestine legitimizes criticism of Israel, and those who criticize Israel use Palestinians as a pretext, not because they care for their lives, otherwise they would support Israel investing and providing jobs to Palestinians instead of supporting poverty created by corruption and dictatorship.

Luckily NPR has a much better coverage of the non-issue made into an issue than some Washington Post bloggers who avoid delving into issues under the cover of “complicated”.