Description
The article engages the European Union’s (EU) implementation of counterterrorism clauses as part of its development aid regulations in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT). The point of departure for the research is the shift in the EU’s policy for aid regulations in the OPT in 2019, when the EU began to gradually implement counterterrorism clauses in its grant contracts, a measure that sparked widespread protests from local non-governmental organisations (NGOs), who critiqued the clauses as an explicit attempt to further pacify civil society. Situated within the realms of Postcolonial Theory and Critical Security Studies, the article draws on semi-structured interviews, with staff and representatives of local NGOs in the OPT. Through the qualitative fieldwork I seek to unpack the perceptions of local actors who contend that the said clauses infringe on their right to self-determination, including the internationally recognised right to resist a settler-colonial regime. In doing so, the article eludicates the tensions between an expanding European counterterrorism regime, increasingly permeating the sphere of development aid, and perspectives of local actors in the global South who discern these policies as deeply rooted in colonial paradigms.
