Nous proposons ici la lecture d’articles publiés dans les médias entre le 14 octobre 2023 et le 10 janvier 2024 au sujet de la guerre Israël / Palestine par des intellectuels, des chercheurs et des journalistes, ainsi que deux témoignages d’écrivains palestiniens. Ces analyses permettent, nous semble-t-il, de mieux comprendre la situation tragique qui a cours en l’inscrivant dans une pluralité de dimensions : historique, démographique, politique et géopolitique.

Challenging the idea that humanitarian actors can act free from politics by virtue of their principles, this chapter argues that the politicization of humanitarian aid is in fact the primary condition for its deployment. Humanitarian actors can only act if they maintain a balance between their own interests and those of people in positions of power. This raises a crucial ethical question: At what point do humanitarian organisations consider that deals reached with political powers cross the blurred but very real line beyond which humanitarian assistance does more harm than good?

Dans le journal Libération, Rony Brauman constate que le conflit israélo-palestinien suscite dans le monde entier des mobilisations sociales et des réactions passionnées, qu’aucun autre conflit armé ne connaît. À rebours d’une explication par une supposée judéophobie générale, il propose une lecture historique et politique de ce phénomène.

This article was published in the London Review of books website on September 8, 2023. The former evokes the dire conditions in which roughly 1 000 000 Rohingyas live in Cox’s Bazar, the largest refugee camp in the world. In this coastal district in south-east Bangladesh, the humanitarian deployment is impressive, but commitment by donors is waning. Between March and June, monthly food allocations fell from $12 to $8 per person. The difficulties of accessing care, the social control to which they are subjected and the lack of prospects are many reasons explaining the perils faced by the Rohingya population.

Pour Rony Brauman le fait de concentrer leur action sur l’aide humanitaire est une façon pour les pays occidentaux d’apparaître comme les garants du droit international tout en se soumettant à la loi du plus fort. Cet entretien est disponible sur le site internet de Philosophie magazine.

This interview by Didier Billion and Marc Verzeroli was originally published in the Revue internationale et stratégique. To examine the concept of de-westernization, Rony Brauman describes the current state of international relations, marked by fluid alliances and new power relationships. He states and details his reservations about whether universal values truly exist and how the international criminal justice system functions.

Nous publions ici le compte-rendu de Jules Lyothier (Cairn, 2020)  du livre de J.-H. Bradol et M. Le Pape (Génocide et crimes de masse, 2017) car la lecture de ce texte rend sensible l’intérêt toujours actuel d’observer, et de ne pas oublier, l’expérience rwandaise de MSF entre 1982 et 1997. En effet, ce compte-rendu met en évidence plusieurs dilemmes, tensions, controverses observables autrefois mais dont certains restent bien présents et parfois vivaces aujourd’hui.

In Groupe URD's new issue of "Humanitaires en mouvement" (n°25), Michaël Neuman describes rescue operations in the Mediterranean and the strategies put in place by MSF to adapt to the constraints imposed by governments.

The central question raised in this discussion relates to two profoundly intermeshed issues for humanitarian practitioners and organisations: the use of history for humanitarian organisations, and the need for them to preserve and maintain archives

Michaël Neuman describes his visit to Goma’s IDP camps, where he spent two weeks. He shares his dismay at the low level of assistance provided by the aid sector, especially when we recall that the Sphere standards, born precisely out of the failure of the humanitarian response in this same region of Goma in the mid-1990s, were conceived and championed by all of us.

This article was published on March 27th, 2023 in the journal Alternatives Humanitaires, in an edition focused on mental health.

Based on a reflection regarding how patient rights have changed, in France in particular, Fabrice Weissman discusses humanitarian medicine’s shortcomings in that regard and proposes several avenues for improvement at MSF.  This text was originally posted on MSF’s associative website, The Souk.