Dutch Development Policy Towards the Middle East
Tom de Quaasteniet, of Middle East Research Associates in Amsterdam, gives a concise history and critique of Dutch governmental policy regarding development aid to the Middle East. He highlights discrepancies between official criteria for aid allocation and the actual practice of allocation, and devotes a large proportion of the study to investigating the attitude of the Dutch government to the Palestinian Territories. Dutch reluctance to become involved with the issue is shown to have slowly become more positive and the author expresses hope that this trend will continue in the future. The study makes use of a variety of tables to support its findings and gives a good overall picture of the intricacies and contradictions of development policy and development aid.