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The relations between Israel and Syria are usually framed in the context of war and conflict. It is less known, however, that Israel provided humanitarian assistance to Syrians residing in the Al-Qunaytirah region from 2012/2013 to 2018. The purpose of this article is to explore if humanitarian goods and medical services from Israel and return gifts the Syrian side can be interpreted gift exchange in Maussan terms, the theoretical purpose of which is substituting war and establishing friendly relations between enemies. The argument is based on the content analysis of primary and secondary sources, a visual material, and interviews with key informants. Findings indicate that cross-border exchanges offered a way, even if temporarily, out of the reproduction of hostility in the direct vicinity of the border. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the European Union has recently become a champion of privacy rights and data protection, by enacting its General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in 2018, there is a growing body of research on the costs and benefits of digitalisation in the aid industry. On the 'cost' side, risks associated with privacy and protection of personal data are clear. The purpose of this paper is to explore how the EU and European aid organisations can protect the privacy rights of individuals residing outside the EU's borders, by scrutinising those GDPR articles that may be relevant from the perspectives of aid-implementing actors working outside the EU and the European Economic Area (EEA). This analysis of the important EU documents describing its foreign and development policies shows that promoting digitalisation outside of the EU seems to be more important to the EU than data protection. Furthermore, while aid organisations registered in the EU/EEA are supposed to comply with GDPR, the regulation's territorial scope is not clear enough and the EU is not able to protect the privacy rights of individuals residing in the Global South, nor is it necessarily interested in doing so. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article is concerned with the perceptions and experiences of civil society actors receiving foreign aid from international and regional donors. By means of qualitative data analysis and within the analytical framework of gift exchange it aims to explore the ‘spiritual essence’ of contemporary gifts. Findings draw attention both to conflict and cooperation entailed by external gifts in light of the multiple understandings of culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Causes and consequences of the Arab Spring have received considerable attention since winter 2010/11. While concerns about the stability of regimes go back many decades, fears about the decreasing legitimacy of long-supported allies and the growing instability in the Middle East and North Africa are at a higher level now than before. The traditional trade-off between the foreign support channelled in the form of aid to ‘cooperative’ governments in the Middle East and benefits (stability) gained from such support has been challenged by the Arab Spring. The paper aims to explore the interactions between foreign aid and legitimacy by focusing on how Western foreign aid functions when channelled to parties with conflicting interests and values. The results suggest that foreign aid may contribute to stability as long as the internal legitimacy of the beneficiary is not challenged on the grounds of serving foreign interests. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]