Crisis professional reports
“Interview Gerald Rockenschaub”
Europe is more than ever surrounded by powder kegs. War in Ukraine, war in the Gaza Strip, Lebanon in a downward spiral. One person who knows all about such situations is WHO crisis manager Gerald Rockenschaub from Graz, who has been working in war zones around the world for decades.
In his 20 years at the World Health Organization, the Bruck native was most recently in demand as director for health emergencies in the WHO Europe region, which includes Israel. Last year, he retired on paper and settled in Graz after working in the USA, Ethiopia, Kosovo, Israel and Albania. Despite this, he once again traveled to the Middle East on behalf of the WHO, where he had headed the office in the occupied Palestinian territories for seven years.
Months in the Middle East and Ukraine even in retirement
Rockenschaub only returned at the end of September from his six-month stay in Jerusalem and Amman, where he explored possibilities for humanitarian aid and reconstruction in the bombed-out Gaza Strip. Next week, the 66-year-old will travel to war-torn Ukraine. In the meantime, he accepted the biennial Bruno Kreisky Prize for services to human rights.
"Krone": What impressions did you gain during your recent extended stay in the Middle East? Is it even possible to compare the current situation with your time as WHO office director until 2021?
GeraldRockenschaub: It's a completely new dimension compared to the period from 2014 to 2021. Back then, I was still able to travel to the Gaza Strip relatively often. The terrorist attack by Hamas on October 7 of the previous year changed everything and was a drastic experience for the Israelis and the Jewish community in general. They had previously been sold the illusion that the Palestinian conflict could somehow be managed by ignoring it, but now the security bubble has burst.
You have traveled professionally to countless war and crisis zones, from Afghanistan to Ethiopia to Chechnya. Is the current conflict in the Middle East the most dramatic you have experienced so far?
Yes, there is almost no hospital in the Gaza Strip that has not been damaged. Schools, water supplies, sewage facilities and civilian infrastructure have been destroyed on a large scale. We have hardly seen this extent anywhere else.
What long-term consequences do you fear for the region?
The destruction of infrastructure and livelihoods has the potential to drive young people further into extremism. People then often simply see no other choice if they are not offered any educational prospects, for example. Humanitarian suffering is often underrepresented in Western reporting. Even if the trauma of the Israelis is undisputed: bombing hospitals and destroying schools, razing infrastructure to the ground, that can't be right either.
What can international politics do to counteract this?
There needs to be a massive rethink, which is not really visible at the moment. The USA has also lost credibility due to its relatively one-sided support for Israel, and the UN has unfortunately been undermined to such an extent that all appeals for peace have fallen flat. I hope that a possible US President Kamala Harris will be able to play a somewhat more effective role.
Does Europe need to get more involved?
It's difficult in the EU because the individual states have very different positions and don't speak with one voice when it comes to the Middle East. I believe that the Arab countries could be given more weight. An upgraded UN could also fill the gap, but this would require political will on both sides - from the Palestinians and the Israelis. I currently see hardly any signs of this, especially in Israel.
In your speech on receiving the Kreisky Prize last week, you said that the Jewish community had suffered a "collective trauma". Do you have the impression that, one year after the catastrophe of October 7, we are moving in the right direction, or is the ongoing crisis mode preventing this?
Israel is a divided society. The conservative core wants to completely eliminate the Palestinians from the region, while more progressive forces do not have the necessary political influence at the moment. In the beginning, they also took a hard line towards the Palestinians. After a year of war, these forces are slowly coming around.
Is there any way out at the moment or is it further away than ever due to the enormous bloodshed?
Time heals all wounds - but it will take a lot of time. Both sides need a political leader who is somehow capable of compromise. I don't see anyone like that in Israel at the moment. On the Palestinian side, this could possibly be Mustafa Barghuthi, who is quite eloquent as a doctor and civil rights activist and also has an international presence.
You have been with the WHO since 2004. In that time, has there been anything like the current accumulation of trouble spots in and around Europe?
No. The conflicts in the Middle East have the explosive power to develop into a global crisis. If the region destabilizes further and Iran joins the conflict or the USA sides with Israel, it could turn into a global conflict. But that is also the case in Ukraine, and we must not forget that. As Europeans, the Ukraine conflict is perhaps a little closer to us, but in the media there has been a shift towards the Middle East since October 7. The catastrophic situation in Syria, Yemen and Afghanistan also receives little attention compared to the escalation in the Middle East. This also has an impact on the availability of humanitarian funds and aid.
About the person
Dr. Gerald Rockenschaub was born in Bruck an der Mur in 1958. After studying medicine at the University of Graz, he initially worked in the field of surgery and emergency medicine at Bruck Regional Hospital. At Boston University, he obtained a Master's degree in Public Health with a focus on health management. In the 1990s, he supervised his first aid projects in Ethiopia, Eritrea and Kosovo before joining the WHO in 2004. There he was initially a regional advisor and program manager, and in 2014 he took over as head of the WHO office for the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Via Albania, his path led him to Copenhagen in November 2021, where he was WHO Director for Health Emergencies in the European Region for two years. Since his retirement last fall, Rockenschaub has continued to work for the WHO on a consultant basis, currently in Israel, Jordan and Ukraine, for example.
On Friday, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the Japanese anti-nuclear weapons organization NihonHidankyo. Who would be a worthy candidate for you?
I would probably award it to a humanitarian aid organization - especially with regard to the Gaza conflict. More than 300 aid workers have lost their lives in the Gaza Strip so far, which is an enormous toll.
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