Ramzy Baroud's Blog

The numbers are grim, whether in the West Bank or the Gaza Strip. The
Palestinian economy is in one of its most wretched states, and the disaster is
mostly, if not entirely manmade, thus reversible. 

The World Bank made no secret of the fact that Israeli restrictions are largely
to blame, as poverty rates in the Gaza Strip and West Bank have soared to 79.4
per cent and 45.7 per cent respectively. It concluded: "With a growing
population and a shrinking economy, real per capita GDP is now 30 per cent below
its height in 1999." "With due regard to Israel's security concerns, there is
consensus on the paralytic effect of the current physical obstacles placed on
the Palestinian economy," it added.

With a declining economy, lack of developmental projects and Israeli
restrictions, Palestinians are increasingly reliant on foreign aid, which is
largely controlled by political interests. For example, the US proved more
generous than ever in supporting the Ramallah-based government of Mahmoud Abbas
as it led an international regime of sanctions and embargo against the
Gaza-based Hamas government. Such funds are often conditioned on such murky
concepts as "cracking down on the terrorist infrastructure", which is duly
understood as fighting those who challenge Israel and Palestinian Authority (PA)
rule in the West Bank. 

Nonetheless, even if the PA had no history of corruption and genuinely intended
to invest in a sustainable economy, no truly free and independent economy can
flourish under occupation, whose very intention is the disempowerment of
Palestinian workers, farmers and the middle class. It is these strata of
Palestinian society that have led the struggle to end the occupation on the one
hand and to resist local corruption on the other. 

Indeed, Israeli restrictions are not coincidental and hardly confined to the
classic reasoning pertaining to national security. "In reality, these
restrictions go beyond concrete and earth-mounds, and extend to a system of
physical, institutional and administrative restrictions that form an impermeable
barrier against the realisation of Palestinian economic potential," the World
Bank said. It concluded that more aid would not revive the Palestinian economy,
unless the above restrictions are removed. 

But these restrictions represent the backbone of Israeli policy; removing them
would deny the Israeli government political leverage over Abbas's government. By
extension, the US is in no mood to help Palestinians develop a strong economic
base and infrastructure, enough to spare Palestinians the indignity of living on
international donor handouts.

In the West Bank, Palestinian economic woes are compounded by a terrible water
crisis, a nightmare for farmers who are already struggling to endure Israeli
water theft and disproportionate water distribution. According to a recent
report by the Israeli human rights group B'tselem, an Israeli household consumes
on average 3.5 times as much water as a Palestinian household. The group blames
Israel for its discriminatory policy and tight restrictions that prevent
Palestinians from drilling new wells. One fails to see how Israel's "security"
concerns can ever justify Israel's plundering of Palestinian water using West
Bank aquifers while many Palestinian families in cities like Jenin have been
denied water since April.

While many farmers found themselves unable to preserve their livelihoods,
ordinary people have to spend a significant proportion of their meagre incomes
buying water. A recent UN report, cited by news agencies, estimated that
Palestinians in the hardest-hit communities spend 30 to 40 per cent of their
incomes to purchase water delivered by trucks. How can a sustainable economy
with a sensible growth level be achieved under these circumstances? 

If the situation is difficult in the West Bank, it's impossible in Gaza. A
report in March sponsored by Amnesty International, Care International UK,
Christian Aid, Oxfam and others, described the situation in the Strip as the
worst humanitarian crisis since the Israeli occupation of 1967. The report
called on Israel to change its policies towards Gaza. A few months following the
release of the report, Israel seems to be stiffening its control over the
impoverished Strip, rendering its hapless 1.5 million inhabitants more miserable
by the day. 

According to the report, 80 per cent of the Gaza population relies on food
assistance. Some 1.1 million people receive their food aid from UN agencies,
which are themselves struggling to operate under fuel cuts and the near-total
isolation of Gaza. 

Unlike the West Bank, Gaza's aim is hardly economic development but mere
survival. Gaza's reliance on food aid has increased tenfold since 1999,
according to the report. Concurrently, 98 per cent of Gaza's factories are no
longer functioning, leaving thousands unemployed and wreaking havoc on the
income of numerous families. 

Coupled with inner-Palestinian violence, US-led international sanctions and the
perpetual Israeli siege and violence are destroying the very fabric of
Palestinian society in Gaza while turning the West Bank into a charity-based
society, with funds provided largely as political incentives with hardly any
long-term vision.

Equally disheartening is that the PA in the West Bank has actively shut down
Muslim charities, kindergartens, orphanages and schools in the ongoing
tit-for-tat action between rivals Fatah and Hamas. It's intolerable that the
animosity between both parties has reached a point of victimising the most
unfortunate in society: orphans, widows and the physically and mentally
impaired. Some 82 children didn't return to school this year -- they were killed
in the previous year. And over one million students will have to negotiate their
way around 600 Israeli military checkpoints. With the shutting down of Muslim
charity-run schools, hundreds of students will lose their right to education.
But this time, Israel is not the one entirely to blame.

Palestinians cannot survive on handouts through a charity- like economic
system. They need, and deserve, sustainable economic development, with a
long-term vision, one that can overhaul the economies of the West Bank and Gaza
and make use of the precious human resources available. Israel will do its
utmost to undermine such a possibility, as it has done for decades. This
represents the very struggle that Palestinians are undergoing: between their
need to break free, and Israel's insistence on maintaining its matrix of
control. Without proper channels to empower the Palestinian individual and
community, Palestinians will remain economically disadvantaged and thus
politically handicapped. This is hardly a recipe for an equitable, lasting peace
with justice.