Situation critical

[Thinking Man's Idiot]

Situation critical

(Monday 22 September 2008)

RAMZY BAROUD details the depths of Palestinian poverty.


The numbers are grim. The Palestinian economy is in a wretched state. The World Bank makes 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.


"With a growing population and a shrinking economy, real per capita GDP is now 30 per cent below its height in 1999," it says.

"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."

Faced with a declining economy, lack of development projects and Israeli restrictions, Palestinians have grown increasingly reliant on foreign aid.
This is largely controlled by political interests.

The US, for instance, has handed generous support to Mahmoud Abbas's Ramallah-based government at the same time as fighting for international sanctions against the Gaza-based Hamas government.

Such funding has preconditions such as "cracking down on the terrorist infrastructure," which is duly understood as fighting those who challenge Israeli and Palestinian Authority rule in the West Bank.

Even if the Palestinian Authority had no history of corruption and it genuinely intended to invest in a sustainable economy, no truly free and independent economy could flourish under occupation, which is aimed squarely at disempowering Palestinian workers, farmers and the middle class.

The World Bank states that Israel's restrictions have a clear purpose.
"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," it says.

It concludes that increased aid will do nothing to revive the Palestinian economy unless Israel's restrictions are removed.

But removing them would deny the Israeli government political leverage over Abbas's government.

The West Bank's economic woes are compounded by a terrible water shortage, a nightmare for farmers who are already struggling with the theft of water by Israel.

According to a recent report by Israeli 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 restrictions that prevent Palestinians from drilling new wells.

Israel's "security" concerns cannot justify its plunder of Palestinian water drawn from West Bank aquifers at a time when Palestinian families in cities such as Jenin have been denied water since April.

While many farmers have been forced to abandon their livelihoods, ordinary people are having to divert money from their meagre incomes to buy water.
A recent UN report estimated that Palestinians in the hardest-hit areas spend between 30-40 per cent of their income on water delivered by lorries. A sustainable economy with healthy growth is impossible under these conditions.

However, if things are difficult in the West Bank, they are nightmarish in Gaza, where the aim is simply survival.

A report in March sponsored by Amnesty International, Care International UK, Christian Aid and Oxfam described the situation as the worst humanitarian crisis since the 1967 Israeli occupation.

Seven months on, Israel is strengthening its grip on the impoverished strip, condemning its 1.5 million inhabitants to a miserable existence.

According to the report, 1.1 million Gazans rely on food aid distributed by UN agencies which are themselves struggling to operate amid fuel shortages the Israeli siege.

The strip's reliance on food aid has increased tenfold since 1999, according to the report. Ninety-eight per cent of its factories have shut, leaving thousands of workers unemployed and their families in desperate poverty.

Coupled with internal conflict, the US-led international sanctions and the perpetual Israeli siege and violence are destroying the very fabric of society in Gaza while turning the West Bank into a charity-based society.

Palestinians cannot survive on handouts. They need and deserve sustainable economic development with a long-term vision that can overhaul the economies of the West Bank and Gaza and make use of precious human resources.

Israel will do its utmost to undermine this, as it has done for decades.
But, without proper channels to empower individuals and communities in their country, Palestinians will remain economically disadvantaged and politically handicapped.

Until this is addressed, there can never be lasting peace.

Ramzy Baroud is an author and editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His latest book is The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People's Struggle (Pluto Press).

[Thinking Man's Idiot]

Mapping Israeli Apartheid in the Palestinian West Bank: Israeli settlements, apartheid wall and fence, closures, and territorial fragmentation. CLICK

[jamiedb]

Thanks for posting this, TMI. Unfortunately, the map is already out of date, particularly for the Jordan Valley, where the Israelis are stealing land at a blistering pace. I'd like to make a similar map for Jerusalem, but the accelerating theft there is very difficult to portray geographically; it's occurring house by house, block by block, through a panoply of different scams. One of the infinite bitter ironies of this situation is that Israel always uses "peace talks" as an opportunity to ramp up its settlement building and land theft. Annapolis, Sharm El-Sheik, Camp David II, Oslo, Madrid...it always happens.

Vermonters for a Just Peace is a terrific little group of the most wonderful, kind, and committed people you could ever hope to find. It's been an honor to be their webmaster.