- The Financial Times (London) reports the catastrophic
effects of the illegal Israeli military occupation of the West Bank and
Gaza Strip in crude economic statistics drawn from an early copy of a UN
report: the unemployment rate in the West Bank rises to much as 63% under
Israeli imposed lockdown with more than half of the population living in
poverty on less than $2 a day.
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- In the Gaza Strip the situation is - incredibly - even
worse with 70% of the population is living in poverty. The report estimates
that the monetary losses caused to the Palestinian population by the economic
blockade that has been operative (at various grades of intensity) since
shortly after the Al Aksa intifada began run at about $6m a day, a cumulative
total of more than $3 billion. (This figure is still an underestimate of
the costs since it doesn't include damage to physical infrastructure caused
by the IDF.)
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- As a result, international aid to Palestine is now directed
overwhelmingly to short-term humanitarian goals at the expense of long-term
investment. This situation has three implications: first, the Israeli government
has succeeded in shifting the costs of occupation onto the international
community in what amounts therefore to another form of subsidy for illegal
Israeli policies; second, focus on a 'humanitarian crisis' deflects attention
away from the causes of the crisis - in this case almost completely the
direct and predictable result of Israeli policy; third, ordinary Palestinians
are deprived not only of the right to collective self-determination, but
even of the right to direct their own individual economic affairs at the
most basic level, by earning a living.
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- A preliminary version of the report is available at:
http://www.escwa.org.lb/information/press/un/2002/august/30.html
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- Palestinian Economic Decline Worries Donors
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- By Harvey Morris in Jerusalem
- The Financial Times
- 8-27-02
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- With new figures out this week expected to show a deteriorating
economic situation in the Palestinian territories, international donors
are increasingly uneasy that they are having to foot the bill for the Israeli
occupation.
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- A report by Terje Roed Larsen, United Nations special
co-ordinator in the territories, is likely to show that the unemployment
rate in the West Bank has soared to 65 per cent as a result of an extreme
closure and curfew regime imposed by Israel following its reoccupation
of most of the territory in June.
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- As a result of the economic decline, more than half the
population of the West Bank is living in poverty, while in the Gaza Strip
the poverty level has reached 70 per cent, the report will say.
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- UN economists calculate that income loss in the territories
is running at $6m a day, with cumulative losses since the start of the
Palestinian uprising in September 2000 now standing at $3bn.
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- Donors are being asked to contribute up to $2bn in emergency
aid this year to keep the Palestinian economy afloat and to confront what
aid agencies say is a worsening humanitarian crisis.
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- During the first intifada, from 1987-92, Israel was responsible
for the civil administration of the Palestinian territories. The huge cost
of the occupation was one factor that encouraged Israel to disengage by
handing responsibility to the Palestinian Authority under the terms of
the Oslo peace accords.
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- This time, the occupation is purely military. And in
the vacuum left by the destruction of much of the PA infrastructure, diplomats
and aid agency officials say the mounting costs of funding the Palestinian
economy are being met by international donors.
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- They are concerned that a side effect of foreign funding
will be to create a dependency culture within the Palestinian territories.
Rather than being used to build a viable economy, funds are going towards
meeting the immediate crisis. "Donor money has shifted from long-term
investment to short-term relief," said a UN official.
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- Officials say the economic decline brought on by the
closure regime is strangling the revival of the depressed Palestinian private
sector and therefore hindering job creation.
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- Nigel Roberts, World Bank director for the territories,
said: "The situation has deteriorated further than we expected it
would."
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- He said that, as a result of restrictions on movement,
projects that required substantial work on the ground had suffered most.
"We have not been able to deliver what we had hoped, particularly
in activities that target employment."
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- Mr Roberts shares the concern of many aid officials that
the present situation might hinder the process of economic reform, one
of the Israeli and US conditions for reviving peace negotiations with the
PA. "It's one thing to implement reform measures, it's another thing
to register a visible improvement in the economy. If you are implementing
reforms in a period of economic decline, then people aren't going to be
very engaged in the process."
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- The Israeli government, under international pressure
to ease the plight of the Palestinian people, has given assurances that
the situation will improve as and when calm is restored in the territories.
But officials have said security will continue to be their priority.
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- Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, defence minister, recently told
Catherine Bertini, UN humanitarian envoy, that Palestinian suffering was
primarily caused by terrorism. Ms Bertini left the region with assurances
that Israel would make access easier for humanitarian aid and for the sick
and relax some restrictions affecting fishermen and farmers. But she received
no guarantees of an early lifting of the overall closure regime.
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- Diplomats are concerned that the focus on the humanitarian
plight is taking attention away from structural issues as well as from
the root causes of the conflict.
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- "The humanitarian crisis is largely man-made,"
said one diplomat. "Therefore the solution has to be a political one."
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