The devastating Israeli occupation for decades has brought down the Palestinian economy to its knees. But the economy could easily double – with exceptionally high unemployment and poverty levels plummeting – if the occupation were lifted, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development said last week.
Israel’s restrictions stifle much of Palestinian economic life. It controls every access point, which enables it to oversee all imports and exports. It creates bureaucratic hurdles that Palestinians say kill entrepreneurship.
The widespread control on the movement of people and goods; destruction of water sources, homes, trees and other assets; and the expansion of Israeli settlements perpetuate the economic crisis in West Bank and the Gaza strip, UNCTAD said.
“Without occupation, the economy of the Occupied Palestinian Territory could produce twice the GDP (gross domestic product) it currently generates,” the UNCTAD report said.
The Palestinian economy was hard-hit by the devastating 2014 war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas. The 50-day Israeli bombing campaign killed more than 2,200 Palestinians; while 73 died on the Israeli side. For Gaza, the economic fallout came close to three times the size of its GDP.
Palestinian economic output could jump as high as 35% if the biggest chunk of West Bank territory were opened for development, the World Bank had said in 2013. Last week’s UNCTAD report also pointed to the dire impact of Israel’s unjustified grip over the land designated as “Area C” in the 1993 Oslo peace, which covers 61% of the West Bank and 66% of its grazing land. “It is estimated that the occupation of Area C costs the Palestinian economy the equivalent of 35% of GDP” ($4.4bn in 2015), UNCTAD said.
Officially, one quarter of the population in the Palestinian territories are unemployed, while the rate in Gaza is 38%. But these figures significantly underestimate the problem, UNCTAD said.
“A shocking indicator of the grim situation in Gaza is the rising infant mortality rate ... (which) has risen for the first time in 50 years,” the report said. The neonatal mortality rate nearly doubled between 2008 and 2013, from 12 to 20.3 deaths for every 1,000 live births.
True, there have been international attempts, led by the US, to broker an agreement in which Israel would peacefully co-exist with a new Palestinian state created in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip – lands occupied by Israel in the 1967 war. However, many Israelis and Palestinians are sceptical about the chances of reaching a lasting peace deal in the decades-old conflict.
“The closure of Gaza suffocates its people, stifles its economy and impedes reconstruction efforts. It’s a collective punishment for which there must be accountability,” says UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon.
All the “civilised” governments in the modern world now have given in their self-assigned “right” to govern by force – more by compulsion than by choice. But Israel’s all-encompassing stranglehold over the Palestine territories explains the plight of an estimated 6.8mn people, who are languishing in an “open prison.”