Palestinian Poverty is not a Plague or an Earthquake

by Shoshana Bryen
August 11, 2014 at 5:00 am

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4594/palestinian-poverty

Israel provides or makes possible the Palestinian social service budget, and leaves Hamas and Fatah to steal and/or divert resources to personal or military ends.
But does Palestinian poverty obligate Israel to provide aid to Hamas and Fatah governments? Warfare against Israel is the best predictor of Palestinian economic difficulty. The best aid is a job.
Hamas remains in open war with the people best able to employ its people -- Israel. War has consequences. The "shift in opportunities" will come…when Hamas makes a shift in its priorities -- and if it can't or wont, the people of Gaza will continue to suffer at the hands of their own leaders.

As Hamas resumed rocketing Israel on Friday, one surety was that Israel's office of "Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (West Bank and Gaza Strip)" [COGAT] would continue operating as it has through gruesome acts of terror against Jews, "intifadas," rocket attacks and kidnappings through tunnels. COGAT is the facilitator of international aid to the Palestinians for UNRWA, the Red Cross and the World Food Program among others; it is also the liaison for the Palestinians to services provided by Israel, including the provision of electricity, water and sewage services, and all transit between Israel and the Gaza Strip.

During Operation Protective Shield, more than 4 ½ million liters of diesel fuel for the Gaza power station and 625,000 liters for UNRWA entered Gaza from Israel. More than 3.5 million liters of fuel, 1.4 million liters of gasoline and 2 tons of cooking gas entered Gaza as well. While more than 3,000 Hamas rockets rained on Israel, nearly 2,000 Palestinians entered Israel from Gaza and 1,553 crossed the other way.

It was COGAT that arranged more than once to have the main Gaza power station – which errant Hamas rockets had put out of service – repaired under Hamas fire to restore power to more than 110,000 residents of Gaza. In the West Bank, COGAT coordinates international aid for infrastructure projects including water, sewage, communications and energy.

A truck laden with goods drives from Israel to Gaza via the Kerem Shalom crossing, August 2014. (Image source: Israel Government Press Office)

Israeli-taxpayer funded COGAT ensures that there will be no widespread hunger or disease among the Palestinians. Israel provides or makes possible the Palestinian social service budget, and leaves Hamas and Fatah to steal and/or divert resources to personal or military ends.

The disparity in Israel's (relative) wealth and the Palestinians' (relative) poverty fueled Secretary Kerry's 2013 comment that, "I think there is an opportunity [for peace], but for many reasons it's not on the tips of everyone's tongue. People in Israel aren't waking up every day and wondering if tomorrow there will be peace because there is a sense of security and a sense of accomplishment and of prosperity."

And the Palestinians do not have that sense of accomplishment and prosperity.

Aside from skirting an old canard by implying that Israel is uninterested in peace (and morally deficient?) because it is wealthy, Kerry suggested that a more level economic playing field would be beneficial. But does Palestinian poverty obligate Israel to provide aid to the Hamas and Fatah governments? Is COGAT a "guilt offering"?

No.

COGAT is a finger in the dike, but the best aid is a job -- see Maimonides Eight Levels of Charity -- and Israel has made provision for Palestinians to work, at least as long as they do not wage active war on the Jewish State. Post-Oslo Palestinian employment shows that warfare against Israel is the best predictor of Palestinian economic difficulty. The timeline, from an article I published in 2012 (with updates), includes:

1992: 115,600 Palestinian workers entered Israel every day. Each Palestinian worker is said to support 5-6 people at home.
1996: A devastating series of bus bombings, including a particularly gruesome nail bomb in the center of Tel Aviv, killed more than 100 Israelis. Palestinian workers in Israel were temporarily reduced to 63,000.
Sept. 1995-Sept. 2002: Despite the interruption in 1996, Palestinian unemployment decreased from 18.2% to 11%. In mid-2000, 136,000 were working inside Israel -- 40% of all employed Palestinians. Another 5,000 worked in the joint Israeli/Arab run Erez Industrial Zone in the Gaza Strip. Thousands more worked in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in Israeli-owned businesses.
Sept. 30, 2000: Arafat launched the so-called "second intifada." Begun at the peak of Palestinian economic integration with Israel, the terrorist war killed more than 1,000 Israelis and wounded more than 5,600 (comparable U.S. figures would be 40,000 and 224,000). The number of Palestinians working in Israel was reduced within six months to 55,000. The Erez Industrial Zone was closed after 11 Israelis were killed there.
2005: There was no impediment to independent Palestinian economic activity at the time Israel removed its presence from the Gaza Strip. The Palestinian news agency Ma'an waxed ecstatic about economic opportunities, particularly the acquisition of greenhouses and agricultural equipment the Israelis were leaving behind in a $14-million deal brokered by then-World Bank President James Wolfensohn.
2006: Palestinian looters destroyed the greenhouses almost immediately, and by early 2006, the greenhouses and the $100 million in annual exports to Europe they had produced were gone. This was under the rule of Fatah -- Israel's "peace partner."
2007: Hamas took control of Gaza after a brief and brutal war with Fatah and then escalated the rocket war that had begun under Fatah in 2001. After more than 9,000 increasingly long-range and accurate rockets and missiles, Israel launched Operation Cast Lead in 2008/09.
2009: Israel and Egypt instituted the security blockade of Gaza; the UN has acknowledged the blockade to be a legitimate security measure. That year, the UN temporarily suspended aid to Hamas for stealing aid supplies.
In 2013, after the 2012 Operation Pillar of Fire, the Palestinian news agency Ma'an reported more than 100,000 Palestinians were again working daily in Israel, with another 20,000 working in West Bank industries.

President Obama has made economic opportunity in Gaza a priority. "For the long term, there has to be recognition that Gaza cannot sustain itself permanently closed off from the world, incapable of providing some opportunity for jobs and economic growth for the population who live there. We have to see the shift in opportunities for the people of Gaza."

But Palestinian poverty is not a plague or an earthquake; it is intimately related to Palestinian government policy both in the West Bank and in Gaza. Hamas remains in open war with the country best able to employ its people -- Israel -- and war has consequences. The "shift in opportunities" will come only when Hamas makes a shift in its priorities -- and if it can't or won't, the people of Gaza will continue to suffer at the hands of their own leaders.

Shoshana Bryen is Senior Director of The Jewish Policy Center and Editor of inFOCUS Magazine.

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Related Topics: Israel, Palestinian Authority

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Comment on this item

10 Reader Comments

steven L • Aug 12, 2014 at 16:21

Hamas and its acolytes are not interested in any economic opportunities in Gaza or anywhere in the Muslim world. Except for their leaders of course.

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Joe Martin Jr • Aug 11, 2014 at 18:29

....... if Hamas and the other various hate filled factions in Gaza channeled all that money, energy and logistical effort that they put into building rockets and digging tunnels, buying arms and teaching their children to hate Jews for the sake of hating Jews into say, imitating the Israelis by making the desert bloom with farms to feed their people and manufacturing something that the rest of the world would want to buy from them. Giving them jobs and hope for the future and the futures of their children.

But instead they consider their children as military assets to be used and sacrificed in endless wars and squandering the billions of dollars that the world has given them on corruption and arms and fostering hatred. They then complain to that same world "Look we have nothing, and the Jews have everything, but only because they stole it from us!" Meanwhile hundreds if not thousands of Palestinian sick and injured are treated in Israeli hospitals, tons of food, medical supplies and household goods flow from Israel into Gaza every week. Thousands of Palestinians seek and are given jobs in Israeli industry, farms and construction.

As long as the so-called leaders of the Palestinians and the Arab world at large remain committed to enriching themselves and keeping the rest of their people focused on a centuries old blood feud, nothing will change and the suffering, war and death will continue. As long as they, and I'm speaking of the Palestinian leaders here, as long as they continue to teach their children that loving death more than their enemies love life is more important than loving their children and building a prosperous future for them, they will remain little more than crude barbarians in the truest sense of the word.

T.E. Lawrence was right nearly a hundred years ago when he concluded that true progress for the Arab was all but impossible as long as they remained tribal in nature and their leaders continued to perpetuate and manipulate that social structure for their own exclusive benefit.

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David Walker • Aug 11, 2014 at 16:37

It is well said that the "Palestinians" never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.

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Carl • Aug 11, 2014 at 13:01

Kerry makes the saying "I'm surrounded by idiots" ring true for Obama. Both Kerry and Biden adhere to the expression " I don't think before I speak because I like to be as surprised as everyone else at what comes out of my mouth". Just think what the people of Gaza and the West Bank could have accomplished had they spent their money on infrastructure instead of squandering it on weapons and tunnels as well as making millionaires of their leaders. e.g.: The Arafats in a 5 star hotel in France living it up. Instead of hating and trying to destroy Israel, they should be emulating and learning from them about how to become a productive and civilized society. As far as the Israeli Palestinians who are flying the Isis flags, deport them. If they have no allegiance to the country that they live in and gives them the best lifestyle in the region, then they don't deserve to live there. Give them a chance to see how green the grass is on the other side of the fence.

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Robert Haymond • Aug 11, 2014 at 12:59

The problem between Israel and its neighbours will not, and cannot, be rectified by economic opportunity and achievement. It is a matter of ideology. For Hamas, one of its guiding principles is to rid the region of Zionism which, in practical terms, means the 'Jewish presence'. The poverty and suffering of its people is not a priority although, at one time, Hamas was supported due to its social service network whereas Fatah was known to be, and still is, extraordinarily corrupt. Changing ideologies is much more difficult than rooting out poverty. This is something Westerners do not comprehend.

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DockyWocky • Aug 11, 2014 at 10:41

Think the ongoing Israeli/Palestinian/Hamas kerfluffle is getting a bit boring - with Hamas rockets flying off every day and Israelis blowing up ever more of Gazan infrastructure with equal gusto?

To be reminded that Israel supplies Palestinians with essential services through this monstrosity called GOGAT just reminds us of exactly how insane this conflict is.

"COGAT is the facilitator of international aid to the Palestinians for UNRWA, the Red Cross and the World Food Program among others; it is also the liaison for the Palestinians to services provided by Israel, including the provision of electricity, water and sewage services, and all transit between Israel and the Gaza Strip."

How about cutting off all the goodies? Then let Hamas explain to the Gazans just why they need to tighten their belts a bit more with every passing day.

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A P H White MA (Oxon) • Aug 11, 2014 at 07:50

Why is it that this information has not been covered by the media: in the BBC, for example, and the newspapers, both right and left leaning? When raucous demonstrations take place pro-Hamas (ie. pro a banned terrorist organization) in London, none of the provision made by Israel towards the daily maintenance of necessary infrastructure has got to me - and I am an aware subject of Her Majesty. There can be only one attitude towards the situation in the Gaza strip which can bear the weight of sane and dispassionate thought, and for that to happen, the full, relevant picture must be given to the people of this country, and of any other which claims a moral obligation to put pressure on either of the two sides.Until then we remain "eyeless in Gaza, at the mill with slaves". Until Gaza returns to being controlled by a moderate group and abandons its intent to "wipe Israel from the map"; only then will the people of Gaza and their supporters- clearly not made aware of the situation in which their mis-perceived enemies provide for them; have the full picture of who is responsible made clear to them by the wider community and its agencies have made their position plain to them, will there be any hope for them, or for the Israelis who are subject to the indiscriminate rocket attacks which Hamas fires at them.

As one who lived through the second world war, I can recall what Londoners got from Nazi Germany - the Buzz Bombs, i.e. V1 rockets. The parallel is obvious to me. It is now up to the media to discharge its obligations to provide the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. They need to wake up, if they wishes, reasonably, to join the "moral majority" on this. They need to do their job- fully and accurately, before defending Hamas by default by concealing what they should reveal. It had better tell us what is really doing on, and which lies within their knowledge-base to make widely know. Until then, they are morally deficient: Some would say biased and hypocritical. When we know the wide picture, THEN we can decide whom to back in the bitter and shameful contest for political and quasi-religious power. A P H White. "

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karen • Aug 11, 2014 at 07:18

Beautifully put, I wish the world understood all these facts, but i guess it does not sell papers... It seems once again the Jews stand alone, but no more turning the other cheek...I have just found your magazine and am very impressed....who needs commercial tv, when there is so much good information on line.

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Dian Grossman Kjaergaard • Aug 11, 2014 at 07:14

Excellent info. Can you find something to help us discuss the claim that more than 1 out of 5 children in Gaza are malnourished? Both the claim itself and what the causes could be?

COGAT is a wonderful source of information, too. Did you (readers) know that COGAT publishes status information at least monthly - during the operation against Hamas it's been 4-6 times a week. This is the newest, I believe, a weekend report dated 8 August.

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Victor Salkowitz

Dian Grossman Kjaergaard • Aug 11, 2014 at 23:15

The only way I can explain how Fatah and Hamas are so willing to destroy, yet extend its hand for money and goods from those it would destroy, is that they feel robbed of their country and anything given to them by the thief is not only fitting, but never enough. This justifies malfeasance and subversion of material goods for further destructive purposes. I hope and pray that the average Palestinian doesn't have this same level of chutzpah.

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