UN: Palestinians lose $800 million a year due to Israeli blockade
12 replies, posted
[quote]
Israeli policies of closure and blockade in the Palestinian Territories is costing the Palestinians economy billions of dollars and making them poorer, a United Nations report has claimed.
The UN Conference on Trade and Development’s Annual Report on Assistance to the Palestinian People, released Tuesday, found that the direct and indirect costs of the Israeli blockade on Gaza, closure of the West Bank and 2008-2009 war in Gaza adds up to over $3 billion over the last three years.
The report found that the Palestinian economy is loosing some $800 million a year as the result of the Israeli closure and blockade policies, and that the 2008-2009 Gaza War drained a further $1.3 billion from the territory’s economy.
Despite 6.8% economic growth over the last year, the UN report found that poverty rates continued to worsen in the Palestinian territories. It said the per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was still 30 percent below what it was 10 years ago and at least 30 percent of the Palestinian workforce remained unemployed. Some 80,000 jobs are lost each year due to the Israeli closure and blockade policies, the report found.
“Basically the Palestinian economy has lost a third of its productive base that was there 10 years ago,” Mahmoud A.T. Elkhafif, the UN Conference on Trade and Development’s Coordinator of Assistance to the Palestinian People told The Media Line. “Without getting that productive base back, the economy won’t be able to expand and the Palestinian economy will depend on imports, mainly from Israel.”
The report emphasized what the UN described as a problematic annual trade deficit with Israel of $2.6 billion, meaning vendors in the Palestinian economy are importing far more goods from Israel than they are exporting. The $2.6 billion figure exceeds the value of all international financial support received in the Palestinian Territories.
Elkhafif said the principal problem facing the Palestinian economy was the effect of Israel’s policies on Palestinians’ capacity for economic production of various types.
“While the economy grew by 6.8 percent in 2009 we have some concern about its sustainability,” he said. “There was direct destruction of some of the productive base, but the most important factor is the closure policy in the West Bank as well as the blockade in Gaza, which very quickly kills producers ability to work.”
“Take for example any factory: if you decommission part of the factory because of destruction or inability to maintain it because of the closure, then your productive capacity decreases,” he added.
Elkhafif said adjustments in the closure and blockade policies would only slightly improve the situation. What would work, he said, was to expand production bases and boost private investment.
“The easing of the closure and the blockade might have some humanitarian impact, but it will have minimal impact on the economy,” he warned. “To get the economy back we need to rebuild and expand the productive base in various sectors and give incentive for the private sector to participate. We also need to lower the transaction costs in the Palestinian territories for both imports and exports, which are extremely high because of the closure and the blockade and all the checkpoints.”
But Dr Dan Ben David, public policy professor at Tel Aviv University and Executive Director of the Taub Center for Social Policy Research in Israel, questioned the veracity of the report.
“If there is a $2.6 billion deficit, then where did the money come from?” he told The Media Line. “If the imports exceeded the exports by some $2.6 billion and this $2.6 billion exceeds the amount of money in aid, then where did the money come from? Foreign Direct Investment? It doesn’t add up.”
“We are also both coming out of a major recession, so in my opinion, our really fast growth was really just coming out of the hole of a major recession, it wasn’t really steady state growth,” Dr Ben David continued. “So the 6 percent Palestinian growth rate is deceptive... When you fall you climb back pretty quickly.”
Dr Roby Nathanson, Director General of Israel’s Macro Center for Political Economics, argued a bit more optimism was in order.
“We cannot say, even after this year of growth, that the Palestinians are living in a paradise, but things are far better than previous years,” Nathanson told The Media Line. “There is no doubt that there has been a very big improvement in the living conditions of the Palestinians in 2009-2010. They have improved their tax income. They have improved their infrastructure. Unemployment is going down and they have a budget surplus.”
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Source: [url]http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=186804[/url]
And Hamas doesn't care one bit.
What is Hamas supposed to do about an Israeli blockade exactly burnemdown?
They could just go all Krakatoa on the blockades and shyeet.
[QUOTE=bravehat;24565502]What is Hamas supposed to do about an Israeli blockade exactly burnemdown? [/QUOTE]
They could conform to Israel's requests, but the point is more important than feeding their people.
Well aren't the negotiations going a little better than they were before? so things will probably ease up soon.
[QUOTE=bravehat;24565502]What is Hamas supposed to do about an Israeli blockade exactly burnemdown?
They could just go all Krakatoa on the blockades and shyeet.[/QUOTE]
I'm pretty sure that if they did care, they would have actually tried smuggling stuff like construction material, food and medical supplies instead of trying to smuggle weapons that they use against innocent civilians (that just makes the situation worse).
[QUOTE=A Dead Guy;24565598]I'm pretty sure that if they did care, they would have actually tried smuggling stuff like construction material, food and medical supplies instead of trying to smuggle weapons that they use against innocent civilians (that just makes the situation worse).[/QUOTE]
Or they could at least not steal the aid that does come into Gaza.
[QUOTE=BurnEmDown;24565487]Hamas doesnt care[/QUOTE]
[URL]http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=177079[/URL]
[QUOTE=A Dead Guy;24565598]I'm pretty sure that if they did care, they would have actually tried smuggling stuff like construction material, food and medical supplies instead of trying to smuggle weapons that they use against innocent civilians (that just makes the situation worse).[/QUOTE]
LOL.
Hamas smuggles stuff from teddy bears and cars to chocolates.
Example: [URL]http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8435066.stm[/URL]
[quote]
Gazans rely on them for cheap Egyptian petrol and products to supplement the basic foodstuffs Israel allows in.
And larger items such as fridges, washing machines, cows, motorbikes, disassembled cars, and - according to Israel - weapons are also moved through the tunnels.
[IMG]http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/47011000/jpg/_47011861_goods_226.jpg[/IMG]
A wide range of electrical appliances are available from the tunnels
Cement is massively in demand for post-war rebuilding, but virtually none enters through legal channels. Israel says it can be used to build rocket launch pads and military tunnels.
Before the blockade, cement was 20 shekels (US $5) a bag. It then became unavailable, until after the Israeli offensive, when it began to enter through the tunnels at about 180 shekels.
Now it is somewhere between 60 and 90 shekels a bag - cheaper, but still too expensive and limited in quantity for large-scale building work.
"Hamas doesn't need cement, it has enough of it - whatever Hamas needs, it has," says Ali el-Haik, of the Palestinian Businessmen Association.
[/quote]I could go on.
that aint good
To say they lose $800 million a year implies lost customers or clients. Do Palestinians even make any product or service, let alone one that would generate $800 million annually?
I'd say the blockade does more damage to Libya's economy, as Libya's number 1 export is explosions...
Not surprised at all. Israel uses tactics, no matter how brutal they are, to try to force Palestine/Hamas into submission.
Here we go again
[QUOTE=JDK721v3;24566585]Not surprised at all. Israel uses tactics, no matter how brutal they are, to try to force Palestine/Hamas into submission.[/QUOTE]
I think you got your names mixed up there.
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