The NY Times reveals today that the World Bank has written a report describing in economic terms the devastation that a shut-off or reduction of international aid and tax funds will cause to the Palestinian economy:
Palestinian baby suffering from malnutrition–something we’ll be seeing a lot more of… (photo: Telegraph.co.uk)If Israel withholds revenues from a Hamas-led Palestinian Authority and donor countries reduce aid, the Palestinian areas will be thrown into a deep depression, with personal incomes dropping 30 percent this year alone, according to a new World Bank study.
The study says the Palestinian economy would shrink by 27 percent in 2006 — a one-year contraction that compares to the Depression in the United States. Unemployment would nearly double, to 39.6 percent, and two-thirds of the population would be living below the poverty level.
The report presents several scenarios involving a drop off of donor support but it deemed the most likely one to be:
Israel continues its restrictions and that foreign aid is also reduced.
The consequences of this last assumption are dire even this year. Real gross domestic product per capita would fall 49.4 percent from 1999, before the second intifada began…
In 2007 unemployment would rise to 44.3 percent and the poverty level to 72 percent, the bank estimates, with another 4-point drop in the size of the economy, compared with 1999.
Bringing the Palestinian economy to its knees is not in Israel’s or the world’s interests. But it could happen. Do we really want to see images of Palestinians dying of hunger in the streets of Gaza or Ramallah as Jews did in the Nazi ghettos during the Holocaust? I make this analogy not because Israeli or donor nation policy toward Palestine is like Nazi policies toward the Jews. I make the analogy because images of such suffering will likely increase sympathy for the Palestinians and make them even more of an underdog challenging the behemoths of the world community. That could be a pretty appealing narrative to caring people throughout the world. But why make the Palestinians martyrs to begin with? Why not treat them decently while pressuring them to do the things we want them to do (like accept Israel, etc.)?
…because they elected into power a group that wants to destroy Israel and is willing to bide its time by targeting and murdering civilians?
Do you think that if their standard of living drops that they will demand a new government? Is there a better form of pressure that you can suggest while we “treat them decently?” If we do treat them decently despite their election of a violent, murderous organization sworn to destroy Israel, then what lessons will they draw from that?
Richard, I disagree that this action will create sympathy for Palestinians. Most Americans continue to blame them for their own misery and them starving in the streets won’t change that. Europe and other parts of the world might care but as we’ve seen, if America doesn’t care, it really doesn’t matter.
I think it’s pretty reasonable to say that having a legitimate conversation about these issues with theMiddle is pretty much impossible in that he won’t get past his deluded premise that Palestinians want to wipe Israel off the map while Israel is only trying to protect what they have. That, and he seems to think starving the people as retribution for their choice in an election is a legitimate response (you know, because ‘they’ are the barbarians).
Oh, the conversation is legitimate even if it’s distasteful to you, Elemental. You see, I didn’t elect a group that has a charter espousing my deluded premise, the Palestinian electorate did. Twice.
Also, who is advocating starving anyone. Send them all the food in the world. Just do it in a way where they can’t convert it into arms, and do not, under any circumstances, send them cash. Hamas, founded with the deluded premise of destroying Israel, is about to have the entire security apparatus of the PA in their control.
With amore and passion,
The delusional, hypocritical, food-hating
The Middle
I never said the conversation wasn’t legitimate, I said you were not a legitimate participant.
Howver, since ignorance isn’t defeated by ignoring it, I think I should address your callowness. I think they elected a party that builds schools and hospitals for them and isn’t backed by the United States. True, many of them are drawn to the aggresive rhetoric, I think Richard has made the point about a million times now that this stems from having houses destroyed and children bombed with no hope of justice of resolution. I think you should take a look at our own politicians’ (both in the US and Israel) use of the same methods before claiming some higher moral ground.
That you think ‘your side’ is any less guilty of attrocities, rhetorical or physical, is a joke and a testament to your dogmatism.
What’s even funnier is that you’re more than happy to further the refugee status of these people while continuing to illegally withhold the tax and custom fees that rightfully belong to the them. Enhancing your misplaced feelings of superiority by feeding the huddled masses because you’ve denied them the ability to pay for honest labor is typical of the contemptible manipulation of the right-wing.
Please spare me the speeches of the founding charters of Hamas or any other group, the Israeli right wing is no less disgusting and only slightly more subtle in their desire to eliminate every Arab they can’t use for menial labor.
“drawn to the aggresive rhetoric” = bombing Jews in restaurants and buses
You can’t disguise the fact that while they were providing social services to Palestinians, they were actively targeting and blowing up Israeli civilians in active pursuit of what their own mandate dictates.
Houses are destroyed because they belong to suicide bombers, are sources for attacks or are in areas used for extensive smuggling of weapons. To remind you, the Israelis were OUT of Areas A. They came back because of the incessant and very successful attacks perpetrated by the Palestinians on the Israeli populace. Guess what, attacks have dropped. Again, if Palestinian children were killed it is not because they were targeted. How many times did they demonstrate for a while only to have Tanzim appear behind them to start shooting at Israeli forces? It happened all the time in the early days of this war. How many times has Hamas and other groups used Palestinian children to move arms and bombs? A couple of times they have even tried to use these scared-to-death kids to do the bombing themselves.
I do not support witholding customs or tax revenues unless it goes to a Hamas run government. They can collect their own taxes if they like, but Israel would be ensuring more deaths of Israelis if it were to provide any money to this new government. They can hold it in escrow until the terrorists leave office. If that angers you, so be it. You should really be angry at those terrorists for blowing up enough Israelis that nobody can believe they will avoid using that money for furthering their terrorist goals.
Also, I don’t reject food or any form of humanitarian aid to the Palestinians. As long as none of it is in a form that can be used as collateral for arms, because they have elected a terrorist government sworn to destroy Israel. It’s not my fault they did this and it’s not my fault the terrorists were effective at terrorism. I just want it to stop and giving the terrorists the resources of a government would be a terrible and probably deadly mistake.
Finally, with respect to your silly comment about the Israeli Right’s supposed desire “to eliminate every Arab they can’t use for menial labor,” I have a couple of responses. They have replaced the Palestinians as laborers in most sectors of the Israeli economy. This, in part, has hurt the Palestinians considerably. Every time Israel tried to reopen a passage, they also let through some suicide bombers, to the point where they had to become more and more restrictive. This has only hastened the destruction of the Palestinian economy. While I’m sure you would balk at doing menial labor, there are many people out there who may not have your level of education who have to do it because it is the only thing they can do. In the US, if you can’t get another type of job, you go and wash dishes to pay the rent, right? How is it Israel’s fault that the Palestinian workforce comes in to do menial labor? Would you rather have a situation like now where they don’t have any employment at all? How considerate of you! I’m sure many Palestinians are pleased to hear that you want to take their living away from them so that you won’t have to consider their hard work as beneath them. Hey, while you’re at it, why don’t you shut down some Nike factories that don’t meet your standards so that workers lose their job rather than have poor working conditions that help them feed their families? To remind you, the Palestinian per capita income is higher than that of a few other Arab countries, including Egypt.
Next, with respect to “eliminating” Palestinians, I’m afraid you need to provide a source. There surely are a few loonies on the fringes of the Israeli Right who advocate removing the Palestinians from the territories. But elimination? Show me where and whose platform says this in the mainstream Israeli Right. That’s a challenge.
With gusto,
The Illegitimate
The Middle
Good god you make my point well – thanks!
Boy, thanks Elemental, I can’t tell you how good it is to have someone else responding to The Middle.
You presumably live quite far away from the war zone & you know for a fact that every Palestinian home ever demolished was done so for an entirely justifiable, legitimate security reason? And no home was ever demolished perhaps due to a whim of an IDF engineer or commander who thought it’d be a good idea? The point is that once a policy like demolishing private homes either as punishment or for supposed security purposes gets going, it’s very hard for their not to be lapses, errors and egregious violations of whatever rules are supposed to exist to govern such destruction. Not to mention that demolition of such homes in some cases violates the Geneva convention.
You repeat the same claims ad nauseum. They weren’t convincing before & the more you repeat them the less so they become. Any decline in attacks may also legitimately be attributed to the hudna. But even more important, no amount of Israeli incursions, targeted assassinations, raids, etc. will EVER guarantee Israel peace. Palestinian violence will continue. They will find new means of wreaking havoc by probing Israeli defenses. It’s a never ending cycle that can be stopped in one way & one way only. Negotiations. Hard compromises on both sides. Peace agreement.
Nice. Not too long ago, seven Palestinian children were killed in a farm field harvesting strawberries. What do you call it when a tank aims at children and kills them? Not targeting them? You can argue till you’re blue in the face that the tank officer didn’t know they were children. But I’m sorry. This is an act worthy of discipline or punishment. Was there any? I’ll let you be the judge. And I’m only describing one incident & I assure you there were MANY more.
Oh & I never heard yr response to the Israeli soldiers who refused to unlock a checkpoint gate so that 2 Palestinian newborn babies could get to hospital which caused them to freeze to death. Oh no, they weren’t targeted because no one intended to kill them. But dead they are nonetheless and unnecessarily so. Was anyone disciplined for that travesty. Again, you be the judge.
Ah, now Palestinian children are to blame for Palestinian perfidy. And the killing of children is to be excused because of said perfidy. Do you have any children? If not, I want you to know that I do. And I am exquisitely sensitive to the subject of abuse of children and other types of violence against them. And I object vehemently to the tone of your comments about children here. It may be that Palestinians abuse children by placing them in situations where they endanger themselves or Israeli forces. But that DOES NOT justify Israeli action that harms or even might harm children.
Again, for the 4th time when you make serious charges such as this PROVIDE A LINK or else I’ll believe that your charge is not worth a scrap of toilet paper.
Blah, blah, blah. More unnuanced propaganda. I’ve debunked this alleged “point” elsewhere in replies to you so I won’t belabor things by doing so again. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is filled with reams of propaganda fr. both sides which distorts reality, poisons minds & renders the conflict unresolvable. Thanks for perpetuating that here.
This from someone who claims not to begrudge Palestinians the right to feed their children. You should be ashamed. The tax money belongs to the Palestinians. Israelis signed agreements specifying that they would transfer it and have violated them. Withholding or “holding it in escrow” will damage real lives. I love it when people sit on their high horse upholding moral principles that end up killing or starving real people. You must feel so comforted by your moral certitude.
Ah yes, they’ve stopped using Palestinian human ‘donkeys’ to do their work, now they import poor Romanians and Bangladeshis to replace them.
You who have never lived in Gaza nor known anyone who has do not realize that Gaza is ALWAYS closed. When Israel announces it has closed a border due to a terror attack, what those terrifically candid government spokespeople who The Middle thinks have such a sterling reputation for candor neglect to say is that Gaza was closed even before Israel announced the closing. If you’d bother to read anything about Gaza you’d know this but I guess you can’t be bothered or don’t know how to find anything written by a Palestinian (besides it’d be suspect because we know that all Palestinians lie anyway). Gaza is a prison–virtually a permanent prison. I dare you to live there for a week and tell me otherwise (oh, that’s right you couldn’t get in because the Israeli wouldn’t let you–I guess you’d have to try to get in through Egypt). And I wouldn’t go this week because Israel’s Jericho raid has driven Palestinians so crazy that you might get taken for a hostage & we wouldn’t want that for you.
Again with the half truths. The Palestinian economy is a basket case and laborers cannot develop their skills because ever since the 1967 conquest, Israel has deliberately cultivated the Territories as handmaidens to Israeli commerce. Palestinians have never been allowed to develop the full range of commercial enterprises and industries that would allow a sophisticated economy to develop. So Israel is indeed largely to blame for the fact that Palestinians have never developed the kind of economy which would demand skilled labor & provide the training to create it.
You’re talking about old news. A very, very small number of Palestinians now can even get to jobs in Israel so there is no “living” to be made there.
Such stupid maudlin rhetoric…Nike merely needs to operate its existing factories fully in accordance with accepted employment standards (i.e. not mistreat or abuse its employees) which it (or its subcontractors) do not do. Who ever said Nike should close factories & what the hell does Nike have to do w. anything anyway?
Ah, now you’re an economist! How helpful for your arguing that Palestinians are swimming in luxuries. Must be all that UNWRA lucre flooding their streets. Again PROOF buddy boy. Prove to me that the current Palestinian per capita income is as high as you say it is.
You are pathetically misinformed. Fully 46% of Israelis support transfer of both Israeli Arabs out of Israel and Palestinians out of the Territories. So much for a “few loonies.” Unless of course you want to argue that almost half of Israel possesses “loony” ideas which I’m fully prepared to entertain.
Richard you have the patience of a saint, I don’t know how you do it, but you do it well.
How convenient that the new PA allows for the dismisall of any need for legal or moral fairness towards the people who elected them. How ridiculous. By that standard injustices against Israelis could be justified by saying they elected a war criminal, twice.
Richard, I have a question for you. Thus far, when challenged, I have provided you with links. Why do you think that I can’t provide links for the above? Isn’t it enough that I’m writing these long essays, must I also go to google and start hunting for articles that prove incidents that are common knowledge? Kids have been captured carrying bombs and ferrying bombs. They were sent by terror factions. In some cases, they get captured AT CHECKPOINTS because they are so afraid. Now you tell me, who is the abuser here, the Israelis or those who send these kids?
I have no love for checkpoints but understand their purpose. People sometimes do get hurt while waiting, and in some cases where there is a medical issue, may die. That is inexcusable and should not happen. As I’ve told you, I’d rather Israel wasn’t in there in the first place. Unfortunately, they can’t get out until they can make a deal that will end the attacks on Israelis. I have no love for house demolitions, but I don’t believe they are done on a whim and I don’t believe they happen so easily. In most cases, there is a strong military justification for the action. While I don’t disagree that some people will claim there are violations here of Geneva Convention, many of the same people are those who claim the Palestinians bear no responsibility for their actions because they are not a sovereign state. But, of course, Israel has to fight them as if they are organized like a state, because they are well organized and funded.
You challenge me on the veracity of the claim that attacks have dropped and want me to provide evidence. Why? You don’t believe Israeli sources anyway, especially in this instance where they would be military. They have boasted that they have managed to achieve a stop ratio of 19 in 20 with respect to attempted suicide bombings. The Jerusalem police recently claimed that in the past year, they stopped 5 out of 6 attempted attacks and specifically praised the half finished separation fence. I could get you the link but it takes time and it doesn’t matter if you don’t believe me because this is what the police said.
The point being that the entire military appparatus, presence, checkpoints, sneak checkpoints, targeted killings, etc. are all geared to minimizing attacks and have met with some significant success.
I could go on, but actually I find your agreement with Elemental’s comments and attitude a little disappointing. So I’m going to move on from this discussion.
When I ask you for links it’s because I feel I need to see a source. I would never say one of your claims is untrue. But I would like confirmation sometimes to verify that it is. This (finding links & sources) is a tedious & tiresome process, I know because I often do this myself both here & in other blogs. But it’s necessary I’m afraid. As for Googling being tedious, that it may be. But it’s doesn’t take that long and it’s usually pretty quick & easy to find a source if one does exist.
You’re not going to get me into the game of who commits the worst abuse of children. You’ll have to be content with my statement that Palestinians who use children to abet terror are bad hombres; while Israeli troops who kill and maim children are equally at fault for sheding the blood of innocents.
BTW, I have another lovely little incident to recount. Rabbi Arik Ascherman of Rabbis for Human Rights reports that he was head-butted by an Israeli commander when he tried to stop IDF troops from using a Palestinian teenager as a human shield tied to the hood of their jeep (see photo). The image of that terrified boy tied to the jeep makes my blood boil and my skin crawl. BTW, do you think the commander, who Ascherman names in his report, was ever disciplined or punished??
Precisely wrong. Until they get out they will never end the attacks on Israelis. Didn’t the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon teach the truth of that statement?
Rabbi Arik Ascherman disagrees with you & he’s devoted much of his professional life to the proposition that such home demolitions are immoral. In fact, he’s been sentenced to prison for his convictions (sorry for the inadvertent pun). He’s there on the ground and lives this every day so you’ll have to apologize for my accepting his word on the matter rather than yours.
I’m sick & tired of this snarkiness. I’ve already answered this stupid accusation twice and pointed out that you are falsely distorting what I really said about IDF (NOT ‘Israeli’) sources. I provide Israeli sources (Haaretz, Ynet, even J. Post, etc.) every day for my blogs about the I-P conflict. So why in heaven’s name would you say I don’t believe them??
Statements by military forces whether they be U.S. or IDF often are suspect because they end to be self-serving. I hope you do realize that there is an entire discipline within military intelligence about how to use such statements for propagandistic purposes to advance your military/strategic goals. U.S. personnel have openly discussed the use of disinformation and deliberate errors to mislead. I’m not saying that they do this every day or in every statement. But the person who does not examine very carefully such statements is the person who’s going to get taken someday. Why wouldn’t the IDF use such strategies as well? It’s our job to listen to what they say and attempt to glean what is true from what is less than accurate.
When you say the IDF & police claim they’ve foiled terror attacks that they may be perfectly true. But they’ve foiled terror attacks by Islamic Jihad, not Hamas. Your big bone of contention is that Hamas continues to be a nest of terror. So you must distinguish when you talk about ongoing Palestinians terror attempts. If you do not, then you are being dishonest. Show me an IDF report that specifically claims they foiled a Hamas terror attempt & then we’ll have something to discuss.
Using children:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3898895.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3565607.stm
http://web.israelinsider.com/Articles/Briefs/5322.htm
Source on stopping attacks:
http://www.homelandsecurity.org/journal/Articles/tucker-israel.html (read the part near footnote 13 where he uses a Foreign Affairs article as a source)
Using Palestinians of any age as human shields is illegal and the Israeli High Court has ruled that it is illegal. If it was done, the soldiers who did it should be punished.
It’s okay if Ascherman and I disagree on house demolitions. We disagree about many other things as well.
Hamas has stopped most kind of attacks but not all:
http://hrw.org/english/docs/2006/01/30/isrlpa12549.htm
And again, the issue is whether Hamas has stopped certain kinds of attacks for strategic or tactical reasons.
You’ve got Palestinian & Israeli witnesses to the incident…what do you mean “if it was done.” It was done. As for punishment, none was meted out, none will be. So much for yr much vaunted Israeli regard for Palestinian human rights. If almost no soldiers are ever punished for such misdeeds how do you think that impacts the soldier in the field in the moment when he has to decide whether to use an appropriate level of force or excessive force to perform his duties?
I have another example of a young Palestinian arrested by Israeli border police who beat him senseless in the back seat of their jeep WHILE VIDEOTAPING IT. They then threw him out of the jeep while traveling nearly 40 miles an hour. He hit his head on the curb and died. Were they punished?? Let me think about that for a second before I answer. Hmmm. NO!!
You may disagree with Ascherman but he’s there on the ground & you’re not. Have you ever witnessed a home demolition? Have you ever talked with the soldiers performing the duty? Have you ever performed any research whatsoever on specific incidents to determine whether or not they were justified? All this he has done & I assume you haven’t.
Richard. http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2005/10/07/2003274792
Now look at the date of the incident you mentioned.
Those border police were indicted for beating that boy.
And again, I don’t disagree with Israel’s policy to destroy homes that belong to suicide bombers or that house tunnels, or even in areas where the tunnel problem is severe enough that they destroy homes that pose a threat. I realize you do and I respect your position. I even respect some of Ascherman’s positions but not all and I think of this conflict as an ongoing war where the desire to be perfect and just and wholesome may be great, but it can’t always be that way. I bring up checkpoints as an evil necessity, and you point out that people have died. Yes, they have. But that doesn’t make the checkpoints less necessary, it just makes the case that Israel needs to figure out better ways of making them operate. I point out that Palestinian smugglers say that the houses around where Corrie was killed were used for smuggling and families could make a small fortune allowing tunnels, but you oppose house demolitions and say so, while I think that Israel has to do whatever it can to prevent those arms from getting into the hands of those who wish to use them.
It’s a war. It didn’t have to be a war. There could be a Palestinian state right now. There isn’t and instead we got this war. As it progresses, the Israelis become better at stopping attacks with fewer injured, they have come to terms with the end of human shields, they have left Gaza entirely, they have made some attempts to remove illegal outposts (and that battle will start for real soon). Yet you continue to speak of Israel in the most horrible terms without acknowledging that they are in a real war and that they have made great strides in terms of fighting it cleanly. Again I point you to Russia and Chechnya or the US in Iraq to show just how much worse it could be.
Richard, I just came to your site to read some of your stuff… Look, Richard you look like a nice guy to me, but as an Israeli, I have to tell you you are living in the ocean of dreams.It is by itself not such a bad thing, concidering you live in America, but for person like me, who is familiar with ME this is rediculous. You have lots of answers to lots of questions, but you seem to look for answers selectively with intention to argue YOUR truth. You seems to me are very closed into your own mind. Frankly there is no point arguing with you. If you are blind, no matter how I will describe light to you, there is no sence. As somebody who learned Kabbalah for many years, I must say your site has nothing to do with Tikkun Olam.
I am sure you going to arase this, but well I am not sure you are really interested in different opinion anyway.
“Oceans of dreams.” My you should have been a poet! In fact, my ideas are not ‘dreams.’ They are borne of the cold, hard reality of the Middle East. It is MY ideas and not yours which will form the basis of a future peace bet. Israelis and Palestinians. Just as ideas you probably embraced like the settler movement have fallen into oblivion, other ideas impeding peace bet. Israelis & Palestinians will fall by the wayside and eventually we will be left w. a 2 state solution in which Israel withdraws to the Green Line & Palestinians give up a physical right to return. That is not a “dream” but a practical solution & close to the one that will eventually prevail in future negotiations.
My eyesight is quite good thank you. With eyeglasses it’s practically 20-20. If you need a good eye doctor I can refer you to mine. Perhaps your eyesight is in need of adjustment?
Ah, now in addition to being a poet & Mideast expert you are a student of Kabbalah. Lord preserve us! I didn’t ask your approbation or blessing for my blog. I didn’t ask for you to endorse its title or declare it kosher.
Why would I erase your comment? You’re just the garden variety nuisance/critic that comes around these parts most days.