Persistent blockades, destruction of [olive] trees, closure of factories and other repressive and punitive measures by Israel in the occupied territories have massacred the Palestinian economy, widened unemployment and poverty, and killed hopes of the young generation of any recovery under Israel.
Economy
The Israel Defense Forces chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, has a monthly salary of NIS 68,060; a major general makes NIS 48,265 a month; and a brigadier general makes NIS 39,340 a month. The average monthly salary in Israel is close to NIS 8,000. While questions are occasionally raised as to the disparity between these sums, it appears that there are other potentially highly inflammatory data about military wages that the army is hiding.
IOA Editor: This seemingly domestic Israeli subject is important. It covers the economic interests in the continuation of the Occupation and war. As detailed by Amira Hass in Israel knows that peace just doesn’t pay, by the late Tanya Reinhart, and others, the influence of the IDF and the Israeli ‘defense industry’ on the shaping of Israel’s policies and behavior is enormous. This is just the latest bit of evidence.
Jonathan Cook: A recent report from Israel’s National Insurance Institute showed that half of all Arab families in Israel are classified as poor compared with just 14 per cent of Jewish families.
Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz appears to have been unaware of some important facts when he said at a recent conference on discrimination that Arab society in Israel is partially responsible for the low levels of employment for Arab women.
Palestinian officials have said they are preparing to ask the United Nations to endorse an independent state without Israel’s consent because they are losing hope they can achieve their aspirations through peace talks. The announcement drew a harsh rebuke from Israeli officials.
The 4,500 Palestinian workers who travel through the Eyal checkpoint, near West Bank city of Qalqilya, on their way to work in Israel, are finding it hard to enjoy the long-awaited winter. The checkpoint provides cover for those waiting to cross it, but its little shed can shelter about 100 people at the most, leaving the rest exposed to rain and cold winds.
“Ma’aleh Adumim was built on lands of the Jahleen; these people were pushed to the edges of the community,” [attorney] Lecker said. “This is not a hostile population and the city should be interested in ensuring that this community is not hungry.”
Economics professor and [Israeli] government minister Avishay Braverman confirms that per-capita income in the West Bank in 2009 is still far below the figures for the nine months that preceded the last intifada, in 2000. The prospects for sustained growth that will last several years and demonstrate true economic stability there, he says, are thus very poor.
In the most profound financial change in recent Middle East history, Gulf Arabs are planning – along with China, Russia, Japan and France – to end dollar dealings for oil, moving instead to a basket of currencies.
Meanwhile, Israel has warned the Palestinian Authority that it would condition permission for a second cellular telephone provider to operate in the West Bank – an economic issue of critical importance to the PA leadership – on the Palestinians withdrawing their request at the International Court.
Jonathan Cook: [T]housands of workers from Gaza had their contracts in Israel terminated without notice by employers in spring 2004, shortly after the government of Ariel Sharon announced it would be “disengaging” from the enclave in summer 2005… “Overnight more than 20,000 workers had their work permits withdrawn and lost their livelihoods,” she said. “They had been paying into the social security system, some of them for decades, but have been denied their legal entitlements, such as severance pay, overtime and holiday allowance.”
It would seem that as long as Arab educators, academics and policymakers are excluded from planning, there will be no improvement. The Arab minority constitutes nearly 20 percent of Israel’s population, but has little to no real influence over its own education policy, budgets, standards or curricula.
Successive Israeli governments since 1993 certainly must have known what they were doing, being in no hurry to make peace with the Palestinians. As representatives of Israeli society, these governments understood that peace would involve serious damage to national interests.
