Palestine: It's Not Just The Economy, Stupid
My friend Sam Bahour, one of Ramallah's grittiest entrepreneurs and consultants, a Palestinian-American man-of-the-world (who got his Kellogg School MBA at Tel-Aviv University), knows more than most how important economic reciprocity and development will be to building peace. But he also knows their limitations. Israelis or Americans who think economic advance will be a substitute for a political process that changes borders and governance and makes room for refugees--that Palestinians will be silenced by the hope of material gain--do not understand their future.
Sam writes:
On the economic front, they point to grand plans to establish a handful of industrial mega-zones, the majority being located on the unilaterally-defined (illegal) Israeli border between the West Bank and Israel. These industrial zones are meant to absorb the over 150,000 Palestinian laborers that Israel has prohibited from working in Israel. Moreover, as I was recently told by an Israeli promoting these industrial zones, for every job created in such a zone, three will be created for Palestinians outside the industrial zones -- thus, in essence, creating an entire artificial economy built around Palestinian and foreign-owned, but Israeli-controlled economic bubbles.
What the international community fails to mention is that the dynamic on the ground is explosive. The Israeli military occupation is alive and well and causing structural, possibly irrevocable damage to Palestinian lands and persons. The Jewish-only Israeli settlement enterprise is off the leash and building more and more illegal settlements as if there were no tomorrow, not to mention the increasing tides of settler violence which remains unpunished. All this settlement activity is happening with full approval of the Israeli government and in full view of the international community. The failing (or failed) health care and education systems in Palestine are producing a generation of Palestinians with much less to lose and little hope for the future.
Read Sam's entire argument here.
@ Avishai
They don't understand their past either...because this is exactly the criticism Zhabotinsky made of the Socialist program in "Wall of Iron" (1923). I wouldn't be surprised to learn that Americans had advanced the same arguments when taking Indian lands 150 or 200 years earlier. Or that colonial powers going back to Roman times or earlier said the same things.
It's discouraging to see how often this happens. The same mistakes, time and again, with no understanding of what happened before, despite the easy availability of the evidence.
September 3, 2008 12:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think China is pretty much proof that the old economic development = reform, democracy and freedom argument is hollow.
But this Bahour guy... kind of seems like a rich guy looking for some corporate welfare.
September 3, 2008 12:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Destor23,
Your offhand comment about Sam Bahour is way, way way off the mark. Sam is from Toledo. He moved to Palestine, his land of ancestry, during the progress made during the Oslo process (which WAS happening for a while). He wanted to provide some economic opportunity for the folks in what would someday officially be Palestine.
He was and is trying to do some good; and your comment is ridiculous and demeaning and speaks volumes about your own cynicism and ignorance.
He was the only Arab (Arab-American in this case) to get that business degree mentioned above, and went about working to create a modern and neat but very modestly sized (appropriate for the neighborhood and city) food and shopping development. When I was last aware of its status, it had been halted by the Israeli re-invasion and re-occupation of the West Bank.
Sam wants to earn his living the old-fashioned way, by working for it and inspiring others to become entrepreneurs as well.
You really might should think about reining in that way-off wayward offhand imagination of yours, at least in writing it for public consumption. You just come off insulting and mainly ignorant. Or is it prejudice?
L. Piltz
September 4, 2008 12:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
I will gladly admit to huge ignorance of any nuance in the Israeli Palestinian conflict, but I really don't care.
A friend of mine had been abused as a child and submitted herself to years of therapy to try and erase the stain from her psyche. One day, she just decided enough was enough, and that she had to decide to live on her terms, not the residue of something she could not control.
The Palestinians are going to have to do the same thing.
* They are going to have to stop shelling Israel,
* They are going to have to ask why their Arab brethren make no accommodation for them,
* They are going to have to ask themselves what worth they have today.
Occupied territory? Please. They don't own that territory, and anyone that thinks otherwise should immediately vacate their home and turn it over to the nearest Native American.
September 3, 2008 1:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
shooter242,
you listed what the Palestinians are supposed to do, how about the Israelis, anything they should do?
As to the land, haven't the Israelis moved Palestinians out of the homes they were living in, and off the land they grew crops on......for generations?
Is it ok for me to come to your house, kick you out and let my brother move in, and when you complain, I tell you:
Occupied house? Please. You don't own that house, and anyone that thinks otherwise should immediately vacate their house and turn it over to the nearest Native American.
Taking Indian or Palestinian homes/land is wrong.
Remember what your parents told you? "Two wrongs don't make a right"
September 3, 2008 2:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ah so, Shooter ... how would your friend be doing if she was still being abused, every day? It wouldn't be a residue, would it?
* Shelling - if you know of artillery in the hands of Palestinians, I am sure the IDF and Mossad would very much like to speak to you.
* You don't seem to realize how many Palestinian refugees are in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, etc. You may wonder why they haven't integrated into those societies and prefer to maintain a Palestinian identity - I wonder if there's any other group in history that had such an experience.
* Worth? To whom? The IDF? What's the square root of -1? To George W. Bush? To bin Ladin?
Occupied territory - I'm guessing you don't know what the Balfour Declaration is.
For my part - my ancestors were at the first Thanksgiving, giving thanks for the generosity of the first people whose help allowed most of them to survive the first winter in the New World. King Philip's War notwithstanding, my people never took native land by force. How about you?
September 3, 2008 2:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
kenga says;
Mine did, then I went and fought them and made them give it back. :-)
September 3, 2008 2:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
@ kenga
I wonder whether that's really true. Tribal conflict among native Americans was as commonplace as anywhere else on earth.
September 3, 2008 4:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sorry, kenga. I misunderstood you. When you say your people are you talking about your immediate family, or what?
September 3, 2008 4:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
* Shelling - Is "rocketing" a word?
* Palestinian identity - The one were Palestinians are the whipped dog of the planet?
* Worth - Worth means exactly that. Gaza has been given back, but what has become of it? Are the Palestinians capable of civilization? Peace and prosperity? Apparently not.
* Balfour - here's a novel idea for you... borders sacrosanct are now the source for most of the misery in the second and third world. Gaza is a great example as is Zimbabwe. The past century's reliance on them is really the "Despotic Tyrant Protection Act". Everything and anything perpetrated by natives within their border is tolerated by the rest of the world, no matter how heinous the acts may be.
I'm going to presume your argument is that Balfour set the Israeli borders and that they should honor those borders. That's pretty funny given the Arab penchant for disregarding them. You're preaching to the wrong group. When a nation needs to erect a concrete fence to protect against suicide bombers, it's obvious who is the more peaceful party.
September 4, 2008 6:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
@ shooter242
That's about what Zhabotinsky said nearly a hundred years ago.
The thing is the Palestinians still haven't given up. They still think or hope to drive the Jews out.
Who's to say they won't be successful? Hizbullah, Hamas, Iran, and probably many others in the Muslim world agree...and they always cite the Crusades as proof it can be done.
That's the discouraging thing. It really can be done. The Spanish did it. The Balkan nations did it. Poland did it. That's why these hatreds and conflicts are so hard to eradicate.
Conflicts like these are too often framed by partisans in moral terms. There's no morality here, not in any normal sense. There's tribal conflict.
September 3, 2008 3:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
Occupied territory? Please. They don't own that territory, and anyone that thinks otherwise should immediately vacate their home and turn it over to the nearest Native American.
Shooter was for property rights before he was against them.
flip
flop
shooter
shot
squat
September 3, 2008 3:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
Shooter's money quote: " I will gladly admit to huge ignorance of any nuance in the Israeli Palestinian conflict, but I really don't care."
Mission Accomplished.
September 3, 2008 2:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Shooter's money quote: " I will gladly admit to huge ignorance of any nuance in the Israeli Palestinian conflict, but I really don't care."
Mission Accomplished.
September 3, 2008 2:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Bernard: I got to meet Marwan Muasher recently. As you know, he is a well-known Arab moderate. He had no real answer this observation: If the problem is Hamas, i.e., no partner for peace, then why is the situation on the West Bank not improving? There is no evidence that Abbas's negotiations have done anything but legitimize Israel's settlement expansion.
That observation, sadly, is why Arab moderates are losing ground.
September 3, 2008 2:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Have you given your home back to the American Indians yet?
The creation of Israel once you account for the Jews driven out of the surrounding Arab lands, involved a net displacement of about 200,000 Palestinians.
September 4, 2008 10:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
AJM says,
"Have you given your home back to the American Indians yet?
The creation of Israel once you account for the Jews driven out of the surrounding Arab lands, involved a net displacement of about 200,000 Palestinians."
This kind of thinkng explains why the two-state solution is breaking down. I am always amused about how Arabs are supposed to solve the refugee problem Israel created. I guess Macdedonia was responsible for the Kosovars that Milosevic expelled....laughable.
September 4, 2008 11:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
@ mythbuster
The same way Israel solved the refugee problem the Arabs created. Why is that so hard to understand?
This had only happened a thousand times before in history, most recently post WWII when millions were displaced. As far as I know, the Arabs were the only ones to come up with the present wonderful plan for the Palestinians.
September 4, 2008 11:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
OTU. What you don't understand is the two-state solution is designed to solve Israel's demographic "problem." (Of course, no one refers to the Palestinians having a "Jewish problem," which pretty much reveals the racism implicit in the assumptions behind the issue.)
Here's the future:
1. US
September 4, 2008 12:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
OTU. What you don't understand is the two-state solution is designed to solve Israel's demographic "problem." (Of course, no one refers to the Palestinians having a Jewish demographic problem," which pretty much reveals the racism implicit in the assumptions behind the issue.)
The Palestinians don't need to go anywhere, they just need to advocate for a vote in any political entity that tries to rule them. With the geography, you get the demography.
This, of course, is the delicious irony of the Colonization Project of the West Bank.
September 4, 2008 12:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
@ mythbuster
Everyone refers to Palestinians having a demographic problem. That is everyone named Amadinejad, Arafat, Nasrullah, and half a billion on so others. The reason you don't know about it is because they don't do so in the presence of useless idiots.
And everyone also has an ethnic cleansing solution to the problem, which you don't know about for the same reason.
The worst thing about progressives is they think they're smart when everyone else knows they are the dumbest people on earth.
September 4, 2008 3:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
OTU: "Everyone refers to Palestinians having a demographic problem. That is everyone named Amadinejad, Arafat, Nasrullah, and half a billion on so others. The reason you don't know about it is because they don't do so in the presence of useless idiots."
Utterly unsourced. Should I be surprised?
September 4, 2008 4:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
@ mythbuster
Well, you obviously don't need a source for the first three named. Nor do you need a source to know that Iran, the PLO, and several other Arab countries and organizations do not recognize the existence of Israel. Nor do you need a source for the rampant anti-semitism (I hope you understand what this means in this context) prevalent in the Muslim, and especially, the Arab world. Nor a source for the Palestinian belief that a higher birth rate would very soon give them control of a unified state. Nor a source for the historical Arab position.
You could, of course, look through the documents provided by MEMRI but you would reject that as an illegitimate source, or read what Benny Morris has to say about it, but you would refuse to do so as well.
If you read farsi or arabic there would be no problem in looking through various egyptian, saudi, iranian, etc. publications...but you don't.
Or you could google the whole issue yourself. But I think it a given that you're totally incapable of doing this...or you would have done so already instead of pointlessly challenging me.
September 4, 2008 5:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
OTU: Yes, the Google machine contains all the answers to all questions...and still you don't cite a single example of how an Arab or an Iranian refers to the Palestinians as a "demographic problem." They refer to demographics, but the Palestinains are not a "problem."
September 5, 2008 12:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
@ mythbuster
The Arabs and Iranians "refer to the Palestinians having a Jewish demographic problem". If you can't see it maybe you should see a doctor.
September 6, 2008 1:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
@OTY
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Peace/recogn.html
September 7, 2008 3:06 AM | Reply | Permalink