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David Dreilinger and IPF Staff is a not-for-profit, nonpartisan organization with a singular purpose: to support active and sustained American efforts aimed at resolving the conflict between Israel and its Arab neighbors.
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By David Dreilinger and IPF Staff
November 3, 2005
Following the suicide bomb attack in Hadera last week that killed five Israelis and wounded dozens more, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon announced that he would not negotiate with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas until he takes steps against the terrorist organizations. The subsequent escalation in attacks and reprisals has further dampened the prospects of negotiations resuming anytime soon, even on mundane economic and civil matters. Indeed, after the bombing, Communications Minister Dalia Itzik cancelled a meeting with her Palestinian counterpart. If the communications ministers can't find common ground for discussions, it seems unlikely that the military or political echelons will have much to talk about in the next few weeks either.
Still, even if this prediction holds true, the lack of dialogue by no means provides the international community with an excuse not to get to work.
In fact, the absence of negotiations -- coupled with the growing possibility of further unilateral Israeli moves and the Palestinian Authority's apparent weakness vis a vis the terrorist organizations - makes the international community's role in rehabilitating and rebuilding the Palestinian economy even more important. It would be tragic if, after the Palestinian and Israeli elections in the coming year and the potential advent of negotiations, the economic situation was so dire that political progress was impossible. Today, a "wait and see" approach to economic development, especially in the recently evacuated Gaza Strip, is not an option.
That is the message brought forward by Major General (ret.) Danny Rothschild, the former IDF administrator of the West Bank and president of the Israeli Council for Peace and Security, an organization of over a thousand former high-ranking officers from the IDF, Mossad, Shin Bet, and Police. Speaking in Washington DC last week, Rothschild encouraged the Bush administration to aggressively pursue the economic program laid out by international envoy James Wolfensohn.
No one needs to be reminded of the benefits for Israel, the Palestinians, and the peace process that a successful Palestinian economy would bring. Economic growth will raise living standards, encourage the development of democratic institutions (courts to enforce the rule of law and property rights, an empowered legislature and a freer press to check government abuses and corruption, etc.), and create an incentive for Palestinians to rein in violence and maintain stable relations with Israel.
Unfortunately, this didn't happen in the 1990s. Rothschild contends that the failure of the Oslo Accords to produce tangible quality-of-life results for the Palestinian people -- the result of some combination of Arafatian corruption, Israeli foot-dragging, and the unstable political and security environment -- was a significant factor in the breakdown of negotiations in 2000 and the process' ultimate failure.
But Arafat is gone, Finance Minister Salam Fayyad has been working to stabilize and modernize the Palestinian Authority financial system, and Israel has withdrawn its troops and settlements from Gaza. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been raised. The time for responsible investment and targeted, transparent economic aid is now, not next year.
Rothschild is not alone in this view. Many others, including World Bank representatives, RAND Corporation analysts, and Palestinian and Israeli government officials, have been raising the issue of aggressively rehabilitating the Gaza economy since Sharon first introduced the disengagement initiative two years ago. The relatively simple idea of building high-rise apartment buildings on the sites of former settlements or upgrading conditions in the refugee camps is particularly attractive. Not only would the construction produce an immediate infusion of local Palestinian jobs (many workers are already trained, having done the exact same work in Israel), but could house thousands of refugees who currently live in crowded and decrepit camps. Work on these projects, according to Rothschild, "could begin tomorrow."
Transportation infrastructure is another place where work can and should be done. Building a seaport (either on the coast, or as part of an innovative canal system along the Gaza-Egypt border, as some experts have suggested) and improving roads and public facilities in the Gaza Strip are projects with long-term benefits that can be started immediately.
Some analysts go even further, making the connection between a stagnant economy and support for terrorist groups. Matthew Levitt, a researcher at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, has called for the international community to help organize and finance a social services network that could compete with Hamas' charity organization, thereby siphoning support away from the terrorist group ahead of the crucial electoral period. He realizes that while important, "tactical responses [against terrorist groups like Hamas] are incapable of undermining support for such groups without simultaneously targeting the social and political activities underpinning that support." In short: if you want to stop Hamas, you need to drive their welfare system out of business. Levitt recommends lending U.S. and European expertise to public and private Palestinian groups to strengthen moderates (like President Abbas) and improve Palestinians' access to food, jobs, health care, housing, and schooling.
The Sharon government, together with the Bush administration, has thus far taken some positive steps. Last week, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told the parties that the border issue between Egypt, Gaza, and Israel needs to be resolved "so that the kind of economic program we all want to see in the Palestinian territories" can be implemented. Israel wasted little time in working out an agreement on some of the Gaza border crossings, bringing in the EU to play a supervisory role at the Rafah crossing along the Gaza-Egypt border.
Unfortunately, some recent Israeli moves are likely to have an adverse effect on Palestinian economic development. The Israeli decision to postpone discussions of a road or rail link between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank (identified by analyst Yossi Alpher as "one area where Washington can? get things moving and enable the Wolfensohn mission to begin to show some success") has been a blow to economic growth. And, as Monday's Haaretz editorial points out, the new seven-lane checkpoint that is going up in the northern West Bank - without any discussion from the cabinet - is another example of how the "security services are once again setting the agenda? while diplomacy is being pushed to the margins." Without a reliable means of transportation -- from Gaza to the West Bank, and within the West Bank itself -- a significantly improved economic situation is difficult to imagine.
Everyone realizes that economic development is not a panacea; there are real security and political issues, like terrorism and settlements, that in the long-term need to be discussed and resolved.
But it is clear that the United States and Israel have an interest in a functioning Palestinian economy, and it is an issue that can realistically be addressed in the short-term. Condoleezza Rice has said as much, and James Wolfensohn has shown both sides how to get there. Even in this period of political and military tension, no one -- in Washington or the Middle East - can afford to wait any longer to act.
Views expressed by the author do not
necessarily reflect those of israelinsider.
 
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