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| Tire fires in the center of Nablus near the old city. |
Spend any time speaking to local business
owners in Nablus and they will very quickly talk about the economic problems in the West Bank. In the last few years, prices have gone up and wages
have remained stagnant. This has led to protests often directed at the
Palestinian Authority and prime minister Salam Fayyad who has in turn offered
to reduce
taxes and subsidize certain fuel prices.
There is nothing normal or natural about the
Palestinian economy and as Amira
Hass points out, violence directed at the PA because of the economy if
often misguided because in the end the West Bank’s economy is controlled and
shaped by the Israeli Occupation. She mentions the Paris Protocol,
which was signed as a precondition to the Oslo accords. This agreement prevents
the Palestinians Territories from importing any goods directly and contributes
to maintaining the price of certain commodities to almost the same price as
those in Israel (despite the average salary in the West Bank being roughly a
quarter of that of Israel). Hass also highlights some basic inequalities that
cripple the economy of the Occupied Territories such as:
- Israel is preventing Gaza from exporting agricultural and
industrial products.
- Israel is exploiting to the fullest
the natural resources of the West Bank: water, quarries, mining in the Dead
Sea, agricultural land, industrial zones, tourism and hiking sites.
- Israel conducts unfair competition
with Palestinian products: subsidized water for Israeli farmers, including
those in the settlements, compared to a minimal allocation of drinking water to
the Palestinians. When drinking water in Hebron and Bethlehem is supplied to
homes once a month, it’s no wonder that the vegetable fields are parched. (“Do
you know how much a kilo of tomatoes costs? Eight shekels,” demonstrators in
Hebron told me, as though they were talking about meat. “Do you know that we’ve
stopped growing cauliflower?” said a farmer in Halhoul, angrily noting the
Israeli cauliflower in the stall.)
Demonstrations have taken place all over
the West Bank with the most violent ones in Hebron and Nablus. The crowd in
Nablus was mostly young Palestinian men. Shopkeepers I spoke to will often
mention the youth when discussing the economic problems. How long will they
tolerate a system that offers them no bright future?
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| Palestinian security forces in Nablus |
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| Palestinian security forces in Nablus |
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