Good for the NY Times, it puts the lie to Netanyahu’s claim that he can bring economic freedom to the West Bank in this trenchant piece by Zahi Khouri, the head of Palestinian National Beverage company. I gather the piece ran in the Int’l Herald Tribune:
The economy of the West Bank has deteriorated over the past decade as a result of Israeli restrictions on Palestinian movement, which severely hamper trade and labor mobility.
These restrictions, combined with Israel’s fragmentation of the West Bank, remain the greatest impediment to economic development in Palestine. This includes Israel’s forced isolation of occupied East Jerusalem, long the economic heart of Palestine, from the rest of the West Bank.
According to a June 2009 World Bank report, real G.D.P. in the occupied Palestinian territory has declined by a “cumulative 34 percent in real per capita terms” since September 2000. Given this, even the most minimal Israeli gestures cannot help but bring improvement…
The alternatives to a two-state solution are either an apartheid state, which is unacceptable to Palestinians, or one binational state, which Israeli Jews reject.
Mr. Netanyahu is selling us a bill of goods with the claim he can manage the situation with economic improvement. He is wrong. Without a political outcome that secures Palestinian territorial rights, including East Jerusalem as the Palestinian capital, and a just outcome for refugees, more conflict lies ahead.
President Obama recognizes this. President Mahmoud Abbas recognizes this. Yet Mr. Netanyahu somehow thinks he can charm Palestinians, who are daily reminded of the occupation under which they suffer, with a 7-percent growth bubble.
