A Response to Daniel Ades

by Shirley Jean, MALD/JD '04

This is in response to the editorial entitled, "An Alternative View of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict." Even though I am sure that the writer did not intend to offend his audience, as a black American Catholic, his lack of understanding of the reality of economic development in the Occupied Territories was indeed offensive to me.

From a purely academic perspective, the economy of the Occupied Territories has not experienced a "downturn," which suggests that it was truly on the upturn at some point. It also assumes that economic development of the Occupied Territories can be discussed outside of the context of occupation. Any positive trends in the GNP are a result of the growing number of small businesses focusing on light manufacturing created through the initiative of Palestinians who persevered against legal and economic barriers put in place by Israel.

The Occupied Territories were denied the opportunity to create a viable economy as part of Israel's state policy. This assertion is fact that any true, unbiased economist studying the Occupied Territories would not challenge.  First, Palestinians were not allowed to create their own banking structure. Instead, they could only use Israeli banks or foreign banks from Egypt and Jordan. Given this barrier, no formal financing sector developed for people to access and accumulate capital in Gaza or the West Bank.  Second, any new business had to apply for licenses through the Israeli government and the number of issued licenses was kept extremely low.

Third, trade restrictions, such as those limiting the export of agricultural goods to Israel and outside the Occupied Territories, severely restricted Palestinian sustainable income generating capacity. 

Fourth, job security in the "Israeli industries" was virtually unknown, because at any given time, workers were restricted from entering Israel proper. Even after the Oslo Accords, bottlenecks and entry restrictions continued. Finally, how does one create a viable economy when access to basic infrastructure and inputs, such as access to roads and water, are controlled by another state with competing interests?

A Palestinian at a checkpoint

One cannot blame underdevelopment on a population's general lack of education, without looking at the underlying economic distortions. The Palestinian Authority may be corrupt, as most governments are, but to call it a failed state is to make the assumption that from an economic and legal perspective, it had a chance to be a viable state in the first place. One could also argue that human capital is not destroyed by Islamic schools, but rather in the torture chairs and the prisons.

By the way, the quote from Golda Meir and the commentary on the recent assassination of an Israeli minister was inappropriate in an editorial attempting to maintain a non-biased inclination. If this is an economic critique, ideological commentary only weakens the author's argument. However, in response to the author's assertions and commentary, I must question how any country could tolerate a neighbor that harbors known torturers and allows the murders of cabinet ministers, human rights activists, politicians, and children in the territories they occupy in violation of international law.

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