Gaza has been occupied by Israeli military forces and blockaded, under an
economic stranglehold, from the rest of the world for decades. The coast to the
Mediterranean is blockaded by Israeli Naval forces to the point where
humanitarian assistance from other nation-states can not even come through
without Israeli interference. The illegal Israeli apartheid wall and numerous
Israeli military checkpoints have blocked Gaza off from all trade routes and
Israel has continued to confiscate land and erect illegal settlements, despite
international condemnation. How can an economy exist if it can not freely
export or import? It is almost like colonialism, only more barbaric.
There is heavy capitalist exploitation, guised in humanitarian efforts,
at work in this area. How much does it help the Palestinian people though?
Lets look at how the World Bank and private investments play into this
situation. Here is an excerpt from an 2005 article written by the Palestinian
Grassroots Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign entitled "'Developing' Israeli
Apartheid: The World Bank, International Aid and The Ghettoization of
Palestine"
"While Palestinians are imprisoned, facing continued denial
of their rights and aspirations, the Bank portrays a golden economic opportunity
of a cheap, controlled labour force. The Bank’s blueprint for a new export-based
economy, subservient to the strategic needs of Israel and global capital - with
Israeli/foreign investment creaming off the profits - merges with the
Occupation’s destruction of Palestinian farmland and local markets. Indeed, the
Bank's reports hardly refer to agriculture at all, traditionally the core sector
of the Palestinian economy. Instead, imposing Israeli-run industrial zones,
military checkpoints and Jewish-only road systems onto the West Bank are
policies that reflect the Bank’s overall strategy for a Do-It-Yourself Apartheid
Guide for the 21st century.
As with any other “Third World” population
that the World Bank subjugates into the global economy, the role assigned to the
Palestinian people is simple: to cheaply produce goods for export to wealthier
countries, strengthening economic dependency on global capitalist systems. The
Bank insists that Palestinians must not only be willing to accept brutal
military occupation, dispossession and expulsion, but must also sustain their
oppressor's economy through primary goods and industrial output. Furthermore,
walled-in Palestinians are marked as a captive audience, forced into a system of
dependency upon the Occupation for even the most basic needs. Israel has drained
Palestine of her natural resources, stealing around 80% of Palestinian natural
water outputs on an annual basis. Now, in Gaza, the Bank states Palestinians who
have been robbed of their water for decades should enter into trade agreements
with Israel whereby they can buy back – “at Israeli commercial rates” – the same
water stolen by the Occupation.
The convergence between Zionist actions
and World Bank economics is clear, with international investment transforming
the destruction and dispossession caused by the Israeli colonization policies
into the Bank’s new showcase project: a series of massive Israeli industrial
estates built on annexed Palestinian land. The so-called Tulkarem Peace Park,
for example, is to be built on farmland stolen from the village of Irtah; land
that sustained 50 families for generations and formed an integral part of
community and family life. Now their only source of employment will be as an
exploited worker on an Israeli industrial estate surrounded by walls,
checkpoints and prison gates.
The World Bank ignores the inherent
illegality of such estates and instead celebrates that they will employ cheap
labour "with a minimum of red tape," i.e. the absence of trade unions, health
regulations and other worker's rights. Israel’s most toxic and environmentally
destructive forms of industry will be transferred to the West Bank, where
Palestinians work for around a quarter of the wages in Israel (though even this
is still too high in the opinion of the Bank's reports). They may try and dress
these sweatshops up as liberation and independence, but they represent nothing
more than a devastating system of racial capital not seen since the days of
Apartheid South Africa."
The World Bank transferred 14.3 million to the
Palestinian Authority in September 2012 with much of that financing coming from
Britain and Australia. The following link is a list of World Bank operations in
Gaza and the West Bank. When looking at the areas of operation, I attempt
to identify job creation, possible importing and exporting (through Israeli
occupation), and motives for foreign capitalist investment and
profiteering.
http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTWESTBANKGAZA/Resources/WestBankandGazasnapshotBetaJuly3-2012.pdf
Palestinian
Grassroots Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign, 'Developing' Israeli Apartheid: The
World Bank, International Aid and The Ghettoization of Palestine, May 18, 2005,
(Accessed on December 8, 2012 from
http://www.stopthewall.org/developing-israeli-apartheid-world-bank-international-aid-and-ghettoization-palestine)
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