It should have happened sooner, but at least it has happened now. Israel has been exposed by the august World Bank for its oppressive control of the West Bank. Three weeks before global protests begin against 40 years of Israel‘s occupation, the report reveals what every government knows, but not one has  been prepared to stop. Effectively, the report challenges the notion of a viable two-state solution under Israel‘s current restrictions and illegal land appropriations. According to the report, the West Bank has been fragmented into 10 isolated non-contiguous ghettoes which is an impossible configuration for any viable state, and this is made even more bizarre by the presence of some 250,000 illegal Jewish settlers (excluding those in  East Jerusalem) who exercise control over 50% of the West Bank.  And the  Wall, says the report, exceeds at times Israel‘s security needs and seems  rather to contribute to, along with restrictive zoning and land use rules  and practices, Jewish settlement expansion.

The Bank’s report is timely and welcome, but curiously it does not mention the effects of the sanctions that the West and Israel imposed on the  Palestinians at the beginning of last year. At the time, the World Bank had  stated that the Palestinian economy would shrink by 27% in 2006 – “a one  year contraction that compares to the Great Depression in the US“.  In other words, the Palestinian economy was in danger of collapse even then and the  warnings were not acted upon. Instead, the world cavalierly continued with  its sanctions because it did not approve of the newly elected Hamas  government – democratically elected in fair and transparent elections  overseen by former US president Jimmy Carter.  Now, the World Bank is  ratcheting up its dire warnings about the prohibitive restrictions that have  decimated the Palestinian economy: as long as the political situation  remains unresolved and the economy continues to depend on foreign assistance  simply for survival, there is very little prospect of a sustainable economic  recovery. Certainly not the sort of sustained growth rates that can provide  decent living standards for an expanding population. Any reversal of the  situation, says the report, would have to entail dismantling Israel‘s grid  of physical and administrative barriers.

 

These catastrophic conditions have been apparent for years, which makes one  wonder about the real intentions of the world’s leaders, especially since so  much energy has been wasted trying to negotiate a two-state solution  according to the long-irrelevant Road Map. Not only does the report point to  the physical barriers of checkpoints, roadblocks, walls, gates and no-go  zones, but it reveals Israel‘s complex permit system which seriously affects  the freedom of Palestinians to move anywhere.  The permits and IDs are mind-boggling, not just because they are needed to move, but because they  are necessary at all inside the West Bank which was designated as part of  the future Palestinian state by the Oslo Accords in 1993. Israel, however, is undeterred and continues its settlement expansion and Judaisation of  Jerusalem without any regard for the human misery and frustration caused by  such entrapment. The fact that the number of obstacles has risen – 44%  higher than at the signing of the Agreement on Movement and Access in  November 2005, according to UN OCHA data on which the report relied – only  confirms Israel’s deliberate intent to paralyse the Palestinian economy,  further disintegrate Palestinian society and render any  viable Palestinian  state forever impossible.

 

Israel‘s myth-making about an inferior, uncivilised, violent people does not  square with Nobel Laureate Professor Joseph Stiglitz’s description of the  Palestinians and their economy when he was Chief Economist at the World Bank  in 1997.  He said then: “The Palestinian economy is blessed with excellent  people. Its general development indicators – including life expectancy,  literacy and child mortality rates – are among the best in the Middle East  and North Africa region.”  If one considers the unrelenting punishing controls being exerted on the Palestinians, it is a wonder that they have  survived the attacks on their society and economy at all.  However, their  resourcefulness which has sustained them thus far, will be no use once  Israel‘s impenetrable maze of dead-ends is completed.   If the world allows that to happen, the problems besetting the Palestinians will take on a much  more frightening dimension.  Israel has yet to provide an answer for what it  plans to do with almost 3 million people in the West Bank deprived of their   land, water, homes, and liberty.  There are not too many solutions left.

 

The most tragic thing in all this is that so many Palestinian lives have  been lost and wasted – and continue to be – in the living hell Israel has  been allowed to construct while the world falls over itself to defend  Israel’s right to exist and its right to defend that existence. Not a word  is said about the rights of Palestinians crying out to be recognised under  Israel‘s occupation.  The World Bank’s report this time is absolutely clear,  making our legal and moral culpability for the consequences even more  onerous if we do not help the Palestinians. We ignore the report’s findings  at our peril.   

 

Reference: World Bank Report – “Movement and access restrictions in the  West Bank: Uncertainty and Inefficiency in the Palestinian Economy”, 9 May  2007

 

 

Sonja Karkar is the founder and president of Women for Palestine in  Melbourne, Australia. See www.womenforpalestine.com   

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