A new U.N. report finds the economy of Palestinians in the Gaza Stripand West Bank has hit an all-time low. The report by the U.N. Conferenceon Trade and Development (UNCTAD) says the economy of the occupied PalestinianTerritory faces unprecedented challenges.
The U.N. agency is marking the 25th anniversary ofits assistance program for the Palestinian people. The UNCTADcoordinator of this program, Mahmoud Elkhafif, says this is not a happyoccasion.
He notes the program was supposed to be dissolved whenthe Palestinian question was resolved. This has not happened. In fact,he says the Palestinian economy has never sunk so low.
"Anaverage Palestinian in the West Bank and Gaza is getting two-thirds ofwhat he or she used to get in 1999 ... Unemployment touches almostone-third of the Palestinian labor force in the [territories], 10percent higher than its level in 1999. Also, the real wage has droppedby 11 percent compared to the level in 1999," said Elkhafif.
Thereport says nearly 60 percent of Palestinians live in poverty and thetrade deficit has reached an unprecedented 79 percent. It says thetrade deficit with Israel alone amounts to more than 140 percent of totalinternational donor support and accounts for more than 70 percent ofthe overall trade deficit.
UNCTAD economists say the decline isrooted in Israel's closure policy. They say an already dire situationwas made worse by Israel's military incursion into Gaza at the end oflast year in response to rocket and mortar attacks by Hamas and othermilitant groups operating in the strip. The UNCTAD report says thedevastation of Gaza and its economy has plunged 1.5 millionPalestinians into unprecedented levels of poverty.
The reportcalls for a bold shift in the orientation of Palestinian economicdevelopment. Elkhafif says Palestinians must lay the grounds for afuture viable state and build new institutions that would develop theireconomy when a sovereign state emerges.
"Onearea that we are proposing for the international community and thePalestinians is to consider Palestine, which is the case under the ParisProtocol, as a simple custom territory," Elkhafif said. This would allow Palestine, orthe West Bank and Gaza, either the PLO or the Palestinian Authority ...to join the WTO, either as observership status or a full membershipstatus," he continued.
Elkhafif says becoming part ofthe World Trade Organization would make a significant and substantialcontribution toward Palestinian state building. He says it also wouldput the Palestinian territory on an equal footing with Israel as wellas with any other trading partner.
He says about 90 percent ofPalestinian trade is with Israel. So, any dispute that erupts betweenthe two trading partners could be resolved in the WTO arena.