This piece by Glenn Yago , who worked on the ground to promote investment in the Palestinan terroritories, gets to the heart of the matter of why the Oslo process failed - Arafat's sabatoging of Palestinian economic development.
Meanwhile, Yasser Arafat was a bouncing marionette, shuttling from one world capital to the next sounding like a grizzled Rodney Dangerfield getting no respect, dazed that he hadn't been hugged enough at Camp David. We forgot that the Palestinian Authority, despite the many enlightened and hard-working Palestinians we met with, was not a market democracy with the transactional trust required for commerce and investment but simply a gangland dictatorship running a protection racket. No one was allowed to look or think about financing the future, because the "Rais"--the "chief," as Arafat was called--couldn't envision a peaceful future because he was addicted to his violent past.
Each and every proposal we came up with for economic development for and with the Palestinians was blocked until Israel would comply with Arafat's political wishes. "Yes," we were told by Palestinian Authority officials, "these are great economic projects and programs, but we can't move forward until the political final status agreement." Full stop. Time to go home.
There was never a peace dividend for the Palestinian people because their leadership blocked every attempt to earn one. Without a constituency for peace, a constituency for terror quickly formed. Private investment disappeared and donor investment shifted from infrastructure and employment projects to maintaining Arafat's jet and his crony government. With this intifada, unemployment tripled to 30% of the Palestinian work force and the gross domestic product of Gaza and the West Bank fell by 12%. Arafat made Israelis miserable by making his own people destitute.
Stillborn, the Palestinian economy mirrors the failed regimes of the Middle East. By refusing to help his people, Arafat has bred a jobless young labor force that is bereft of education. The Palestinians missed the opportunity to derive benefits from regional trade or foreign capital flows. Instead, they live in a collapsed economy with sinking per capita incomes. And they hold the rest of us hostage to the highest concentration of terrorist organizations in the world.
Despite our best efforts, the Palestinians today have found no way to build a country or serve a people; only a good way to start Arafat's war.
In contrast to the Palestinians, Israelis gained greatly from the peace process. Foreign investment flowed into the country as Israel became more integrated into the world economy. Israel developed a booming hi-tech export industry, and took advantage of its highly skilled workforce. As a result of this peace dividend, there emerged strong support for continuing the Oslo process, flaws and all. This support was the bedrock of Barak's victory over Netanyahu, and the elation that election produced in Israel's Silicon Valley.
A peace dividend for Palestinians is not a luxury, it is essential for there ever to be a lasting, stable peace. The removal of Arafat is a neccessary condition for that dividend. And while an Israeli withdrawal to sensible borders is helpful to a lasting peace - it will not be sufficient. There can be no avoidance of the question of who governs the Palestinians. It is up to the United States and the Palestinians so-called European sympathizers to help secure a government that provides the Palestinans with the decent existence all humans deserve.
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