Palestine
Peace Not Apartheid by Jimmy Carter, 2006, Excerpts
Let’s take a quick
look at Gaza. Its population has soared in recent years as Palestinian refugees
have poured in from other areas occupied by Israel. In 1948 there were 90,000
natives, the population more than tripled by 1967, and there are now more than
1.4 million – 3,700 people living within each square kilometer. Gaza has
maintained a population growth rate of 4.7 percent annually, one of the highest
in the world, so more than half its people are less than fifteen years old.
They are being
strangled since the Israeli “withdrawal,” surrounded by a separation barrier
that is penetrated only by Israeli controlled checkpoints, with just a single
opening [for personnel only] into Egypt’s Sinai as their access to the outside
world. There have been no moves by Israel to permit transportation by sea or by
air, Fishermen are not permitted to leave the harbor, workers are prevented
from going to outside jobs, the import or export of food and other goods is
severely restricted and often cut off completely, and the police, teachers,
nurses, and social workers are deprived of salaries. Per capita income has
decreased 40 percent during the last three years, and the poverty rate has
reached 70 percent.
Israel has taken
control of the consumer and production sectors of the area’s economy, making it
an exclusive market for many Israeli products even among the local Palestinian
citizens, who could not sell their own products in Israel, Jordan, or other
places. Their economic system has been forced back into the preindustrial age
and their territory broken into ever-smaller fragments, leaving a tiny and
nonviable economic and political entity, circumscribed and isolated, with no
dependable access to the air, sea, or even other Palestinians.
UN
Alarm at Palestinian Poverty
22 Feb 2007
The UN study, carried
out by the World Food Program (WFP), talks of a "marked decline" in
living standards. It says that by the end of last year more than 80% of Gazans
and 60% of West Bankers were reducing their daily expenditures. The report
warns that rising levels of unemployment and poverty are posing acute
challenges to "food security" - a family's ability to provide itself
with enough to eat. The study talks of "economic suffocation" and
says that Israeli security restrictions in the occupied West Bank and around
Gaza are fragmenting the Palestinian economy. Sectors like fishing and farming
are being ruined.
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