The Financial Media Discovers Gaza

shared courtesy of Michael Horesh

Writing 2 weeks ago in the UK newspaper, The Mail on Sunday, Peter Hitchens summarised an extensive visit to Gaza, which he described as “world’s most misrepresented location“.

Hitchens coverage was the first amongst several similar stories in the international, all with a similar theme.

I don’t think it (Gaza) is a paradise, or remotely normal………..There are dispiriting slums that should have been cleared decades ago, people living on the edge of subsistence. There is danger. And most of the people cannot get out. But it is a lot more complicated, and a lot more interesting, than that………

But if you think Israel is the only problem, or that Israelis are the only oppressors hereabouts, think again. Realise, for a start, that Israel no longer rules Gaza. Its (former) settlements are ruins.

Even when, as in Gaza, there is no way out, morality patrols sweep through restaurants in search of illicit beer and women smoking in public, affronting the 14th Century values of Hamas.

Hitchens is going against a decade or so of politically correct wisdom. Two years ago, Time Magazine pleaded: “Please spare a thought for the starving Palestinians of Gaza. There are 1.5 million of them”. In parallel, and industry of NGOs has arisen, although they seem content to criticise Israel but never the excesses of Palestinian rule.

So what is the truth? was there ever hunger? Has Gaza suddenly discovered gold? Has it been wealthy all the time, but nobody really reported the facts? As Hitchens also commented, the truth in the Middle East is rarely what you see on the surface, so let’s dig a bit more.

Go to any IMF or World Bank report on the Palestinian economy – and Gaza in particular – and you will find a depressing set of economic statistics. Every since September 2000 when Yassir Arafat and the Palestinian Authority launched the Second Intifada, the economy has nose dived.

But if financial growth in Gaza went backwards, then previously it must have achieved a “higher” level from which to fall. And this is where the work of Sebastien Dessus for the World Bank is so valuable. Professionally, he has been tracking the Palestinian economy for over a decade. Note what he says about the period from the onset of Israeli rule to the start of the Intifada.

While real GDP grew by 5.5 percent on average in West Bank and Gaza from 1968 to 2000, it only grew by 4.2 percent in Israel. During the same time, population grew by 2.9 percent in WBG and 2.4 percent in Israel.

Does that put the Palestinians as one of the most successful economies in the last quarter of the twentieth century? Bring on the Intifada, suicide bombings and attacks from Gaza, and the Palestinian population suddenly found themselves without 125,000 jobs in Israel. And these were considered relatively well paid positions. Couple this with Israeli defensive measures – justified and / or repressive – and you have the recipe for a mega economic dip.

For the Palestinian leadership, the question was did the political uplift justify the financial turmoil, a debate I will not deal with. Certainly, key personalities did not suffer. Fatah strongman, Mohammed Dahlan amassed a personal fortune since his PA career began in the late 1980s, organising youth mobs in Gaza City. Hamas has collected a wealth of taxes from the smuggling industry, leading to “unprecedented social mobility” according to one local source.

And today? As Hitchens writes, life in Gaza is not a picnic, but neither is it a disaster. Further recent evidence?

The Financial Times has described the al-Deira luxury hotel, which has remained open despite Israeli measures and the repressive practices of the Hamas government.

Mai Yaghi, a local Gaza reporter has detailed how the old smuggling tunnels have a completely new and ironic purpose , because “lifting of restrictions (by Israel) in recent months has seen consumer goods pour into the Hamas-run territory through Israeli crossings, transforming the tunnels that once served as a lifeline for Gaza into its sole export channel.”

The EU’s representative to the West Bank, Gaza and UNRWA, Christian Berger, not considered a friend of Israel, has been quoted as saying that the area is ”full of consumer goods”.
And if Berger feels that there is not enough ready cash and actual purchases, he should recall that the largest employer in Gaza is the civil service.

The Palestinian Authority is still paying the salaries of these 67,000 people, even if many are paid up Hamas officials.
Is Gaza rich? No. It still needs the tons of daily aid, which Israel facilitates. On the other hand, a utube video from an unknown source shows beyond doubt just what multiple resources are available in wide parts of the territory.

And is there a lesson for the future? Look what is happening in the West Bank. Hatred of Israel may still predominate. But much of the violence has been laid to one side. As Time Magazine now observes.

Ramallah’s first five-star hotel, a Mövenpick, is opening this month. Across the West Bank, similar scenes are unfolding. Building cranes pierce the sky. Outside Nablus, new car dealerships sell everything from BMWs to Hyundais. Inside the ancient city, the first movie house to open in 20 years, Cinema City, is hugely popular. Last year the Hirbawi Home Center, a five-story shopping mall selling luxury items like plasma TVs, opened just outside Jenin.

Indeed, the IMF has reported that the Palestinian economy is on track to grow 8% in 2010.

So, the international media have confirmed that Gaza is not an economic prison. One question remains. As Tom Gross, a leading commentator, pondered; why does the BBC, possibly the world’s largest communicator, seem determined to ignore this story?

Ibrahim Hassan al-Asiri, considered a key figure in al-Qaida’s most active franchise, is now the chief suspect behind the mail bombs sent from Yemen and bound for the United States, according to U.S. intelligence officials.

He is suspected of packing explosives into the underwear of a Nigerian accused of trying to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner last Christmas and sent his own brother on a suicide mission against a top Saudi official.

Forensic analysis indicates that al-Asiri, who is living in Yemen, built all three devices and is believed to have a fair degree of skill and training, although all the operations have been unsuccessful. Together with a U.S.-born preacher, Yemeni militants, and former Saudi inmates of Guantanamo, al-Asiri makes up the leadership of Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula.

Yemeni security officials stated they are searching for al-Asiri, who is believed to be in Marib province. Al-Asiri and his brother abruptly left their Mecca home three years ago, stated their father, a four-decade veteran of the Saudi military. Aside from a brief phone call to say they had left the country, he never heard from them again.

Ibrahim Hassan al-Asiri key figure in al-Qaida affiliate

His most effective operation was the attack on top Saudi counterterrorism official Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, in which he recruited his younger brother, Abdullah, to pose as a repentant militant. With the bomb hidden in a body cavity, Abdullah approached the prince and blew himself up. The prince was only wounded.

In a September 2009 issue of Sada al-Malahem, or Voice of Battles, an Arabic-language online magazine put out by al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, al-Asiri described how he recruited his brother and they made the journey to Yemen. He stated he and his friends were originally planning to go fight the Americans in Iraq, but Saudi police raided the apartment where they were hiding and arrested them.

“They put me in prison and I began to see the depths of (the Saudis) servitude to the Crusaders and their hatred for the true worshippers of God, from the way they interrogated me,” he is quoted as saying. Abdullah, who visited him in prison, was horrified by the stories of torture and also came to believe that the government is “infidel,” al-Asiri stated.

Upon his release, al-Asiri tried to create a new militant cell inside Saudi Arabia but was once again discovered. Six of his colleagues were killed and he and his brother fled south to the Asir mountains where they holed up for weeks. They entered Yemen on Aug. 1, 2006, and met with Yemeni militant Nasser al-Wahishi, who had escaped from prison just months earlier, and became the nucleus of the new al-Qaida affiliate, said the account, which could not be independently confirmed.

Al-Qaida’s presence in Saudi Arabia and Yemen has been distinguished by its tenacious ability to regroup after severe setbacks, having been nearly wiped out in both countries just five years ago. The group’s battered Saudi and Yemeni branches merged in January 2009 to form al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula under the leadership of al-Wahishi, a former aide to Osama bin Laden who staged a dramatic jail break from a Yemeni prison with 22 others in 2006. In the past year, the organization has emerged as “one of the most dangerous branches of al-Qaida,” according to a U.S. assessment.

Al-Wahishi’s deputy, Saeed al-Shihri, is a Saudi who fought in Afghanistan and spent six years in Guantanamo Bay as inmate No. 372, before being released and going through Saudi Arabia’s famous “rehabilitation” institutes. The experiences didn’t prevent him from heading south to Yemen on his release.

The organization calls for the overthrow of the Saudi and Yemeni governments and has carried out a string of brazen attacks against local security forces before melting away into the rugged mountains of Yemen’s inhospitable hinterlands. It has been its attempts to take the fight to the West, however, that have attracted attention, especially through the propaganda efforts of Yemeni cleric Anwar al-Awlaki.

Born in New Mexico, al-Awlaki has used his website to encourage Muslims around the world to kill U.S. troops in Iraq and has been tied by U.S. intelligence to the 9/11 hijackers, underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, as well as Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the Army psychiatrist accused of killing 13 people in November at Fort Hood, Texas.

All these militants were believed to be hiding in the remote and rugged mountains of Yemen’s Shabwa province, helped by tribesmen disaffected with the government. Just a day before the attempted bombing of the jet bound for Detroit last year, Yemeni warplanes raided a site where the top leadership had gathered, only missing al-Wahishi, al-Shihri and al-Awlaki by hours.

Of all of al-Qaida’s affiliates, the Arabian branch has distinguished itself by its English-language outreach, mainly through al-Awlaki’s writings and a new English-language online magazine. Although the number of hard core al-Qaida fighters in Yemen is only believed to number in the low hundreds, they are aided by sympathetic local tribes who see the central government as corrupt and oppressive.

Issues include an “Open Jihad” forum with tips for Muslims living in the West to carry out terrorist operations, such as building a bomb in the kitchen or equipping a pickup truck with metal blades to mow down pedestrians. The last issue also included a testimonial from Samir Khan, describing how he turned against America to fight with militants in Yemen.

Al-Awlaki’s growing involvement in planning operations by al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula has prompted the Obama administration to place him on a target list for terrorists to be killed or captured.

British Home Secretary Theresa May stated the bomb discovered on the plane that landed in England was powerful enough to bring down the aircraft. A U.S. official and a British security consultant stated the device, hidden in a printer cartridge, was sophisticated enough that it nearly slipped past British investigators even after they were tipped off.

All three bombs contained a high explosive known as PETN, or pentaerythritol tetranitrate, which was also used by convicted shoe bomber Richard Reid when he tried to destroy a trans-Atlantic flight in 2001.

The young Yemeni woman arrested on suspicion of mailing powerful bombs to U.S. synagogues was released on bail and a Yemeni official stated authorities no longer believe she shipped the bombs. Authorities arrested the woman after tracking the name and address used on the packages. But after the woman was arrested, the shipping agent stated she wasn’t the one who signed the shipping documents. The Yemeni official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigation, stated investigators now believe someone stole her identity and used it to mail the bombs. Whoever mailed the bombs had used her name, address and telephone number, the official stated. The woman, an engineering student, was released on bail but cannot leave the country pending further questioning.

Andrew Whitley the outgoing director of the New York office of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency upset Jordan after stating it is time for Arab nations to absorb their brethren who are “refugees” from the 1948 war. Whitley stated that Palestinian refugees must not live in the illusion of achieving the “right to return” and that the Arab countries must search for a place for them in their lands to resettle there.

When UNRWA began its operations providing aid and services to the Arabs living in Israel in 1949, there were approximately 700,000 who qualified as “refugees.” Today, according to the latest statistics, that number has ballooned to nearly five million.

“We recognize, as I think most do, although it’s not a position that we publicly articulate, that the right of return is unlikely to be exercised to the territory of Israel to any significant or meaningful extent,” Whitley told a conference at the National Council for US-Arab Relations. “It’s not a politically palatable issue, it’s not one that UNRWA publicly advocates, but nevertheless it’s a known contour to the issue,” he said.

Taking the proverbial bull by the horns, Whitley then went on to add that instead of continuing to promote that “cruel illusion,” it would be best if Palestinian Authority Arabs began to consider “their own role in the societies where they are, rather than being left in a state of limbo, where they are helpless.”

The Hamas terrorist organization immediately demanded Whitley’s dismissal: a moot point, however, since he was already leaving the agency. Wajih Azaizeh, director general of the Palestinian Affairs Department, told the Petra news agency that Jordan expressed its condemnation in a letter sent to UNRWA Commissioner-General Filippo Grandi.

The letter bluntly reminded Grandi that his agency was established to offer humanitarian and social help and support to the Palestinian refugees, said Azaizeh, until their cause is resolved according to international legitimacy resolutions.

“We have asked the UNRWA Commissioner-General to clarify the U.N. Organization’s official position on such dangerous remarks and procedures taken against this man who held important posts in the agency,” Azaizeh stated.

Political commentator Ben S. Cohen noted last week in a post on Harry’s Place, however, that of the 50 million people who lost their homes due to war and military conflict in the 20th century, “practically none of the original displaced returned to their homes, never mind their descendants.

The historical record shows the refugees like those 17,000 displaced Jews administered to by UNRWA back in 1950 are invariably absorbed by host countries.” The difference, Cohen pointed out, was that the surrounding Arab nations in this case have deliberately positioned the Palestinian refugee issue and the so-called “right of return” as an ongoing obstacle to a final settlement of the conflict with Israel.

“Accepting that the refugees will not go home, that they will live free of the apartheid conditions imposed on them in states like Lebanon and Syria, and that they might even receive some financial compensation on top, is the height of political incorrectness in the Middle East,” he observed.

“It means accepting not only that Israel has the right to exist, but also the right to define itself as the democratic state of the Jewish people.”