Added dependency under the guise of economic dialogue

Last Sunday, meetings to renew economic dialogue between the US and the Palestinian Authority were held in Ramallah – a move that will be hailed as a progressive initiative by the PA in order to disguise the dependency that characterises such necessity. During the meeting, the possibility of enhancing Palestinian trade, natural resources, IT entrepreneurship and improving resource management were discussed, ostensibly departing from the illusion of two equal partners rather than a violent world power sustaining colonial Israel and a corrupt authority intentionally mismanaging and fragmenting Palestinians and Palestine.

A statement from the US Consulate in Jerusalem partly quoted by Ma’an news agency reads: “Participants recognised areas of mutual interest in the bilateral economic relations and pledged to continue expanding and deepening policy coordination and cooperation across a broad range of sectors in order to expand Palestinian prosperity.”

The immediate impression, particularly after an admission by the US Overseas Private Investment Corporation discussing the possibility of financing renewable energy and having renewed a $100 million loan for job creation, is that of the remaining vestiges of Palestine being obscured and devoured in alignment with Israel’s expansion. Last April, the World Bank reported that the PA was losing $285 million per year due to tax leakages on bilateral trade with Israel, Israel’s withholding of pension contributions of Palestinians working in Israel and a ban on production – the latter described by Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah as an “attempt to wipe out our national economy and suppress its development.”

Another announcement made on Sunday was the PA Ministry of Labour Mamun Abu Shahla announcing the opening of applications for three month jobs offered to youths in the Gaza Strip. The temporary employment in health, education, municipal administration and construction can hardly be considered alleviation; given the UN’s dire warnings, after its endorsement of “Operation Protective Edge” in 2014, that Gaza could become uninhabitable by 2020.

According to Abu Shahla, unemployment in Gaza is a direct result of the Israeli blockade, restrictions on freedom of movement and “repeated conflicts”. What is removed from the equation is the willing participation of the PA in such measures, including its pandering to Egypt to destroy the necessary tunnel network, conspiring with the US regarding the possibility of assuming control over Gaza, its derision of Palestinian resistance and the marginalisation of Hamas as a political actor and, indeed, the PA’s own conniving existence that thrives upon separation and political discord in order to retain its subjugated position in relation to Israel.

What remains is a waiting game    – one that reveals itself in the sporadic incentives offered to Palestinians always within the added burden of loan, thus increasing severe financial burdens that hinder autonomy and render the population unwillingly dependent. The humiliation, however, should be borne solely by the PA, despite the fact that it is tenacious to its allegedly progressive facade. The truth of the agenda reveals otherwise. The US grants billions to Israel to sustain its presence in Palestine through expropriation and exploitation while rendering the PA ridiculous through loan offers to conserve natural and energy resources which are inaccessible to it thus obliterating its authority.

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