ACCORDING TO THE WORLD BANK website,
“Gaza’s unemployment and poverty figures are very troubling and the economic outlook is worrying. The current market in Gaza is not able to offer jobs leaving a large population in despair particularly the youth,” said Steen Lau Jorgensen, World Bank Country Director for West Bank and Gaza. “The ongoing blockade and the 2014 war have taken a toll on Gaza’s economy and people's livelihoods. Gaza’s exports virtually disappeared and the manufacturing sector has shrunk by as much as 60 percent. The economy cannot survive without being connected to the outside world.”
Just the facts.
But then the UK's Guardian puts its twist on the World Bank report, leading off with
World Bank report says Israeli blockades, war and poor governance have left 43% of people out of work and the strip facing dangerous financial crisis
And then it adds, almost as an after-thought
The economy of Gaza – assailed by war, poor governance and a joint Israeli-Egyptian blockade – has reached the “verge of collapse” with the coastal strip suffering the highest rate of unemployment in the world.
NO ONE WILL ARGUE that Gaza's economy is a shambles; nor will anyone argue that because the economy is in the toilet, unemployment is high.
Likewise, no one denies - certainly not Israel or Egypt, the two countries that blockade Gaza - that part of the problem is that getting goods into and out of Gaza is difficult due to the blockades.
BUT
No one seems to care
* WHY Egypt and Israel blockade Gaza
* That Israel- and perhaps Egypt, too - DOES allow raw materials into Gaza and allows exports, primarily fruits and vegetables, to be exported from Gaza to the "Palestinian Authority" (PA) and elsewhere.
* That, like the PA's leaders, millions of dollars have gone into Hamas' pockets when they were intended to help the residents of Gaza.
The world has pledged USD 3.5 billion to Gaza.
Interestingly, The Guardian article included a photo of a "smuggling tunnel" with the caption:
Smuggling tunnels have been the lifeline of the Gazan economy during the Israeli-Egyptian blockade.
adding that
Gaza has been governed by the Islamist group Hamas since 2007 and has struggled with mounting problems since the closure of the smuggling tunnels to Egypt, which had acted as an economic and social pressure valve
conveniently omitting the fact that the smuggling tunnels were used to send terrorists into Israel to murder civilians young and old.
Fox, running an Associated Press (AP) article, reports that
Since its takeover, Hamas has fought three wars with Israel, including 50 days of fighting last summer in which thousands of Gaza buildings were either destroyed or damaged. Over 2,200 Palestinians, including hundreds of civilians, were killed during the war. On the Israeli side, 67 soldiers and six civilians were killed.
The report said Gaza's economy was badly hurt as a result of the fighting, especially the agriculture, construction, manufacturing and electricity sectors.
It said about 43 percent of Gaza's 1.8 million residents are unemployed; a figure it said is the highest in the world. Youth unemployment reached about 60 percent by the end of last year, it said.
It might be suggested that Hamas, Gaza's heavy-handed rulers, are deliberately keeping unemployment high (about 60 percent according to Fox) to encourage attacks on Israel, and to a lesser extant, Egypt. Striking out at Hamas, the cause of the enclave's problems, is almost guaranteed death.
The World Bank concluded Gaza's problems were two-fold:
It charged that "blockades, war and poor governance have strangled" the economy of the Gaza Strip, ruled by the Islamic militant group Hamas.
The report said Gaza's GDP would have been four times higher if not for conflicts and restrictions, including a blockade in place since 2007
while in reality ALL the blame lies on Hamas since it declared war first on Israel and then on Egypt (causing the blockade) that, in turn, caused high unemployment.
Still, its easier to blame it all on Israel.
