As seen at TheMediaLine.org.
Palestinians spend hundreds of millions of dollars each year on products produced in Israeli settlements, the Palestinian Authority’s Minister of Economy Hassan Abu Libdeh said Sunday.
Speaking to a Chamber of Commerce gathering in the West Bank city of Nablus, Abu Libdeh said that according to his figures Palestinians in both the West Bank and Gaza Strip spend over five hundred million dollars on settlement products annually.
With a Palestinian population of just under four million in the Gaza Strip and West Bank, that figure averages out to around $130 per person each year.
The minister did not provide any evidence to back up his claim, nor did he publicize the figures he referred to.
Abu Libdeh told the gathered business leaders that 2010 was set to be the final year that Israeli settlement products would be available in Palestinian markets, a reference to an announcement last month that his ministry will confiscate Israeli settlement products being distributed in the Palestinian territories.
“They are under a lot of pressure to do something,” Issam Aruri, a member of the Palestinian Non-Governmental Organizations’ Network’s steering committee told The Media Line. “The Palestinian Authority leaders realize that the expansion of settlements means the collapse of the peace process and that the collapse of the peace process means the collapse of the Palestinian Authority. So it’s just self defence on their part.”
“I’m not sure that the figure that the minister gave is correct,” Aruri said. “For me all settlement products should be boycotted and not allowed to enter Palestinian areas, but it’s very difficult to differentiate between Israeli products produced in Israeli proper versus products produced on settlements.”
“This leads to an unfortunate irony,” he continued. “Providing a market for settlement products means supporting the flourishing of settlement on Palestinian land at the expense of Palestinian families, yet it’s difficult for us to boycott only products produced in settlements, so it’s very embarrassing.
“How can we call for the world to boycott settlement products if we are not doing the same,” Aruri said. “I think Israel needs to label products produced in settlements and if they don’t we need to boycott all Israeli products.”
Palestinian authorities have long complained about the implementation of the ‘Paris Protocol’, a 1994 free trade agreement requiring a free exchange of commercial goods between Israel and the Palestinian territories. While Israeli products, including those produced on Israeli settlements, are distributed widely throughout the West Bank, Palestinians claim that Israel refuses to allow most Palestinian goods into Israeli markets.
Abu Libdeh said that while the Palestinian Authority would modify its terms of enforcement of the ‘Paris Protocol’ by confiscating goods produced on Israeli settlements, the PA would abide by the agreement in allowing goods produced within Israel’s 1967 borders into the Palestinian territories.
“It’s very ironic because Israel steals our land, then exploits our workers to build settlements and then uses us as a market for their products,” Dr Mustafa Barghouthi, Secretary General Palestinian National Initiative told The Media Line. “It’s good what the P.A. is doing but it’s not enough.”
“It’s very difficult to differentiate between what is a settlement product and what is not because the Israelis try to mask it,” he said. “So we are calling for a boycott not only of settlement products but of all Israeli products. Every Israeli product that can be replaced by a local Palestinian alternative should be boycotted.”
The Palestinian Authority seeks to build a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem. An estimated 300,000 Israeli citizens live in Jewish settlements throughout the West Bank settlements and another 180,000 to 200,000 live in east Jerusalem.
The Palestinian Authority sees the expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank as a principle barrier to the creation of a Palestinian state.
The Palestinians have tried boycotting Jewish settlements in a number of ways for decades. The latest effort, backed by the Palestinian Authority, has involved the confiscation of products such as cosmetics and juice produced in West Bank settlements and sold in the Palestinian territories.
Beyond buying products produced on Israeli settlements, at least 25,000 Palestinians are legally employed in Israeli communities, about half of them in West Bank settlements.
Earlier this month Palestinian Prime Minister Salaam Fayyad said the Palestinian Authority would begin a process of finding alternative employment for Palestinians working in Israeli settlements and eventually ban such employment altogether.
While Palestinians working on West Bank settlements are socially stigmatized, an outright ban on Palestinian employment on settlements has never materialized.
Jamal Juma, the director of the Stop the Wall campaign who met with Fayyad last week to discuss the ban, said the number of Palestinians employed in Israeli communities in the West Bank is much higher than the official numbers.
“Officially Israel gives permissions to between 10,000 and 15,000 Palestinians to work in settlements but it’s more like 30,000 workers when you include Palestinians working both legally and illegally,” he told The Media Line after the meeting with Fayyad. “The settlements are completely dependent on cheap Palestinian labor for their infrastructure so I think we can really hurt the settlements if all Palestinians stop working there.”
Juma was arrested by Israel less than 48 hours after speaking with The Media Line.
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