A note to remember. The Palestinian National Authority has just scored yet another success as over 1,200 businessmen from Palestinian, Arab and international private sectors have attended a two-day investment conference in the city of Bethlehem. The meeting was a great opportunity for the PNA to illustrate the mounting trust those businessmen have in the PNA, its President, Mahmoud Abbas, its Prime Minister, Salam Fayyad, and its government. It showed beyond any doubt that the PNA has managed to clear itself to a large extent from the corruption label that has stuck to part of its branches and arms over the past thirteen years or so, since t the Oslo Accords were singed between the PLO and Israel. Approximately $ 1.2 billion in foreign investment were pledged to the Palestinian Territories, marking a genuine and considerable step that will eventually help the ailing Palestinian economy.
Was that enough? And I am not referring to the amount of private investments pledged as much as I refer to the role the Israeli government is playing vis-a-vis the economic viability of the Palestinian Territories.
Out of this amount, some $650 million were accorded to the second cellular phone company slated to start in the Palestinian Territories. Some 2,500 jobs are promised in this new project and its impact on the economy goes without a say. In a country badly wrecked with such an unemployment rate as high as 65 percent in some areas, created job opportunities become of maximum importance.
But after months of negotiations through the PNA between the new company and Israel, the latter has failed to receive the frequencies it needs to operate the new cellular network of communications in the Palestinian Territories.
Under the Oslo Agreements, Israel and the PNA should agree on frequencies for aired television and radio programs as well as for telecommunications frequencies. Does any one have a convincing answer why Israel up to this moment has failed to sign the new frequencies agreement? Why has Israel up to this moment prevented this huge project to kick off the ground.
I would say no security impacts can be linked to Israel's failure to accord the frequencies. I would add by saying that the behaviour of the Israeli government in this respect shows how indifferent it is to a matter of quintessential importance not only to the Palestinian President or the government but also to the Palestinian people at large.
Having said that, I still remember the whole load of difficulties and obstacles the Israeli authorities placed in the route of currently the sole cellular communications provider in Palestine, Jawwal. There were times in which sophisticated equipment purchased by Jawwal from abroad had been held in Israeli ports for very long periods of time, causing not only technical problems to Jawwal but also costing them large amounts of money paid for storing that equipment. So Israel allowed itself to forcefully store equipment that does not belong to her and also forced the owners to pay for storage? It seems that Israel must have thought that this would be a very easy and superbly guaranteed way to make money. Just force the Palestinians to pay. We will keep their equipment and they will end up paying us for hindering their job! How weird?!
There is no chance for a genuine economic development in the Palestinian Territories without Israel's proactive role in terms of helping such a process. Israel is easier to blame but is the party that has the upper hand in almost every aspect of Palestinian life. It enjoys the supreme control of the Palestinian Territories, decides who can or cannot leave or return to the PNA areas and, more seriously, keeps its grip over hundreds of Israeli army road blocks that are scattered throughout the West Bank preventing Palestinians from moving freely within the West Bank. These restrictions on movement on the Palestinians have become a subject for every foreign visitor to discuss with Palestinian and Israeli officials alike. Even US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice spoke on this matter a few times. President George Bush addressed this issue in his joint news conference with President Abbas in Ramallah on 10 January 2008 but nothing seems to have changed.
Israel needs to know that the era of talking of gestures towards the Palestinians is over. Now is the time for Israel to act responsibly. Every step Israel makes to empower more the Palestinian National Authority and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad is in the best interest of not only the Palestinians but also of Israel. The bottom line: Israel should do more and more and speak less and less.
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