THE PALESTINIAN SOCIOECONOMIC CRISIS OF 2006
Mohammed Samhouri, PhD
Senior Fellow, Crown Center, Brandeis University
Since the beginning of 2006, a confluence of factors has contributed to drive the West Bank and Gaza Strip closer to an all-out economic, social and institutional, breakdown. A crippling fiscal crisis caused by a sharp reduction in vital financial resources; intensified restrictions on the free movement of people, labor, and trade; incessant fragmentation of the Palestinian territorial landscape in the West Bank; escalation of tension and violence with Israel; the isolation of the Gaza Strip; and bitter internal political divisions coupled with intermittent factional infighting were among the principal factors that produced the current conditions of considerable economic distress, human hardships, and social fatigue.
In 2006, a large segment of the Palestinian population in the West Bank and Gaza continued to increasingly lack the necessary means to secure acceptable living standards, with dwindling levels of basic services and a virtual absence of personal security. Expecting worse days ahead, the UN issued on December 7, 2006, an emergency appeal for funds to help meet the Palestinians' humanitarian needs in 2007—"the largest appeal for emergency humanitarian assistance ever launched in the occupied Palestinian territory, and the third biggest in the world." Only two countries, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo, are projected by the UN to have a need for larger emergency funds to meet their humanitarian needs in 2007. Countries like Uganda, Chad, and Somalia come in fifth, seventh, and tenth place, respectively.
Given the scale of the current predicament, however, there is good reason to believe that relief measures, by their very nature and important as they may be for easing the severity of conditions and stabilizing the situation, may not be sufficient this time around to arrest further deterioration in conditions or to prevent a more pernicious recurrence of the crisis, unless such measures are part of a more comprehensive policy package designed to address the root causes of the crisis. This has not happened yet, and there are no signs of such an undertaking materializing any time soon.
A careful reflection on the 2006 socioeconomic crisis, viewed in the context of other developments in the West Bank and Gaza over the past dozen years, would reveal that so much damage has been done to the basic economic, social, institutional, and territorial structure of the Palestinian areas that only a serious, forward-looking, and comprehensive approach, designed, adopted, and implemented by all sides, can be expected to have a tangible outcome and a sustained positive impact.
The objective of this study is to provide an account of the socioeconomic crisis that has engulfed the West Bank and Gaza since the beginning of 2006, and to derive some useful lessons along the way. The goal here is not so much to dwell on the statistics of the still ongoing predicament, but to go beyond the available numbers and present an analysis of the current situation in order to identify core problems, detect patterns, and draw relevant conclusions.
Click here for a full access to the study "Looking Beyond the Numbers: The Palestinian Socioeconomic Crisis of 2006".
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