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How the World Enabled 25 Years of Palestinian Decline

(Commentary) Evelyn Gordon - After 25 years of fighting Israel in every possible way, all the Palestinians have to show for it is 25 years of steady decline. Despite massive international aid, Gaza's per capita GDP has remained virtually flat, totaling $817 in 1987 and $876 in 2010. To add insult to injury, neither terror nor diplomatic warfare succeeded in preventing Israel from flourishing over those years. The sadder part of the story is that none of this has managed to persuade the Palestinians that such tactics are self-defeating. Yet the international community has played a crucial role in enabling the Palestinians' counterproductive tactics, cushioning them from the consequences of their bad decisions with more than four times as much per capita aid as any other nation receives. Gaza's situation may not be rosy, but it outranks more than 110 countries in terms of both life expectancy and infant mortality. As long as international aid is keeping them relatively comfortable, Palestinians feel little incentive to change their tactics. Far worse, however, is that by offering the Palestinians almost unstinting diplomatic support while relentlessly criticizing Israel, the world feeds Palestinian fantasies that these tactics will someday succeed - that eventually, the world will force Israel to its knees. So why would Palestinians conclude that they are the ones who need to change their behavior? For all its vaunted concern for the Palestinians, it seems the international community would rather let them suffer another 25 years of steady decline than try to wean them from their failed strategies.
2012-12-21 00:00:00
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