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Killing the Goose that Laid the Golden Egg: Hamas, Gazan Workers, and the Israeli Labor Market

(Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies-Bar-Ilan University) Hillel Frisch - Hamas has generated violence of which the costs, in human welfare terms, are immensely greater than the benefits of its charity. No social outlays or charitable work on Hamas' part could possibly outweigh the impact of terrorism on Palestinian access to the Israeli labor market and on the benefits that Palestinians, especially workers and their families from Gaza, derived from work in Israel. In the 1980s, before the first intifada, 40-50% of Gaza's workforce were employed in Israel. Their net wages were appreciably higher than their fellow workers in Gaza and the West Bank. From the first intifada in 1987 onward, one sees a direct relationship between organized violance, increasingly carried out by Hamas, and the decline of access for Gazans to the Israeli labor market. Since taking power in Gaza in 2007, Hamas has focused on enacting violence instead of on good governance. It is incumbent on the states that have provided international aid to bring pressure to bear on Hamas to stop its war-making. The writer is a professor of political and Middle East studies and a senior research associate at the BESA Center at Bar-Ilan University.
2015-12-15 00:00:00
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