Israel Matzav

The most amazing business conference session I have ever attended

I'm sure that a lot of you attend business conferences. I'm sure that at most of the conferences you attend, the presentations are rather bland, everyone is polite, and the arguments are mostly esoteric.

I mentioned before that I was at such a conference today; it was the Jerusalem Wealth Management Conference. One of the afternoon sessions was on the 'Palestinian economy' and it turned out to be a real shocker. The first speaker was Dr. Oussama Kanaan, the International Monetary Fund's Chief of Mission and Resident Representative for the West Bank and Gaza. I wish I had kept track of how many times he used the phrase "restrictions on access and movement," because he blamed it for everything that is wrong with the 'Palestinian economy.' (In case any of you miss the reference, that phrase is a euphemism for Israeli checkpoints). I was sitting in my seat knowing that there were going to be no questions allowed from the audience at the end of the session (we were behind schedule) and dying to ask this guy why he thought there were any such restrictions in the first place (there were none until sometime around 1994, and there were large numbers of 'Palestinians' legally working in Israel until as late as 2001).

Lo and behold, the next speaker is a gentleman named Shimon Yakira, who runs a company called The Jordan River Bridge, which transfers goods for export from Jordan and the 'Palestinian Authority' through Israeli ports (unfortunately, no bio in the conference program, and his business card - which I requested - has no web site listing on it). He has an office in Jenin, but of course, he is an Israeli. The first thing he says is that he doesn't agree with anything Dr. Kanaan said. He then proceeds to rip this economist with a PhD from Yale to shreds.

Kanaan claimed in his presentation that the private sector in the 'Palestinian Authority' cannot develop because of (you guessed it) the 'restrictions on access and movement' and that therefore the PA 'saved' the economy by hiring more public sector workers at decent wages. Yakira pointed out that those public sector employees are paid NIS 1,800 per month (about $450), and yet have to buy the same products that we Israelis do and live in the essentially the same economic environment in which we live, and the starting salary in Israel (which is not so great) for teachers and police officers and the like is NIS 5,000-6,000 and what kind of job are people going to do for NIS 1,800? And before you go and ask the international community for more money, added Mr. Yakira, why is the 'Palestinian Authority' still paying Suha Arafat a $250,000 per month allowance to live in Paris? He told Dr. Kanaan to stop blaming Israel and to start thinking about how to resolve the problems.

He told a story about how when they got to Jenin, they wanted to build real homes for the poorest people and get them out of the 'refugee camps.' The 'Palestinian Authority' refused. They want the 'refugee camps' as a monument. (We've all heard that before - but it the context in which this was said was amazing). He said that in the 'Palestinian Authority,' the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, and that no progress has been made in rooting out corruption in the 'Palestinian Authority.' And unlike most of us Israelis, this guy has first-hand knowledge.

There was another gentleman on the panel named Dr. Mohammad A.M. Alami, who owns a company called the Jerusalem Cigarette Company, which sells cigarettes. Dr. Alami started to complain that for the last year and a half he cannot sell cigarettes to Gaza because first the Israelis would not let him and then Hamas wanted him to pay the same excise taxes he was already paying to Fatah the 'Palestinian Authority.' He complained that because he could not pay double excise taxes, he gave up 20-25% of his market (which is what Gaza represented) and that instead, Hamas smuggles cigarettes into Gaza from Egypt. Mr. Yakira retorted that Dr. Alami was paying bribes to Hamas and that he was told that the only excise taxes he should be paying were to the 'Palestinian Authority,' collected for them by Israel.

There were more such quips that I don't recall right now (there was a JPost business reporter sitting near me taking notes, so we will see later tonight what she comes up with), but it was simply the most amazing business conference session I have ever attended.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 8:19 PM