Israel Matzav

Business is business, even for 'Palestinians'

The Western Left may be boycotting Israel, but the 'Palestinians' are not. A 'Palestinian' who conducted a study as part of his Master's degree thesis has discovered that 'Palestinian' businessmen invested $2.5 billion in Israel and in the Jewish towns in Judea and Samaria... in 2010 alone. This is from a 'Palestinian' site.

The study was conducted by Issa Smeirat, 43, as part of his M.A Degree. This is the first study of its kind, and its results surprised Palestinian and Israeli officials, Israeli Daily, Haaretz, reported.

...

According to the study, 16.000 Palestinian businessmen from the West Bank, who hold permanent permits from Israel to enter the country and conduct businesses, established businesses and firms in Israel and its settlements in the occupied territories. This includes establishing several factories and companies that has numerous branches, all paying taxes to Israel.

Smeirat also studied the motives that pushed those Palestinian investors to invest in Israel and its illegal settlements, especially since the issue is very sensitive and more Palestinian organizations, activists and officials are calling for boycotting Israel and its settlement products.

Talking to Haaretz, the researcher said that the sensitivity of this issue prevents the publishing of the identities of the investors, adding that while conducting his research, the Palestinian National Economy Ministry in the West Bank, the same ministry that launched the campaign to boycott settlement products, stated that the Paris Agreement does not prohibit investing in settlements.

He was referring to the Protocol on Economic Relations, which came as an annex to the Gaza-Jericho Agreement, the first peace agreement signed between Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization on May 4, 1994.

The agreement incorporated the relations between the two parties, and was then incorporated and suppressed by Oslo 2 Agreement, and became known as the Interim Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip of 24 and 28 September 1995.

The study of Smeirat was presented by the end of last summer at the Al-Quds University. He obtained detailed information from Palestinian Commerce and Industry Offices about Palestinian investors in Israel and its settlements.

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His study revealed that most of the investors are fluent in Hebrew, and more than half of them are 40 years old or older. This shows that those businessmen worked in Israel before it closed its borders to the Palestinians in the early nineties.

Approximately %23 of them worked as laborers in Israel before they established their firms and businesses, and only %0.5 of them do not speak Hebrew.

...

The researcher said that he believes that the main motive that encourages Palestinian investors to invest in Israel and its settlements is attributed to the limited capacity of Palestinian investments, especially since Israel controls %60 of the occupied West Bank, and also controls all natural resources, especially water, in addition to Israel’s restrictions on the freedom of movement of the people and the goods, especially since its controls all border terminals in the West Bank, and closed Israeli markets to Palestinian products.

The Israeli restrictions caused a sharp increase in production costs in the West Bank comparing to production costs in Israel.

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Palestinian investments, according to Smeirat, are around 7 Billion U.S. Dollars; approximately $5 Billion of these investments are not in Israel and its settlements, as they are mainly invested abroad, either in projects or stocks, an issue that poses a significant challenge to investment opportunities in the West Bank.

He believes because he wants to stay alive and his name has been disclosed. I suspect strongly that the real reasons those investors invest in Israel rather than in the 'Palestinian Authority' are the skills and technologies available in Israel and the (relatively) lower level of corruption and required bribes in Israel.

That last paragraph seems inconsistent with the report itself which said that $2.5 billion was invested in Israel in 2010 alone.

Hmmm.

Labels: Arab boycott of Israel, Palestinian Authority, settlement product boycott

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 12:33 PM