Gaza unemployment world's highest as 60% of youth find themselves jobless

[Little Tich]

Source: Jerusalem Post

While about 43% of PA’s expenditures are spent in Gaza, only 13% of its revenues come from Gaza

Blockades and war have strangled the Gaza Strip’s economy and the unemployment rate is now the highest in the world, according to a report published Friday by the World Bank.

The report is to be presented to the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee (AHLC), a forum of donors to the Palestinian Authority, at the bi-annual meeting in Brussels on May 27.

The report estimates that the Gaza Strip’s GDP would have been about four times higher than it currently is if it weren’t for the conflicts and the multiple restrictions.

Read more: http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Gaza-unemployment-worlds-highest-as-60-percent-of-youth-find-themselves-jobless-403830

[JDPriestly]

1. Maybe they should spend less on builiding tunnels and rockets and they could create some jobs.

I remember a time when Palestinians could cross into Israel to work.

Then came the Second Intifada.

You make your bed, you have to lie in it. That is a hard lesson we all have to learn.

Wet your bed, and you also have to lie in it.

The Palestinians have made a mess of their opportunities over and over.

[Scootaloo]

2. Does it hurt to be ignorant?

[JDPriestly]

3. Are you suggesting that I am ignorant. Or are you just trying to insult me because you disagree

with me. If you disagree with me, counter my statements. Prove me wrong. Insulting me is not the way an informed, knowledgeable person should respond.

The fact is that the Palestinians and their leaders have, since 1948 and before, wasted their resources and harmed themselves. Their anger blinds them to opportunity. They have a lot of sympathy from many people including people in my family.

I just can't sympathize with people who receive aid and instead of helping the poor and unemployed in their country with that aid, attack their neighbors.

Makes no sense to me.

Palestinians could be doing so much better than they are. They need to realize that and demand that their leaders spend the aid money on improving their lives and not fighting a senseless battle that does not need to be fought.

[Scootaloo]

4. I am not suggesting, I am flatly asserting. And I'm asking if it causes you physical pain

[Little Tich]

5. Have you heard about Giora Eiland?

He's an Israeli Major-General who seems to share your view on Gaza. I don't agree with him, though.


In Gaza, there is no such thing as 'innocent civilians', by Giora Eiland

Source: Arutz Sheva, August 5, 2014

Op-ed: Fighting an enemy state with one hand while supplying food and energy to its residents with the other hand is absurd.

Regardless of how Protective Edge ends, this operation appears to have one clear lesson, which doesn't have to do with the tunnel issue but with a more strategic question. Israel is repeatedly falling into the asymmetry trap.

The story we are telling in this conflict is similar to the one we told in Lebanon in 2006. In this story we are fighting a terror organization, and only a terror organization, while the population the organization is operating from is not the enemy. Moreover, during the fighting we even feel obligated to supply Gaza's residents with food, fuel and electricity.

Why is that wrong? Because a state cannot defeat an efficient guerilla organization if the following three conditions exist: We and they are on two sides of a border; the organization enjoys the full protection of a state; their state or its citizens are not an accountable side. Whoever fails to understand that is entering a war without an ability to win.

Read more: http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4554583,00.html