as the us is really genocidal war completes its fifth month, economic indicators on the west bank show dismal performance, strangled by palestinian worker restrictions and the israeli regime holding to palestinian authority tax revenues, future looks to them, especially since the violence continues in the occupied west bank. hi, i'm kavid taghley, welcome to economic divide. coming up in this program, we will take a look at the warning that was issued by the world bank when it came to the west bank economy. now, one of them is cross-border wages of $5.5 billion that's been affected uh by what's going on in the west bank. that is obviously a big worry for the palestinian economy. next, uh, one of the factors that has contributed to this is... the palestinian

authorities tax money being withheld, israel collects that money, uh, the funds withheld uh is something that's affects the economy of palestine, and uh, this is money that pays of 143,00 workers to go spend it, but if they of don't have it, how can they do that? next, the israeli west bank aggression, over 400 palestinians have been killed, violence continues almost under delhi basis and these two factors obviously impacts uh the economy not only of israel. but also of the occupied west bank. israel's genocidal war on the palestinians in the gaza strip and the regime's daily atrocities in the occupied west bank has devastated palestine's economy. apart from the catastrophic human losses, the onslot has resulted. in the destruction of tens of

thousands of housing units with over 1.2 million individuals currently without homes. a report by the world bank says gross domestic product of the gaza strip plummeted by 80% in the fourth quarter of 2023, while the gdp of the west bank also fell by 22%. for the gaza strip, the combination of pre-existing high levels of poverty, widespread internal displacement, the destruction of homes, fixed assets and productive capacity, coupled with a massive economic downturn, realistically means that nearly every resident live in poverty, at least in the short term. north gaza infrastructure is heavily impacted, with over 62% of all roads damaged or destroyed. primary roads bear the brunts with 92% affected, almost 60% of which are destroyed. secondary roads also face severe damage with just over 60% rendered unusable on the energy front. almost 62% of the strips electricity

feeder lines are damaged or destroyed. during the early stages of the onslot, israel turned off the supply of electricity to gaza. time now for our online media post. first up, taking a look at what was posted on x at world bank has said latest analysis on the economic impact of the conflict on the palestinian economy shows that the gdp dropped by over 80% in the gaza strip and 22% in the west bank, that's for q4, 2023. we then went to a website, israel's war on gaza is strangling the west bank's economy, went to say in the west bank gdp has fallen by 22%, unemployment as skyrocketed to 30%, up from 14% before the onslot, well they called the war, we call it the onslot, also saying because of the supply chain bottlenecks, prices are going up, then incomes are lower and the demand is stricking. next, issue that

we have paid more attention to later on in the program, the us treasury secretary janet jellen urging israel to restore economic ties to the west bank. she said that she had called on prime minister benjamin netanyahu of israel to reduce barriers to commerce for palestinians. then uh, we took a look at another website that said the gaza war, again they call it war, we call it an onslot or aggression, turns the west bank into economic time bomb, what not to say israel's decision to ban cross-border workers and block. palestinian funds has pushed the local economy to the brink of collapse. and we squeeze in one more, the world bank warns on the dire state of the palestinian economy because of the continuing war and its effect on employment and consumption on the west bank. the palestinian authority finds itself in a spiraling fiscal crisis, which can only cope with by increasing rears of payments and through foreign aid. shows how bad the occupied west bank's economy is doing. all right, let's uh... bringing our guest for our

first uh q&a of the program, joining us is oliver boy barrett, he is the emirates, professor of ohio and california university, he's author of many books uh such as the conflict narratives in syria. oliver boy barret, welcome to economic divide. taking a look at the i guess warning that was issued by the world bank on the dire state of the palestinian economy, also on the gaza strip, both are not doing well, there isn't much hope for recuperation at this point, wondering how long this is going to take, because the onslot as we speak is still continuing, and uh, what do you think about the future of the occupied west bank given the fact that you have the the aggression? in the gaza strip and the violence that's uh a daily occurrence there in the occupied west bank? one thing is absolutely for sure is that the uh gravity of the situation uh is unprecedented uh the situation is extremely

uh grim uh as i think you just mentioned we've seen a fall uh in the palestinian economic activity of something like 80%. uh in the last quarter, we have seen a total fall off in the uh work permits that would be available for gazan workers in the in israel, and we are seeing that on the west bank palestinian workers are no longer being allowed to work on the on the settlement. and on other construction activity, you mentioned construction activity, i want to interrupt you there, because we keep hearing about that in terms of how uh palestinian workers uh are not permitted to not only work there, but how much they contribute to that sector, can you expand a little bit more for us as to how

that stands in terms of their contribution to the construction sector? palestinian, the construction industry in in israel uh is very very badly hurt and an worker palestinian workers have typically provided 65 to 70% of the labor on israeli projects, including actually, including on the settlements in the uh in the west bank, so there's absolutely no, it's absolutely clear that the extent of the damage to the palestinian economy is immense. all right, thank you for that, at least he gave us an idea there. let's bring in uh our next guest gabriel suarez. he served in the ecumenical accompanyment program in palestine and israel and hibron and jericho. gabriel suarez, welcome to economic divide. uh, the economy of the west bank is uh in trouble. you got 170,00

palestinians that have been taken out of the economy because of this really regime preventing them from uh coming to work. a decline in consumption as a result, uh, you have a reduction in the uh tax revenues is another. example, result of that uh restriction, and this is money that israel collects on behalf of the pa. how can there be any hope for the west bank economy? um, when you have those types of uh practices by the israeli regime, and uh, what are we looking at uh when it comes to the future uh, when there's such violence happening in the occupied west bank as a whole? the situation in in the west bank was a really suffering from the... since the beginning of 200 there has been a stepped up in violence and restrictions with the new government, settler violence was very much problem with palestinians, both that in their own places like in the agriculture, having their lands taken or restricted or even at their harvest

being stolen or burned by israeli fanatical settlers and also the restrictions for even working inside those big settlements, those israeli sett in the west bank, and of course... the dependency that they have uh on the remittisence from uh both in the government sector but also from outside, so it's very much captive economy, as i said before, which uh, it limits the prospect for freedom, there has been many different world bank reports that the restrictions and the takeover of land by israel uh takes a lot from the potentials of the palestinian economy everywhere in the west bank. it's time now for the infan news section of the program. first up, argentina's economy. well, we picked that last week, actually, so let's see what we got for you this week. uh, this

one uh, is due to the cash that it's requesting from the imf. now, the latin american country already ows the imf some $44 billion dollars and uh, this is not good news. because one of the reasons uh is that argentines are blaming auster austerity measures for argentina's worst economic crisis in two decades, thustay measures, cutting jobs does not help contribute to the... wheels of the economy to move forward, so subscribing to the imf again for argentina, that's not going to be good news, we'll have to wait and see. next up, the financial system of the west is under the spotlight for the russian president, he said that is destroying its own financial system, according to vladimir putin. policies enacted by the us and the eu, according to him, have discredited western banking and its currencies. next up we go to news from the continents of africa in particular. sudan, it's economy has contracted 40% as this war

there is raging on, state revenues say diffed by over 80%, the economy is continuing to shrink by about 20% projected for the year 2024. next, another economy that we picked is india's economy, now may have done well, the gdp has grown quite a bit, but it's masking economic challenges, the amount of growth was substantial for the year 2020. about 7.3%, yet the private sector response was disappointing and disinvestment increased, and that's pretty major for india, the amount the increase was almost 29%, so that's not good news for the indian economy. now to sustain this growth, the forthcoming indian government must tackle rising inflation and economic challenges overall, but rising inflation is something they have to watch out for. well those were the topics that we picked for the new section, if you have anything in your mind. in wherever part of the world that you're at, do send them to us, contact information is coming up. in the

streets of the gaza strip, which was suffocating under wave of profound sadness, hopes of getting a loaf of bread turned into funeral processions and sorrow, on the morning that followed the dreadful flower massacre. families buried their hungry, martered children, as arab aircrafts didn't hesitate to replay the same aerial drop theater, dropping the packages this time inside zionist israeli settlements of the gaza enclave. is there anything more humiliating and denigrating against a genocide stricken and started people? if aid was the real reason behind the shared, then sain people who wanted to help should have opened the rafah border, allowing aid trucks into gaza and handing them over to international or local entities responsible for distributing. them to the starving people bate in the form of aid in gaza this week on the media stream. section of the program. the

economy of the west bank uh when you take a look it is one that operated under a siege. income disparities as an example between palestinian economy and that of israel shows just that. well now with the onslot that situation has become worse, much worse, let's take a look at some of the contributing factors. first up, we're going to take a look at the labor restrictions, why not start with that, which is delt a financial blow to the palestinian economy. israel has restricted laborers, the number 175 thous. as a result of this restriction, wages of these workers accounted for $5.5 billions annually, well that's been taken out of the economy of the west bank, it cont it's about a third of the combined economy of both the west bank and the gaza strip. next up, we take a look at

another factor which prevents money from flowing into the economy, the withholding of the palestinian authorities tax revenues by the israeli regime. those revenues collected by israel on behalf of the pa amounted to around $188 million monthly to pay $150,000 employees. now as an example, israel had withheld $275 million, as you see there. for the year 2023 in these tax revenues, that includes cash collected for the prior months that was still with tel aviv, but only in february of this year, and that's not that long ago, they released $114 million dollars. this is how israel sways control over the pa. next, let's take a look at what has occurred in the gdp contraction uh area when it comes to both the gaza strip and the west bank for the gaza strip. uh minus 80%, i mean it's it's just incredible, of course shouldn't be that much of a surprise, you have uh 60 to

70% of the buildings there that are been decimated by the israeli regime forces, when it comes to the occupied west bank itself, minus 20%, and that's uh even that's a that's a good drop considering what is happening there in the west bank which we're going to get to uh in a second, but this uh contraction could even be lot worse, let's take a look at why i'm saying this contraction could be lot worse, next up will show you the different areas that we picked in terms of the crisis that's ongoing in the west bank, you have the palestinians killed as of october 7th to amount to 400 and 12 so far, taking a look at the palestinians that have been arrested, uh, 8,00, some figures put that as high as 10,00, and that's a lot, that's from october 7th, mind you, and then homes that have been demolished, another factor showing the crisis that's ongoing there, 200, uh, these uh, this is figure that the un has uh released including the numbers that have been arrested, so that's what's

happening in the occupied uh west bank, um, the the other thing that we need to look at, and this is the side not is because of the operational flood uh we're going to see what i'm talking about in this next uh uh pointer here if we can take a look at that uh is the rising popularity of ismaalinia and hamas in general uh in the west bank it used to be at around 12% but now the popularity of hamas has uh almost caught ruble to uh 42% so it shows out operation of flood in terms of its aim has actually gained more popularity in the west bank and that's very important forward uh in terms of what's going to happen in the west bank? well, let's take a look at an overview of what's challenges the west bank faces, and these are just general nature. economic crisis uh is obviously one the things that the west bank is facing, contributing factor to that is the conflict that's uh entailed there, we talked about the demolitions, about the abductions and also

the number of palestinians killed, financial challenges, one of the big ones such as the pa uh tax revenue being with held. also movements uh restriction of palestinians in general leads to some of the major challenges that the west bank is facing. let's bring back our guests and uh see what uh they think about all this uh we have oliver boyde barrett rejoining us, emirates professor of ohio and california university, author of many books like conflict narratives in syria. otret, welcome back economic divide. i'd like to zoom in a announcement slash warning that the us treasury secretary janneth yell. actually issued uh against netanyahu where it's she said that uh he needs to take steps to prevent the collapse of the west bank economy. as far as i recall the us has a almost a direct hand in contributing to the uh west bank economy uh not in favor of the palestinians such as settlements, the freedom of movement, indirectly, these are financially supported by the us. so isn't the

us actually responsible in some regards? yeah, i think essentially um robert. sorry uh rfk junior uh recently got it right when he described uh the the role of israel for the united states is as kind of aircraft aircraft carrier is the term that he used so the united for the united states uh i think he has this right israel is kind of permanent permanently anchored aircraft carrier uh and his purposes to to uh ensure that us foreign policies in the in the middle east are carried out uh and that us hagemony uh is sustained uh and that uh efforts to resist or to compete with us higemany uh are suppressed. all right, let me let me um stop

you there and ask you about if you can elaborate a little bit elaborate a little bit more about what you mean by that i mean uh when you say for example that israel carries out us interest in the region, what exactly uh is israel doing for the us, that the us is so keen on supporting uh israel all out in uh almost everything if not everything. the the function once upon a time under the shire of persia, this was the function for the united states that iran uh once played uh up until the uh revolution of 1979 uh when uh the role that uh uh that iran at once played for us empire uh was shifted to uh to to israel and um i think that is the fundamental purpose of israel to uh to the united states, but of course are now this relationship is now consolidated uh by the financial links between uh israeli or israeli friendly

oligarchs in the united states and uh the israeli u regime and the voting importance of pro israeli sentiment for in particular for the democratic party in the united states, so the relationship between israel and the united states is extremely complicated and it basically favors um israeli israeli and not uh palestinian interests. all right, thank you for that. let me bring in gabriel suarez, bring him back, he served in the... acumenical accompanyment program in palestine and israel in hibron and jericho. gabriel suarez, welcome back economic divide. the way that the us is... is uh almost uh steering uh the uh post-onslaught scenario is is now quite evidence uh we know that uh the us

president joe biden wants a reform pa in place and then we have now uh janet dellen for example the secretary general coming out i'm sorry the us treasury secretary coming out and saying um and warning israel that it needs to take control of the west bank economy put it back into gear make sure that it doesn't uh fall apart why do... do you think uh she has done that? do you think it's because this becomes an existential threat to israel, the west bank economy falls apart? mean it's it's it's a kind of a bargain because at the same time they want to allow the settlements to try to expand to doing for israel to maintain control of the west bank, there is a direct control over rc which is 60% of the west bank, the major resources, the water provides more than 90% of the water is the west. is controlled by israel, while less than 20% goes to the palestinians and so there is a takeover and and and the us has been part of that during the oslo agreement,

it has broken that takeover by allowing israel to do what it wants, but not, but when we when palestinians try to go to the un or try to move towards pression israel, it always back israel completely, so basically completely a diplomatic immunity towards violations that are pretty clear against. international laws in every single sense of the word, in every major organizations can agree on that. the private sector in the west bank in gaza is estimated to have suffered losses of around 1.5 billion production during the first two months of the conflict, equivalent to $25 million and losses per. before the onslot, the world bank had projected growth of 3.2% in 2023 for the economies of the gaza strip and the west bank combined, but his updated estimate is economic contraction of 6.4%. this means a

loss of $2.5 billion when it comes to his gdp. the palestinian authority. has also been hit hard, his independent revenues fell 10% in 2023 in comparison with estimates before the onslot and it would appear that the situation is only getting worse. it's deficit has grown fivefold to over $500 million dollars and it is already cutting its employees paid drastically. israel has also cancelled work permits for over 170,000 palestinian workers, which has weighed heavily on demand in the west bank. the west bank economy is mainly driven by the cities in which there have been the most confrontations, including in nobles and which are... constant military rates from israel:

hello and welcome to the quick take section, i'm mahian. this past week had major development when it came to the palestinian authority that governs the west bank, and that was the resignation of the pa government. palestinian prime minister muhammad shataya and his government tendered their... nations to palestinian authority president mahmoud abbas. many observers regard this as the first step towards forming new technocratic palestinian administration to govern the palestinian territories and to oversee the reconstruction of gaza after israel's on slot. at the same time there were critical statements made against israel and the prime minister benjamin netanyahu that may be related to the pa government's resignation. it came from the us treasury. secretary janet yellen who urged israel to restore economic ties to the occupied west bank. the treasury secretary called on prime minister benjamin netanyahu of israel to

reduce barriers to commerce for palestinians, to increase commercial engagement with the west bank. in the letter, misyalan called for israel to reinstate work permits for palestinians and reduce barriers to commerce. what does janet yellen's critique have to do with the palestinian authority? government resignation because the us president joe biden had a stated before that he would like for a reform pa to rule over the gaza strip, although that is something rejected by hamos. there were reports like how the us was looking to prop up palestinian authority financially to prepare for post war gaza rule in which a reform pa was central to the biden administration's vision for post war gaza, but ramala says it may run out of... money by month's end, this report came amid warnings from officials in romela that the pa was on the verge of running out of money which could jeopardize its ability to govern the gaza

strip. once israel's honot against palestinians is over. that is it for this quick take section. if you want to send us your comments or if you have any questions, send them to us. contact info is coming up. i'm mattia bosan and i'll see you next week. "the economy of the west bank, the gaza spit and palestine as a whole will not have any chances of a real economic recovery, unless the broader palestinian problem is resolved. the occupied west bank's downward economic spiral has not even gained momentum. now the us knows this, which is why it has ordered israel to make sure that that does not happen, because if that happens, if the was bank becomes anything even close to what's happening there in the gaza strip, well that would prove to be an existential threat to

israel. do you agree with that?" " please let us know, contact information is behind me. it was great having you with us and i hope to see you next week from me. the entire team here at economic devide. it's goodbye until then.

the headlines: the death toll from the us-israeli genocide in gaza's nearing 31, more than 5 months into the war in the palestinian territory. the israeli atrocities against palestinians is. not limited to the gaza strip as the regime's violent raids in the occupied west bank claims yet another life and uh the un rights chief says the expansion of israeli settlements on occupied palestinian land constitutes a war crime.