Hundreds of Palestinians who were stranded in El Arish in Sinai and on a boat anchored in the Red Sea began returning to the Gaza Strip yesterday, via the Rafah crossing as demanded by Hamas and in contradiction of the understanding between Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.But what strikes me about this situation is what no one is reporting; which is, how 2,000 people from the Gaza Strip can afford to travel to travel to Saudi Arabia and back? According to this Economist article (dated August 2007), the average Palestinian in the Gaza Strip is living on $0.67 cents a day.
About 2,000 Palestinians were detained after returning from the hajj in Saudi Arabia last week, after Israel demanded that they be subjected to security checks and entered Gaza via the Israeli border only. Israeli officials feared that among the pilgrims were important Hamas activists who left Gaza with the pilgrims and brought back large sums of money for Hamas.
In fact, the World Bank would have one believe the economic crisis is so horrendous in the Gaza Strip that an irreversible economic collapse is imminent…of course, that was in way back in July 2007 so perhaps the World Bank reports were somewhat premature and the economy is now booming?
I have said it before - no one does victim quite like the Palestinians.
1 comment:
I know... It's been economic collapse and genocide combined with apartheid over the last 100 years.
In the mean time 589 177 Palestinian Muslims (1922 census) produced 9 or 10 million Palestinians as of 2007. Miracle!
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