Peace and Prosperity; Why Not?

Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salem Fayyad is not a popular man within the West Bank. But the lack of esteem in which he is held in Gaza, among the Palestinians there and their Hamas leadership is definitely deep in the dungeon. He is a moderate and a realist. Educated as a economist at the University of Texas at Austin, he is also too reasonable, and too Western in orientation for their well-seasoned opposition to the presence of their Israeli neighbour.

For his part, he more than acknowledges the liability to statehood and peace, if not amity, between the Palestinian Authority and Israel, and the violent danger represented by the aggressive determination of Hamas to destroy Israel and retake its geography for Islam and Palestinian resettlement.  He is respected by Israel's leaders. He was put in place by PA President Mahmoud Abbas, who appointed him during a period of "national emergency".

He is a conciliator and a pragmatist. And very well favoured by the West who recognize in him just those qualities. The high regard he attracts from the PA's foreign financial sponsors is what convinces Mr. Abbas to retain Mr. Fayyad. Iinherent in his qualities is the hope that some accommodation between the Palestinians and Israel could be brokered that would result in a cessation of hostilities, in the creation of a Palestinian state to sit alongside that of Israel.

He understands and he trusts that should such an accommodation be brought to reality, the new Palestinian State would stand to prosper with the assistance of the State of Israel, for that goodwill assistance would certainly be forthcoming as an initiative useful and valuable to both entities. But his standards and his hopes for the future are not shared by the leadership either in the West Bank or Gaza.

As long as Salam Fayyad is in place as the PA's prime minister, the west, North America and Europe, value and trust his integrity in an administration well known for its corruption. They continue to offer aid, more per capita than is given to any country in Africa, Asia or Latin America, and it is primarily this aid that ensures the PA is kept financially afloat, despite their inability to inspire their own earning power.

A situation that has left the Palestinian Authority in a feeble economic state, so much so that it cannot pay its own vast network of civil servants; sometimes the sole employer apart from the UN, in an otherwise bleak economy. Whereas Hamas receives financial support from Iran, and now Qatar as well. Shia Iran supporting one of its acolyte militias, and Sunni Qatar in admiring recognition of Hamas's latest belligerence against Israel.

The absurdity of referring to West Bank cities as 'refugee camps' is demonstrated by the buildings built of white Jerusalem stone and red tile roofs, the mosques with tall minarets and green domes, the palm trees and stone walls, the presence of modern hotels and good restaurants, and the new construction underway. Belying the presence of empty lots, rubble, and ruder buildings, common in any other cities regardless of their geography.



And a new project is underway close to Ramallah, on nearby hilly terrain, financed to the tune of $1-billion by Qatar and planned by an entrepreneur, to build a modern, new planned city project, to be named Rawabi. Its planner engineer, Bashar Masri, envisions Rawabi a high tech centre, with apartments and a commercial centre, a cultural centre, medical facilities, shops, cafes and a giant amphitheatre.

He envisions peace and security and an agreement with Israel to help launch that high tech centre, and Israeli entrepreneurs are equally interested in such a venture. Together, Salam Fayyad and Bashar Masri, unrepresentative as they are of the average Palestinian and far removed from the PA and Hamas leadership, could, if they had the power, move Palestinians into a world far removed from their current situation.