Sun, Aug 30, 2009 page12

• Trade revives as Palestinian cities try to reconnect

  While enjoying a minor trade boost from greater freedom of movement, businesses still crave more access and predictability

  • REUTERS
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  Businesses in normal countries take getting around for granted. They can distribute, export and attract workers and customers from wide areas.

  In the Israeli-occupied West Bank, access to more than half of the land is restricted. Israel has ultimate control of roads, energy, water, telecommunications and air space.

  The violent Palestinian intifada, or uprising, of 2000 triggered an Israeli security crackdown, creating checkpoints on key routes, closing roads and putting 600 obstacles around Israel’s West Bank settlements.

  A journey of 30 minutes could stretch into hours.

  An Israeli barrier of fence and concrete wall now seals off much of the West Bank. At a handful of crossing points, freight heading for the Jewish state is screened for security. A decade of what the Palestinians call “closure” created higher transaction costs, uncertainty and inefficiency.

  But violence has fallen significantly.

  Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says that in addition to the classic, top-down peace process, he can build peace from the bottom up by boosting the Palestinian economy.

  This summer he began removing major internal checkpoints.

  Wary Palestinian businessmen say these can easily be re-established, so their operating environment remains fraught with unpredictability. But with easier movement, trade is indeed on the rise in places.

  Reporters took the pulse in several West Bank cities:

  NABLUS

  This northern city was the West Bank’s commercial hub until the Palestinian uprising that began in 2000, when it was virtually sealed off by the Huwara checkpoint, known for years as one of the toughest in the occupied territory.

  In the past five years 425 companies left for Ramallah to escape the economic siege, said Omar Hashem of the Nablus Chamber of Commerce. But 100 returned this year, he said.

  “In the past four months, there has been considerable improvement in Nablus’ trade situation, after Israeli authorities eased restrictions at military checkpoints,” he said.

  This allows thousands of Arab Israelis to go shopping in Nablus, which was forbidden. As yet, it is only on Saturdays.

  Unemployment has decreased from 32 percent to 18 percent, said Hashem, and life is easier for Nablus professionals who used to stay in Ramallah five days a week to avoid the tedious checkpoints.

  BETHLEHEM

  “We have heard from Netanyahu a lot about developing the Palestinian economy ... but Israel is not taking any serious action so far,” said Samir Hazboun of the Chamber of Commerce.

  “The only change we saw is the reduction of the waiting time at Wadi al Nar checkpoint,” he said.

  The director of ACA logistics, who did not want her name published, said checkpoint uncertainty plagued her business.

  “Between Bethlehem and Hebron, the road now is easy and open. But nothing is guaranteed. If Israel wants to close the main road, the process will take two hours or more,” she said. “Between Bethlehem and Ramallah we sometimes go through the Wadi al Nar checkpoint easily, and we sometimes wait hours.”

  HEBRON

  The economy of this volatile city, where Israeli settlers occupy homes near a Jewish religious site under army protection, shows little sign of improvement, say some local businessmen.

  “Our latest statistics show no economic growth,” said Maher Al-haymoni, director of the Chamber of Commerce. “There are many checkpoints and inspection terminals. Drivers wait for hours.”

  Taxi-fleet owner Abu Nail al-Jabari said improvements were limited.

  “It’s getting a little faster for us to travel to major West Bank cities,” he said. “But there are 400 [Israeli-made] earth mounds and other physical obstacles on roads in the West Bank ... Detours take up fuel, time, money.”

  RAMALLAH

  This city is the envy of the others. As the administrative capital close to Jerusalem, Ramallah benefited from the sense of remoteness felt in cities like Nablus closed off behind Israeli checkpoints.

  “The activity in Ramallah is at the expense of the activity in Jerusalem and the rest of West Bank cities,” says entrepreneur Mazen Sinokrot, because it is the seat of the Palestinian Authority, big companies and bank headquarters.

  He attributed the city’s boom to the influx of investors from East Jerusalem, where they feel Israeli measures to assert their sovereignty over the city have become too burdensome.

  GAZA

  Under what the World Bank calls the “extreme closure” of a tight Israeli blockade, the Mediterranean coastal enclave where 1.5 million Palestinians live is now all but divorced from the economy of the West Bank.

  Its public sector is paid from foreign aid cash trucked in by security vans. It gets much of its food and energy in UN and EU aid, and some brought in commercially under Israeli inspection.

  Most other goods are supplied by a smuggling industry running tunnels under the Egyptian border.

  International donors have pledged some US$4 billion for reconstruction, but a ban on the import of cement and steel has prevented the work from starting.
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