Independence before prosperity .. So Palestinian businessmen refused to attend the Bahrain conference

Mervat Sadiq-Ramallah / Raed Mousa-Gaza

Palestinian businessmen have refused to participate in the Peace for Prosperity workshop, which was called for by the White House in the Bahraini capital of Manama next month, following personal calls following the Palestinian Authority's refusal to present the economic chapter of the US "Century Deal".

Businessmen from the West Bank and Gaza Strip have expressed their refusal to participate in the workshop scheduled for June 25 and 26 on their personal pages through social media.

"The White House humiliates the Palestinians by talking about their standard of living before meeting their national aspirations," wrote the head of the Palestinian National Beverage Company, Zahi Khoury, who described it as "beautifying the nails of a woman during strangulation."

"I have been invited to talk about the so-called Peace Conference for Prosperity in Manama, and it is expected to be addressed to many Palestinian personalities in the field of economy and politics, but I will not participate, and no representative of our companies will participate," said businessman Bashar al-Masri.

"We will not deal with any event outside the Palestinian national consensus, and we Palestinians are able to advance our economy away from external interference," he said.

He pointed out that "economic peace is an old idea is now put differently, and as rejected by our people previously we reject now."

They are capable of us alone
"We are looking for an independent state under the resolutions of international legitimacy, not temporary economic prosperity, we do not know its programs, its goals or its results," businessman Mazen Sinokrot told Al Jazeera.net.

According to Sinokrot, who was the former minister of the Palestinian economy, the Palestinians are able to bring money and build their state and establish their projects in cooperation between Palestinians inside and outside and their supporters and supporters of their just cause.

Sinokrot was invited to give a speech in the workshop without specifying its subject. He said that "jumping from Palestine and seeking Arab-Israeli normalization sought by the occupation government for many years and using the Palestinian issue as a bridge to reach the GCC countries is the most serious of this workshop."

Palestinian private sector institutions are considering responding to invitations to participate in the Bahrain workshop, amid expectations of a consolidated statement soon.

This is not the first time that the US administration has invited Palestinian businessmen to propose economic plans to invest in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Sinokrot and a number of Palestinian economists participated in a conference called by the US State Department under former President Barack Obama and launched a US plan to revive the Palestinian economy for three years.

But, as Sinokrot said, it was inherent to the political line that was in line with international legitimacy and within a vision that agreed to establish a Palestinian state on the 1967 territories with Jerusalem as its capital and not to recognize illegal settlements.

The solution is political
The Palestinian Authority has announced its rejection of the Bahrain workshop. Prime Minister Mohammed Ashtiyeh announced that the resolution of the conflict in Palestine is political related to ending the occupation and establishing an independent, sovereign and viable Palestine on the borders of 4 June 1967 with Jerusalem as its capital. International law and international law.

The Palestinian private sector was affected by a halt to US support for agricultural, technological and infrastructure projects worth about $ 350 million a year. This came as a result of the Palestinian Authority's refusal to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and to protest against the rights of Palestinian refugees and encourage settlement construction in the 1967 occupied territories.

The number of private sector workers whose jobs were cut due to the suspension of USAID's work programs in Palestine over the past year was estimated at 2,000.

Businessman Ibrahim Barham refused to participate after personally inviting him to the Bahrain workshop. He said the conference was not as economic as the Americans claim, and was not separated from the political plans that Trump's administration is trying to put forward.

Schemes - Barham says - express full bias to the Israeli occupation, especially after a series of resolutions in favor of Israel in the issue of Jerusalem and refugees and the annexation of the Golan and cutting off aid for the Palestinian people.

Barham added that Palestinian economists welcome any steps that contribute to support the Palestinian economy but without overriding the basis of the Palestinians' first problem, the occupation.

He said that talking about investments to the Palestinians in the absence of demand from Israel to stop its economic measures against the Palestinian economy is unacceptable, "but before that without ending the occupation can not go to economic solutions."

Sale of Palestine
Abdel Karim Ashour, a prominent civil society figure in Gaza, told Al Jazeera Net he received an invitation to participate, but said he "refuses to be a witness to such activities seeking to sell Palestine a handful of dollars."

Ashour urged all those who were invited to the announcement to refuse to participate, as he did by posting his position on his personal Facebook page, along with a picture of US Treasury Secretary Steve Menuchin's invitation to attend the Bahrain workshop.

Ashour said the aim of the workshop was to "raise money" from economic bribery to improve the collapsed humanitarian situation, without taking into consideration that the real reason for the deterioration of the Palestinian reality in all aspects of life is occupation.

The director of the network of NGOs in Gaza Amjad Shawa that the position of civil society consistent with the rest of the Palestinian positions on the refusal to participate in the Bahrain workshop, which aims to devote the "deal of the century."

Al-Shawa stressed that "the issue of our people is political and human rights, and everyone should work to achieve the legitimate rights of the Palestinians instead of being dragged into details that serve to perpetuate the occupation and its plans aimed at destroying the Palestinian national project and the dream of the state with Jerusalem as its capital."

"Without a real political solution based on the rights of our people, all the projects will be fragile and their impact is temporary and will not succeed," he said, ruling out the success of the decisions of the Bahrain workshop and what will result from the projects and economic investments intended to characterize the compass of the Palestinian people.

"The Bahrain workshop is not a new one," said Omar Shaaban, director of the Bahrain think tank for studies. "Last year, there were conferences in Washington and Brussels to improve the economic situation in Gaza in the context of the American vision of an economic solution to the Palestinian issue. The actual application.

Shaaban told al-Jazeera.net that the most important outcome of the workshop would be "Arab-Israeli normalization more than anything else." It is likely that its recommendations on the Palestinian issue can not be implemented to bias the current US policy in favor of Israel. (Hamas), which has controlled the situation in Gaza since mid-2007.