UNCTAD: $ 48 billion Palestinian losses from occupation in 18 years

Mervat Sadeq-Ramallah

The latest report of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) estimated the financial cost to Palestinians of the occupation in the years 2000-2017 at $ 47.7 billion, and this cost continues to rise, according to the report presented to the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday.

The Institute for Economic Studies and Research (MAS) in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Monday announced the findings on behalf of UNCTAD, part of three years of UN research.

The most recent research on the financial cost of the occupation was published in conjunction with the Institute's announcement in Geneva and New York. It came under the title "economic costs incurred by the Palestinian people because of the Israeli occupation .. financial aspects."

According to the authors of the report, these funds include losses of public revenues and accrued interest estimated at $ 28.2 billion, as well as 6.6 billion of Palestinian financial revenues leaked to Israel.

When the UNCTAD model assumes that the Palestinians would not incur the financial costs of the occupation, but would inject that cost into their economy through an expansionist policy, it would have generated 2 million jobs for Palestinians in the 18-year period, averaging 111,000 new jobs annually.

The report attributes the Palestinian financial leakage to restrictions on the free movement of people and goods, Tel Aviv's control of Area C in the West Bank and all border crossing points, denying Palestinians access to their land and natural and human resources freely, and denying the PNA control over its financial resources. .

Financial fragility
According to the report, the financial leakage to Israel and the high cost to Palestinians of the occupation reinforce the financial fragility of the State of Palestine and undermine its ability to plan and direct the economy towards sustainable growth.

The report, which is being presented to the UN General Assembly today, recommends that Palestinians and Israelis negotiate a settlement of the accumulated revenues owed to Palestinians, establish a mechanism through which Palestinians can access information and data on the management of their financial resources, and lease a mechanism of attendance and control to Palestinians at the crossings.

Raja al-Khalidi, director of the Mas Institute, said the report was a new step in a project started three years ago in consultation with Palestinian institutions on estimating the overall cost of the occupation. Research papers on the legal dimensions of the occupation and on the natural resources of the Palestinians, especially the gas and oil fields, were published months ago.

The report is the first of its kind in terms of its comprehensive coverage of the Palestinian losses and the cost of the occupation, which is in addition to previous research conducted by "UNCTAD" in response to the resolutions of the General Assembly of the United Nations.

The financial costs include, according to Jameel, financial leaks that go to the Israeli treasury, a right of the Palestinians. The most important of which is the revenues owed to the Palestinian Authority under the Paris Economic Protocol (the economic part of the Oslo Accord) due to the Israeli breach of the implementation of this Protocol.

The report aims to clarify the channels of financial leakage among Palestinians, and to arrive at updated estimates of this leakage and the losses suffered by Palestinians as a result of the measures imposed by the occupation.

The report explains its time scale with the Israeli cessation in 2000 of transferring Palestinian financial rights to the PA from Area C under the Oslo Accords, where more than 2,000 Israeli businesses operate in the area without paying their taxes to the PA.

It draws a map of financial leakage through multiple channels such as tax evasion, customs duties, and evasion of the payment of financial fees for clearing revenues collected by Israel instead of the authority at ports, as well as leakage in the telecommunications sector of Israeli networks used in the West Bank, and leakage of passenger exit fees through the Karama Bridge with Jordan. Israel has not committed to transferring it to power in accordance with the agreements.

Profitable occupation
In his remarks to the report, Shaker Khalil, adviser to the Palestinian prime minister for economic affairs, said that these data show how the occupation turned into a profitable project for Israel.

Khalil said that the government would benefit from the findings of the report and its demands to improve the management of financial transactions and their participation between the PA and Israel. As well as the losses resulting from the repeated aggression on the Gaza Strip and Israeli actions in the areas of Jerusalem and the demolition of houses and the closure of Palestinian institutions, and losses resulting from the settlement, in addition to psychological and financial losses to block thousands of Palestinian prisoners from the labor market.

The economic expert Raja al-Qaisi said that there are Israeli effects on the Palestinian economy that preceded in 2000 (the scope of the study) and its impact continues and was not mentioned in the report. In addition to factories, fuel stations and residential buildings, the impact of its closure continues today.

Qaisi also pointed to the losses resulting from the high cost of movement through alternative roads to streets closed by the occupation in several areas in the West Bank.