Palestine

UP UNTIL WORLD WAR I, Palestine was a neglected part of the Ottoman Empire. Economic progress during the late 19th and early 20th centuries came from European settlers, and especially from the emerging Zionist movement. When the British took over from the Ottomans during World War I, they had promised both the Jews and the Arabs the same territory for a na-tion-state. The interwar period was characterized by a steady economic development of the Jewish settlements despite ongoing ethnic confrontations between the Arabic and the Jewish population. The decline of the traditional Arabic economy coincided with the political events.

After World War II the British were no longer able to control the so-called Palestine Mandate and handed it over to the United Nations. The United Nations divided the territory into two states, a Jewish state and an Arab state. The Jewish side accepted, whereas the Arab side was incited by the neighboring Arab nations to decline the partition offer and to wage war against the new state of Israel. The Arab nations were defeated.

The social situation of the Arabs living in what has just become Israel had changed dramatically: on the one hand the Arab neighbors had asked the Arabs on Israeli soil to leave the territory for the time of the hostilities (in expectation of a return after a defeat of Israel); on the other hand there was an expulsion in some places under Israeli control. At the end of the war in 1949, an important percentage of Palestinian Arabs were dislocated [Page 808]from their former homes and refugee camps emerged as well in the non-Israeli part of the former Palestine Mandate as in the neighboring Arab states.

The remaining territories of the mandate, which the United Nations had designated as a state for the Arab Palestinians, were now claimed by Jordan (West Bank) and by Egypt (Gaza). Whereas the Arab Palestinians in the West Bank could participate in the general economic development of Jordan, the Arab Palestinians in Gaza, under control of Egypt, were separated from the Egyptian economy and had to face a deteriorating economic experience.

One of the most important sources of income for the Arab Palestinians was and still is the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). At the beginning in 1949 and 1950, this organization assisted some 750,000 people, but now provides aid to nearly four million people, as it counts all descendants of refugees as refugees. That means that by now, UNRWA helps not only the needy inhabitants of remaining Palestinian refugee camps of 1948 but also well-integrated Arabs of Palestinian descent in other Arab states.

In 1967, Israel took over control of both the West Bank and Gaza after defeating several Arab states. Whereas the 1970s showed a slow economic recovery, especially in Gaza, the ongoing Palestinian-Israeli confrontation from the mid-1980s (so-called Intifada) hindered any economic progress. Many Palestinians living in the territories had found employment in Israel, but after any serious Palestinian terror attacks on Israel, the territories were blocked, thus depriving the Palestinians of their workplace in Israel.

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