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The few remaining Gaza businesses suffer huge losses, and most factories were either destroyed or shut down because West Bank raw material imports are prohibited. As long as the siege continues, a productive economy is impossible. So is earning a living, even one modest enough to survive and support a family.
The announced "economic peace" skipped Gaza, the World Bank saying:
"The West Bank and Gaza are now almost completely delinked, with Gaza starkly transformed from a potential trade route to a walled hub of humanitarian donations."
Besides their damaged societies and economies, the Gaza - West Bank disconnect destroys the possibility of unifying Palestine, the World Bank adding:
"(T)he strategic goal of an economically viable Palestinian state is achievable only if Gaza and the West Bank are maintained as an integral economic entity," what Israel prevents, keeping Gazans under siege and West Bank communities confined to Bantustans, isolated in the Territory's least valued areas, hoping they'll wither, perish or leave, transforming all Palestine into a greater Israel, exclusively for Jews, pressuring Israeli Arabs to comply, move, or be forced out.
A Final Comment
Phillip Weiss and Adam Horowitz blog on Mondoweiss on Israel/Palestine and Middle East issues daily. A July 18 entry related the distaste some Jews have for Arabs, one man saying they're guests as long as they behave. Another called them stinking Arabs ("aravim masrichim"). A third hoped the next war would drive them out because they're the modern incarnation of Amalek, the enemy of God and the Jews, and still another said "We like to be with people who think like we do."
Settlers are especially hostile, notably religious extremists believing they're chosen, Israel given them by God, the Messiah's reemergence imminent once it's entirely gotten, the "infidels" driven out.
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