*Capacity or Audacity: Comments on Israel’s Report to the Ad Hoc Liason Committee *
/Shir Hever, Alternative Information Center (AIC)
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In June 2009, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs published a document called /Supporting Palestinian Capacity Building: Israel’s Effort in Supporting the Palestinian Economy, Security Reforms and Civil Affairs. /This document was presented to donor states in September, and distributed at the UN summit on 23 September.
The report is a political document presented by the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), in order to improve Israel’s international prestige, and deflect criticism of Israel’s continued occupation of the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT). While this report has been widely circulated, it contains numerous imprecise and untrue statements. It is important to note these erroneous statements in order to offer a more balanced perspective, and to rectify the MFA’s misleading use of quotes from international organizations.
The report boasts Israel’s encouraged economic growth in the West Bank, but conveys the opposite message. The report contains a long list of cooperative activities which Israel has conducted with the Palestinian Authority since it was established. Other than resuming some of the activities, which Israel was obligated to do and failed to accomplish, Israel does not appear, based on the report, to be willing to do anything beyond the bare minimum to support the Palestinian economy, and often fails to do that as well. Most importantly, though Israel is legally responsible for the wellbeing of the Palestinian population under its occupation, no money is invested by the Israeli Ministry of Finance in maintaining the living conditions of Palestinians and providing basic public services. All the various projects for encouraging development in the OPT are externally funded.
It should be noted that Israel’s ability to report on the Palestinian economic development is limited. Since 1995, the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics no longer surveys the OPT, and the only Israeli source for data on the OPT population is from military sources, especially the Civil Administration and COGAT (Coordinator of Government Activities in the Palestinian Territories). For that reason, the MFA report is based mostly on the interaction of the Palestinian economy with Israel, and on international reports. It uses almost no Palestinian sources to support its main argument that Israel is making efforts toward facilitating the Palestinian economy.
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/To read the whole article, click here <http://www.alternativenews.org/english/2183-capacity-or-audacity-comments-on-israels-report-to-the-ad-hoc-liason-committee.html>. //To download the report in pdf format, click here <http://www.alternativenews.org/images/stories/other/Capacity%20or%20Audacity.pdf>./