Palestinian experts say U.S. Mideast plan not to ensure Palestinian prosperity

Palestinian experts believed that the U.S. Mideast peace plan perpetuate Palestinian economy's dependence on Israel and will not ensure Palestinian prosperity.

Palestine Economic Policy Research Institute (MAS) in Ramallah presented a research paper on Tuesday titled "The American-Israeli Vision to End the Palestinian Issue, Economic Dimensions and Possible Effects of Implementation," considering the U.S. plan as "a recipe for destroying the Palestinian economy by cutting and fragmenting Palestinian geography."

The U.S. plan focuses on "absolute Israeli control over the movement of the Palestinian people and goods, the annexation of Jerusalem, the Jordan Valley, settlements, the theft of Palestinian groundwater, as well as the control of the Palestinian airspace and the communications section," according to the research paper.

U.S. President Donald Trump announced his Mideast peace plan in January, saying that it is a big chance for Palestinians to double their gross domestic product, reduce unemployment and poverty, and create millions of jobs over ten years.

During the last three decades, official data indicate that the Palestinian economy doubles every ten years, the research paper said, adding that U.S. claims about prosperity are not true.

The U.S. plan "is based on destroying the Palestinian economy and damaging all aspects of domestic production because there is no possibility to manage the economy of a state under occupation," Rajaa al-Khaldy, director of Palestine Economic Policy Research Institute (MAS), told Xinhua.

In fact, U.S. Mideast plan leads to the weakening of the Palestinian economy and forcing it to be a vassal of the Israeli economy by perpetuating the restrictions imposed by Israel on the Palestinian economy, al-Khaldy said.

He added that the inevitable result of implementing the Mideast plan is the destruction of the Palestinian economy and the reduction of the investment in Palestine.

Meanwhile, Former Palestinian Economy Minister Maher Al-Masry said that the plan "tries to delude us to a state that does not exist and will never exist."

Al-Masry added that the U.S. plan "does not only perpetuate the existing restrictions imposed by the occupation on the Palestinian economy but also added new restrictions."

"All of this is for the benefit of the Israeli economy, not for the Palestinian," he said.

On the other hand, Palestinian economists described the carrot of economic prosperity, suggested by the U.S. plan, as unrealistic.

For his part, Palestinian businessman Samir Haleilah told Xinhua that the U.S. plan included the deployment of about 105 additional military checkpoints in the Palestinian territories to prevent any geographic contiguity of the Palestinian economy.

Haleilah added that "the U.S. Mideast plan could only create one thing, that is keeping the Palestinian people in need of humanitarian aid forever and not to enable it to build a free and capable economy."

He stressed that any real prosperity of the Palestinian economy is required to be linked to the expansion and development of Palestinian natural resources.

On Jan. 28, Trump revealed the controversial peace plan, which calls for a two-state solution but recognizes "Jerusalem as Israel's undivided capital."

The U.S. plan was immediately rejected by Palestine and the Arab world as well as other countries around the world.

The Arab foreign ministers unanimously agreed to boycott the U.S. plan and not to cooperate "in any way" with Washington in its implementation.

(by Xinhua writer Sanna Kamal)