Only a small part is excerpted below. The bold emphasis is mine.

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Over the last six months, the Palestinian economy has been radically transformed under a new plan drawn up by the Palestinian Authority (PA) called the Palestinian Reform and Development Plan (PRDP). Developed in close collaboration with institutions such as the World Bank and the British Department for International Development (DFID), the PRDP is currently being implemented in the West Bank where the Abu Mazen-led PA has effective control. It embraces the fundamental precepts of neoliberalism: a private sector-driven economic strategy in which the aim is to attract foreign investment and reduce public spending to a minimum.

Understanding the logic of this economic framework is critical to assessing the current juncture of the Palestinian struggle. The neoliberal vision underpinning these policies is a central corollary to the political direction promoted by the Israeli government, the Palestinian Authority (PA) and their US and European Union (EU) supporters. The aim, as the first part of this article explains, is to formalize a truncated network of Palestinian-controlled cantons and associated industrial zones, dependent upon the Israeli occupation, and through which a pool of cheap Palestinian labour is exploited by Israeli, Palestinian and other regional capitalist groups. The evolving institutional framework for the Palestinian economy not only incorporates the Israeli occupation into the way “development” is conceived, but also acts to foster the culpability of Palestinian political and economic elites for how these structures operate.

Such an analysis, however, is only part of the story. This article argues that these changes in the West Bank and Gaza Strip cannot be fully understood without an appreciation of the regional framework of the Middle East. Over the last two decades, and particularly accelerating under the Bush administration, the US has pursued a policy of integrating its bases of support in the region within a single, neoliberal economic zone tied to the US through a series of bilateral trade agreements. This vision is aimed at promoting the free flow of capital and goods (but not necessarily labour) throughout the Middle East region. The region’s markets will be dominated by US imports, while cheap labour, concentrated in economic “free” zones owned by regional and international capital, will manufacture low-cost exports destined for markets in the US, EU, Israel and the Gulf.

A central component of this vision is the normalization and integration of Israel into the Middle East. The US envisions a Middle East resting upon Israeli capital in the West and Gulf capital in the East, underpinning a low wage, neoliberal zone that spans the region. What this means is that Israel’s historic destruction of Palestinian national rights must be accepted and blessed by all states in the region. In the place of real Palestinian self-determination (first and foremost the right of return of refugees), a nominal artificial state will be established in the dependent islands of territory across the West Bank and Gaza Strip. This goal is an essential prerequisite of US strategy in the region….

A statement put out by the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee, and endorsed by a wide array of political forces, stated:

“Economic and social development in Palestine is crucial, and it is imperative that we should take . . . steps to improve the current economic and political situation. However, despite the ongoing national and international conferences designed to bring together the national efforts and resources; and despite the support of international solidarity, we believe that the economic conference that will be held in Bethlehem over the next few days, with the attendance of official and non-official Israeli representatives, has . . . serious political implications that cannot be ignored.… The proposed projects take as their starting point Israeli participation in decision-making, and Israeli control over their legal status… [they] are designed to meet the economic demands of the Israeli administration, not those of the Palestinian people.… These are not the development projects we want or need. What we require is a national Palestinian conference with Arab and international support for strengthening Palestinian steadfastness and as a step toward ending the dependency on the occupation and its economy.”

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Yes, those "capitalist henchmen" are a bunch of really rotten apples, just like "running dog imperialists" used to be (and perhaps still are!)

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Adam Hanieh has been writing this same article since 2002. It's always "Israeli apartheid" this and "Israeli apartheid" that.

I don't see that the neo-liberal plans outlined here change any of that; it's easier, in fact, to discipline a prison population into lock-down mode or into a more "humane" mode as conditions vary, rather than allow an infant Palestinian state to develop. Perhaps what is meant is to make the Palestinians pay for their own prison.

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The Palestinian Authority will play the role of policing the several million-strong reserve army of labour locked behind the walls and checkpoints of the Palestinian territories. In return, the PA leadership will wield the trappings of a state, obtain for itself the privileges to travel and move freely, and earn a stake in the profits that flow from the zones.... Inside these zones, Palestinian and Israeli labour laws, wage levels, environmental regulations, or other workplace conditions will not apply. Movement in and out of the areas will be controlled by the Israeli military and Palestinian security forces. Presumably, if Israel's typical pattern of movement control applies, workers will need to pass stringent security checks in order to obtain necessary work permissions. In this way, the ability to work becomes dependent upon complying with Israeli military orders (over 11,000 Palestinians are currently held as political prisoners for violating these military orders).

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If so, that should be more clearly spelled out as part of or a prerequisite of the neo-liberal aims. The occupied territories are a gift from Zionism to the world of what an open air prison for human beings would look like. If it continues to be "a success" then, undoubtedly, more will be built - and not just in Palestine. We should not ever tire of re-iterating this truth. The Palestinians need to be, first and foremost, released from their prison ...that is now 40 years old - which is two-thirds of the time since the original ethnic cleansing of 60 years ago.

[ 24 July 2008: Message edited by: N.Beltov ]