"Developing" Israeli Apartheid
The World Bank, International Aid and The Ghettoization of Palestine
By Jamal Juma
While George Bush had his first White House meeting with Mahmoud Abbas - a summit giving Bush a platform for his phony
$200 million “aid” package - devastating new realities are being constructed in Palestine. The Apartheid Wall and
accompanying infrastructure of Jewish-only bypass roads, military zones and settlements, are rapidly moving towards the
permanent ghettoization of the Palestinian people. Bush’s “aid” package, however, neither stops these crimes nor helps
Palestinians: most of it is destined for Occupation projects such as new checkpoints. As part of global “aid” efforts
outlined and coordinated by the World Bank, it supports not liberation but Bantustanization of Palestine.
The Bank’s latest publication - Stagnation or Revival? – leaves no doubt about these aims as it meticulously maps out a
vision of economic development “for” Palestine that serves to provide long-term financial support of the Israeli
Apartheid system. It begins by repeating the lie that Israeli “disengagement” will provide Palestinians with a
“significant amount of land” and an ideal environment for development. In reality, Gaza will be totally imprisoned,
surrounded by a second eight metre high wall, with all borders, coastline and airspace controlled by Israel. In the West
Bank, just four tiny settlements are being disbanded. Simultaneously, 46% of the West Bank is being annexed through the
Wall and Apartheid infrastructure to further expand colonies such as Ma’ale Adumim and the Gush Etzion bloc. Against
international law, the Bank sees the economic boundaries of “Palestine” as dictated by the Apartheid Wall and the
“disengagement” plan, which translates into active engagement in the colonization of the remaining lands of Palestine.
Despite the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling the Wall illegal and instructing all nations “not to render any
aid or assistance in maintaining the situation created by it,” the Bank steps in with an economic formula to sustain and
prop up this system of expropriation, dispossession and permanent Occupation.
These plans can be broken down into two key areas: the exploitation of Palestinian labour and achieving total control
over Palestinian movement.
Massive industrial zones are to be built on Palestinian land annexed by the Wall, where ghettoized Palestinian labour
will work in the dirtiest and most toxic industries. The so-called Tulkarem Peace Park, an archetype of this project, is
to be built on farmland stolen from the village of Irtah; land that sustained 50 families for generations and formed an
integral part of community and family life.
Moreover, the Bank praises the Wall for acting as a device by which to control Palestinians, using this as a motivation
for Israel to maintain the current permit system so that cheap Palestinian labour can be herded over the Green Line to
continue to undertake the most demeaning and worst paid jobs. In fact, the most fundamental cog, if this high-tech
system of Apartheid is to be sustainable, is the cementing of the checkpoint system as a permanent feature of
Palestinian life, to facilitate freedom of movement for goods but not people. This will enable the transfer of
Palestinians from their ghettos to the work places. It will necessitate funding – which the US has already promised -
for prison gates in the Wall, to maintain the humiliating and degrading checkpoint system imposed on the Palestinian
people.
Agriculture, traditionally the core sector of the economy, is barely mentioned in the report, presumably because the
Bank realizes that Palestinians will be left with no land. The Bank’s vision of “co-existence” involves Palestinian
natural water supplies, systematically stolen by the Occupation (to the tune of 80% of output every year), being bought
back by Palestinians under Occupation “at Israeli commercial rates”.
That the Bank’s co-ordination with the Occupation serves to the detriment of Palestinian liberation and international
law requires little elaboration.
The World Bank and donor community, however, follow their own laws and logic: they seek to impose, on top of the
Occupation, neo-liberal economics for “free” markets owned by Israeli and foreign capital and the restriction of
Palestinian people into disparate ghettos. The World Bank, alongside the US and significant portions of the
international community, are using the Palestinian Authority (PA) as an institution through which these policies can be
implemented and an "attractive environment for investors" created. The PA will be given the role of prison guard,
preventing the Palestinian people from defending their lands and rights. The responsibility of the Authority towards the
Palestinian people necessitates that it stands up against these projects - not by “modifying” or “only partially
backing” them, but by completely refusing and opposing them.
The industrial zones and Bantustans are not new ideas; they represent the same type of economic “development” pursued by
racist South Africa. Like black South Africans, Palestinians will not tolerate economic models of subservience. Nor do
they struggle for ways to make the Wall and the Occupation more bearable, but to break them down.
The partnership between Israel and the World Bank highlights the extent to which international support sustains the
Occupation. Without the $5 billion of annual US aid, the World Bank investment and the contributions of countless
governments, corporations and organizations, the Zionist project is simply not sustainable. Palestinians are not asking
for the bogus aid which the USA imposes, but genuine political support by which the massive economic backing to Israel
can be cut. Individuals and civil society the world over have enormous leverage and responsibility to strengthen the
movement to pressure and isolate Apartheid Israel, in support of the Palestinian struggle for justice and liberation.
*************
Jamal Juma’
The Grassroots Palestinian Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign – www.stopthewall.org
For further information on the World Bank please refer to: