# Why is Israel rich and Palestine poor? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 10, 2012, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-israel-rich-and-palestine-poor/643629 "2012-12-10T18:58:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![Docta\_G](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/2bfe46/32.png) [@Docta\_G](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Docta_G)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2012, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-israel-rich-and-palestine-poor/643629/141 "2012-12-14T19:52:00Z")
Israel has more lawyers, guns, and money, of course. ---
**Author:** ![Algher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Algher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Algher)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2012, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-israel-rich-and-palestine-poor/643629/142 "2012-12-14T20:22:34Z")
> [@Noone\_Special](#): > > American aid to Israel is, on average, slightly less than [$3 billion p/annum](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel%E2%80%93United_States_relations#United_States_aid). > Israel’s GDP in 2011 was [$211 Billion p/annum](https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&met_y=ny_gnp_mktp_pp_cd&idim=country:ISR&dl=en&hl=en&q=israel%20gross%20national%20product). Once you take into account that about half of the aid is really just a slightly convoluted method used by the US government to subsidize its Arms Industry (it must be spent buying from US companies,) we’re talking roughly 1% of the GDP. Do you really think that is the deciding factor…? It would be a better numerical comparison to look at Israel’s annual budget of around 100 billion dollars - which only raises the value of US aid to around 3%, but is more telling IMHO. There is a new documentary on the law in the territories that helps shine some light on the challenges the Palestinians in the West Bank have and had. [http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/moviesnow/la-et-mn-law-in-these-parts-review-20121214,0,5532140.story](http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/moviesnow/la-et-mn-law-in-these-parts-review-20121214,0,5532140.story) > [@](#): > > “Law’s” narrative begins in 1967, when Israel’s victory in the Six-Day War meant that, literally overnight, a million people became subject to Israeli authority. Constructing a legal system that would cover all the contingencies of everyday life was an enormous undertaking. > > Why not, the director asks, just place all these people under standard Israeli law? For one thing, as it turns out, that would imply the intention to annex territory and, for another, it would grant them full Israeli citizenship, something the country’s hierarchy did not want to do. > > So the occupied territories ended up being governed under a system that everyone thought would be temporary but ended up lasting for decades with no end in sight, like a makeshift building facing the stresses of conditions it was never meant to withstand. ---
**Author:** ![brazil84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8491ac/32.png) [@brazil84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brazil84)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2012, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-israel-rich-and-palestine-poor/643629/143 "2012-12-14T20:34:48Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > The problem is that Jews want Israel to exist and the Palestinians want it not to. I completely agree. It’s not a matter of the Jews wanting to avenge or right some past wrong. That’s why you don’t see Jewish terrorists blowing up buses in Munich or Damascus. From the Arabs’ point of view, the problem is that their is Jewish sovereignty over part of the Middle East, which they see as Arab land forever. That’s why the descendants of Arabs who fled Gaza in 1967 are still sitting in “refugee camps” in Jordan rather than returning to Gaza. That said, I think it’s worth nailing down what exactly is meant by the phrase “Palestinian Land.” Because the phrase seems to presuppose quite a lot. ---
**Author:** ![brazil84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8491ac/32.png) [@brazil84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brazil84)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2012, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-israel-rich-and-palestine-poor/643629/144 "2012-12-14T20:41:45Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > Instead, since I’ve already done this, No you have not. For example, you mentioned the “first war” but you did not say what specifically Israel is doing now which you believe is motivated by a need to avenge wrongs in the “first war.” Nor have you specified exactly what the wrongs were. > [@](#): > > please tell me what your own viewpoint is, as I don’t know what you’re trying to convey. As mentioned above the Israelis are primarily motivated by self-defense as a opposed to a desire to avenge or right past wrongs. The Arabs are primarily motivated by a desire that Jewish Israel cease to exist as opposed to a desire to avenge or right past wrongs. Except of course insofar as the existence of Israel is a wrong. Now please give me the specific examples I am asking for. ---
**Author:** ![Docta\_G](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/2bfe46/32.png) [@Docta\_G](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Docta_G)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2012, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-israel-rich-and-palestine-poor/643629/145 "2012-12-14T20:48:06Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > The Palestinians don’t want a country per se, and they don’t want peace. They want to prove how big their dicks are. It’s partially an arab cultural thing and partially an Islam thing as I posted upthread. Well, that settles it. Thanks, Minnesota Man! ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2012, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-israel-rich-and-palestine-poor/643629/146 "2012-12-14T23:25:29Z")
> [@brazil84](#): > > No you have not. For example, you mentioned the “first war” but you did not say what specifically Israel is doing now which you believe is motivated by a need to avenge wrongs in the “first war.” Nor have you specified exactly what the wrongs were. You improperly distributed a clause. I said that the Palestinians have the perceived past grievance of land lost in the first war, and that Israelis have the perceived past grievance of terrorism. > [@](#): > > Now please give me the specific examples I am asking for. Pick any past terrorist attack on Israeli civilians, such as various bus or cafe bombings. Pick any specific Palestinian family claim to lands lost in the first war. (Or, for that matter, lands taken in expansions of West Bank settlements.) Why should these perceived past grievances not be addressed in any peace settlement? Even if they cannot be redressed to the satisfaction of those who consider themselves aggrieved, how can a peace process go forward that does not entail discussion of them? You seem to be favoring a policy of denying the past, censoring it, refusing even to acknowledge its existence. I hope that I am wrong in perceiving this, but, for someone who demands my exact and detailed specificity, you’re sure not making yourself very clear at all. ---
**Author:** ![bizzwire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/958977/32.png) [@bizzwire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bizzwire)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2012, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-israel-rich-and-palestine-poor/643629/147 "2012-12-15T00:12:41Z")
So…to answer the OP, the reason that the Palestinians are poor is because a vibrant, thriving Palestinian state living at peace with Israel is not the goal of the Palestinian Leadership or its Arab brethren and sponsors. Maintaining a low level insurgency and goading the Israelis into acts that can be used to paint them as innocent victims is the order of the day. The Palestinians/ Arabs do not want peace with Israel. They want a convenient enemy to blame all of their shortcomings and failures on, lest their own populations start asking “why is Israel rich while we are poor?” ---
**Author:** ![brazil84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8491ac/32.png) [@brazil84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brazil84)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2012, 8:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-israel-rich-and-palestine-poor/643629/148 "2012-12-15T08:59:49Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > You improperly distributed a clause. I said that the Palestinians have the perceived past grievance of land lost in the first war, and that Israelis have the perceived past grievance of terrorism. > > Pick any past terrorist attack on Israeli civilians, such as various bus or cafe bombings. Pick any specific Palestinian family claim to lands lost in the first war. (Or, for that matter, lands taken in expansions of West Bank settlements.) Again, you are not giving specific examples of how the Israelis are motivated today by grudges over some terrorist attack back in the 1980s. Israelis have responded to Arab terrorist attacks but their response is primarily motivated by self-defense, i.e. the need to prevent similar attacks in the future. > [@](#): > > Why should these perceived past grievances not be addressed in any peace settlement? Because it misses the fundamental problem of the conflict. The problem is NOT that each side keeps trying to get revenge for some perceived past wrong, thus perpetuating a cycle of conflict. The problem is that the Israelis want there to be a Jewish Israel and the Arabs want there NOT to be a Jewish Israel. Any proposed solution which does not focus on this fundamental conflict is a waste of time. > [@](#): > > You seem to be favoring a policy of denying the past, censoring it, refusing even to acknowledge its existence. Not at all, I favor a policy of focusing on what the conflict really is about, as opposed to focusing on what people wish or imagine the conflict is about. ---
**Author:** ![brazil84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8491ac/32.png) [@brazil84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brazil84)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2012, 12:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-israel-rich-and-palestine-poor/643629/149 "2012-12-18T12:35:19Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > “Land that Palestinians want”. > > Regards, > Shodan After thinking about this for a while, I agree it’s pretty close to the real definition. Another question is what are the moral consequences if a piece of land is “Palestinian Land.” Does it mean that the Palestinian Arabs, as a group, have the moral right to exclude Jewish people who happen to be living there? Does it mean that anyone who considers himself “Palestinian” has a moral right to live there? And again, from anyone who happens to believe in the concept of “Palestinian Land,” I would like to know if there is such thing as “Jewish Land.” After all, Jews have been living in the Middle East for thousands of years. Surely there must be some “Jewish Land” somewhere in the Middle East. Is there “Jewish Land” anywhere in the world? ---
**Author:** ![taxi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@taxi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/taxi)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2013, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-israel-rich-and-palestine-poor/643629/150 "2013-03-26T21:59:19Z")
Biggest issue for success has to do with a modern vs. conservative mindset. Ban women from the workplace, what kind of effect does that have on the economy? One society is a world leader when it comes to techonology, biology, physics, economics, etc… the other is becoming more fundamentally religious everyday. Women are expected to bear 6+ children and have little or no access to education. Israel has it’s own religious fundamentalists, but they, currently anyways, form a much lower percentage of the population. ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2013, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-israel-rich-and-palestine-poor/643629/151 "2013-03-27T00:40:04Z")
> [@taxi](#): > > Biggest issue for success has to do with a modern vs. conservative mindset. Ban women from the workplace, what kind of effect does that have on the economy? One society is a world leader when it comes to techonology, biology, physics, economics, etc.. the other is becoming more fundamentally religious everyday. Women are expected to bear 6+ children and have little or no access to education. Israel has it’s own religious fundamentalists, but they, currently anyways, form a much lower percentage of the population. Er… women aren’t “banned from the workplace” in the occupied territories. Perhaps you’re thinking of Saudi Arabia, but the Arab societies aren’t monolithic. Their lead negotiator in the 90s was Hanan Ashrawi, a woman, and I believe that women make up a larger percentage of the Palestinian parliament than do women in the US congress. Anyway this whole thread is pretty revolting. I’m reminded of Afrikanner intellectuals in the 90s pointing to the conditions in Bantustans and saying “see, we’re more civilized and superior to those kaffirs”. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2013, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-israel-rich-and-palestine-poor/643629/152 "2013-03-27T00:41:10Z")
> [@taxi](#): > > Women are expected to bear 6+ children I wouldn’t know for Palestine specifically, but your perception of Arab women child bearing is completely off-base. Birth rates have collapsed in the Arab world, and it isn’t a recent phenomenon. You should expect an Arab woman to bear maybe 2.5 children or somesuch nowadays with countries where it might fall below generation renewment rate (2.1) in the near future (or maybe already, I don’t keep close tabs on that). The idea of Arab women having lots of children is about as outdated as the idea of Irish women doing the same. ---
**Author:** ![Docta\_G](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/2bfe46/32.png) [@Docta\_G](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Docta_G)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2013, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-israel-rich-and-palestine-poor/643629/153 "2013-03-28T02:20:01Z")
Because Israel is a quasi-apartheid state. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2013, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-israel-rich-and-palestine-poor/643629/154 "2013-03-28T02:48:20Z")
“Quasi” having no real meaning, then, sure. Japan is a quasi-capitalist nation. Canada is a quasi-European nation. Whatever. Israel is not meaningfully apartheid, as the West Bank is under military occupation, since a series of wars. The Palestinians under occupation are not Israeli citizens. The analogy is faulty. But nice that we’ve advanced as far as the “quasi-.” Who says these discussions never make any progress? ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2013, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-israel-rich-and-palestine-poor/643629/155 "2013-03-28T03:57:49Z")
> [@Docta\_G](#): > > Because Israel is a quasi-apartheid state. Really, please explain to be me how the guy who’s name sounds vaguely like Henry Wormwood would consider what Israel is doing Apartheid and how his beliefs and the policies he encouraged can be found in South Africa? If what you’re saying is true than the question I posed should be ludicrously simple for you to answer. ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2013, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-israel-rich-and-palestine-poor/643629/156 "2013-03-28T03:59:43Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > The Palestinians under occupation are not Israeli citizens. The analogy is faulty. Why is the analogy faulty? The blacks under Apartheid South Africa weren’t South African citizens. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2013, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-israel-rich-and-palestine-poor/643629/157 "2013-03-28T04:41:04Z")
> [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > Why is the analogy faulty? > > The blacks under Apartheid South Africa weren’t South African citizens. They were permanent native-born inhabitants of the country. The Palestinians are not native-born inhabitants of Israel. Apartheid was an internal segregation; the occupation of the West Bank is not internal to Israel. ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2013, 6:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-israel-rich-and-palestine-poor/643629/158 "2013-03-28T06:03:04Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > They were permanent native-born inhabitants of the country. The Palestinians are not native-born inhabitants of Israel. Apartheid was an internal segregation; the occupation of the West Bank is not internal to Israel. Actually, according to maps produced by the Israeli government, Israel’s education department, it’s tourism bureau and other government agencies Judea and Samaria(AKA the West Bank) are a part of Israel. Israel has always insisted that neither the West Bank nor Gaza were occupied territories because settlements are illegal. Similarly, the South African government insisted that blacks were not “citizens” of South Africa but of various Bantustans. If you want to insist that the West Bank isn’t part of Israel then you have to concede that Israel has been engaging in severe international crimes for decades because it’s illegal to put settlements in occupied territories. [http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/03/26/draw-the-line-how-israel-erases-itself.html](http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/03/26/draw-the-line-how-israel-erases-itself.html) > [@](#): > > One day in the late 1980s, my wife and I visited a staffer at the U.S. consulate in Jerusalem for an off-the-record conversation. The walls of his office were decorated with large maps produced, he mentioned, by the CIA. One showed the West Bank, with the border between it and Israel precisely depicted. Our careful journalistic distance from the interviewee evaporated. We shamelessly begged him for a copy, which he politely gave us. > > It was a treasure.\*\* In those days, the Israeli government had a near-total monopoly on mapmaking in the country—and government maps never showed the Green Line, the border between Israel and occupied territory. \*\*The Internet’s instant access to alternative maps was still in the future. Why do you think on Israeli maps the West Bank has always been referred to as “Judea and Samaria”? ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2013, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-israel-rich-and-palestine-poor/643629/159 "2013-03-28T13:03:12Z")
> [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > Actually, according to maps produced by the Israeli government, Israel’s education department, it’s tourism bureau and other government agencies Judea and Samaria(AKA the West Bank) are a part of Israel. > > Israel has always insisted that neither the West Bank nor Gaza were occupied territories because settlements are illegal. > > Similarly, the South African government insisted that blacks were not “citizens” of South Africa but of various Bantustans. > > If you want to insist that the West Bank isn’t part of Israel then you have to concede that Israel has been engaging in severe international crimes for decades because it’s illegal to put settlements in occupied territories. > > [http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/03/26/draw-the-line-how-israel-erases-itself.html](http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/03/26/draw-the-line-how-israel-erases-itself.html) > > Why do you think on Israeli maps the West Bank has always been referred to as “Judea and Samaria”? The answer is pretty well known: the South Africans were engaged in a wholly different form of deception than (some) Israelis. Reality is that neither the WB nor Gaza are part of Israel, whatever maps the Israeli government put out, and few actual Israelis even want them to be - other than the lunatic fringe. What the Israelis apparently want, is to lop off those bits of the WB that they want and make those bits part of Israel proper; leaving the rest for someone else to deal with - some form of Palestinian self-government under sufficient Israeli vassalage as to be effectively defanged (that is, sufficient to maintain internal control, but not sufficient itself to engage in attacks on Israel). Palestinains, as you well know, do not wish to become Israeli citizens; so to that extent, what Palestinians want marches with what Israelis want. The difference of course is that the Palestinians object to the Israelis arbitrarily lopping off bits of their country and taking those for themselves. The difference between both Israeli and Palestinian perspectives, and Western perspectives, is that people in the West have a tendency to view the cease-fire line as if it was a natural and established border that both Israelis and Palestinians ought to respect. The Palistinians don’t see it that way in one sense (they have a tendency to view any amount of Israeli occupation anywhere as illigitimate and to be reversed); the Israelis don’t see it that way in another sense (they tend to want to lop off bits here and there to “round off” the borders - and they have a point, to an extent: the line runs right through the middle of Jerusalem, an awkward place for an international border). All of which is different from the form of deception practiced under apartheied: which is that people who would otherwise have all the indicia of citizens were legally considered “not citizens”. In short, in South Africa the deceptions were about what people where. In Israel/Palestine, the deceptions (or more properly “controversies”) are over where the borders ought to run. So the “apartheid” analogy is not helpful: the Israeli-Palestinian problem would not be solved by making all WB Palestinians Israeli citizens with full rights - in fact, that would make things worse; it would imply permanent Israeli occupation of the whole of their territory. ---
**Author:** ![Docta\_G](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/2bfe46/32.png) [@Docta\_G](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Docta_G)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2013, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-israel-rich-and-palestine-poor/643629/160 "2013-03-28T16:33:07Z")
Your semantic shell game does not change the fundamental reality. But it’s a new day for the same old shit, so knock yourselves out. Boom! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-israel-rich-and-palestine-poor/643629.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-israel-rich-and-palestine-poor/643629.md?page=9)