# 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:** 9
**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, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-israel-rich-and-palestine-poor/643629/161 "2013-03-28T22:39:04Z")
**Malthus** : thank you! Better answer than I could have given. (If building settlements on conquered land is illegal…the U.S. has got to give up a LOT of major cities!) ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2013, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-israel-rich-and-palestine-poor/643629/162 "2013-03-28T23:01:12Z")
> [@Docta\_G](#): > > Your semantic shell game Just so ya know, “semantic” means “meaning”. So you’re complaining that the term you want to use doesn’t have the correct meaning… and you’re annoyed at other people for pointing that out. Perhaps not the strongest debating stance, but at least it’s not uncommon. ---
**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, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-israel-rich-and-palestine-poor/643629/163 "2013-03-28T23:04:28Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > **Malthus** : thank you! Better answer than I could have given. > > (If building settlements on conquered land is illegal…the U.S. has got to give up a LOT of major cities!) No, it’s building settlements on occupied land that’s illegal. So yes, if the US built settlements in Iraq or Afghanistan they’d be in violation of international law. That’s why, despite Malthus’ claims its not just “some Jews” or “an extreme fringe” that believes that the West Bank and the Gaza Strip are part of Israel. In fact, in his book Israel: A Place Amongst the Nations, Benjamin Netanyahu specifically insisted they were a part of Israel and that people who claimed they were “occupied” and called them “the West Bank” instead of “Judea and Samaria” were falling for “Arab propaganda”(at the time of the book’s writing he denied the existence of “Palestinians”. The position of every Likud government has been that they are part of Israel. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2013, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-israel-rich-and-palestine-poor/643629/164 "2013-03-29T00:00:03Z")
> [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > No, it’s building settlements on occupied land that’s illegal. So yes, if the US built settlements in Iraq or Afghanistan they’d be in violation of international law. > > That’s why, despite Malthus’ claims its not just “some Jews” or “an extreme fringe” that believes that the West Bank and the Gaza Strip are part of Israel. > > In fact, in his book Israel: A Place Amongst the Nations, Benjamin Netanyahu specifically insisted they were a part of Israel and that people who claimed they were “occupied” and called them “the West Bank” instead of “Judea and Samaria” were falling for “Arab propaganda”(at the time of the book’s writing he denied the existence of “Palestinians”. > > The position of every Likud government has been that they are part of Israel. For what it’s worth, the much-reviled Ariel Sharon pulled Israel out of Gaza unilaterally, and as far as I’m aware, no serious Israel politicians have any plans for a return. It is true that his plan split the Likud party, leading to the formation of Kadima; but disengagement has become a _fait accompli_ and only the lunatic fringe in Israel politics considers reversing it and (say) re-occupying Gaza. To make an analogy, it is like the Conservative Canadian position on gay marriage an abortion; they were horribly against both at one time; but now that they are a fact, they have very little political appetite for attempting to revive them from the dead as issues. > **[Israeli disengagement from the Gaza Strip](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel%27s_unilateral_disengagement_plan)** > > In 2005, Israel disengaged from the Gaza Strip by dismantling all 21 Israeli settlements there. As part of this process, four Israeli settlements in the West Bank were dismantled as well. The disengagement was executed unilaterally: Israeli authorities did not coordinate with the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) to facilitate an orderly transfer of administrative power following the withdrawal of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) from the Gaza Strip. Since then, the United Nations, many o P... ---
**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 29, 2013, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-israel-rich-and-palestine-poor/643629/165 "2013-03-29T00:41:51Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > For what it’s worth, the much-reviled Ariel Sharon pulled Israel out of Gaza unilaterally, and as far as I’m aware, no serious Israel politicians have any plans for a return. It is true that his plan split the Likud party, leading to the formation of Kadima; but disengagement has become a _fait accompli_ and only the lunatic fringe in Israel politics considers reversing it and (say) re-occupying Gaza. > > To make an analogy, it is like the Conservative Canadian position on gay marriage an abortion; they were horribly against both at one time; but now that they are a fact, they have very little political appetite for attempting to revive them from the dead as issues. > > [Israeli disengagement from the Gaza Strip - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel%27s_unilateral_disengagement_plan) Yes, but The West Bank(Judea and Samaria) is not Gaza and AFAIK, the official position of the Israeli government is that Judea and Samaria are part of Israel and that is traditionally how they’ve put it on their maps to the point where I believe, though I’m not sure, it used to be against the law to even produce maps that displayed the green line. ---
**Author:** ![Human\_Action](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@Human\_Action](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Human_Action)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2013, 12:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-israel-rich-and-palestine-poor/643629/166 "2013-03-29T12:37:01Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > **Malthus** : thank you! Better answer than I could have given. > > (If building settlements on conquered land is illegal…the U.S. has got to give up a LOT of major cities!) It’s not conquered land that’s at issue, it’s occupied land. If the disputed land had been formally annexed by Israel, the protocols below would not apply. From the [Fourth Geneva Convention](http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Geneva_Convention/Fourth_Geneva_Convention#Article_2), Article 2: > [@](#): > > In addition to the provisions which shall be implemented in peace-time, the present Convention shall apply to all cases of declared war or of any other armed conflict which may arise between two or more of the High Contracting Parties, even if the state of war is not recognized by one of them. > > The Convention shall also apply to all cases of partial or total occupation of the territory of a High Contracting Party, even if the said occupation meets with no armed resistance. Article 49: > [@](#): > > **Individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory to the territory of the Occupying Power or to that of any other country, occupied or not, are prohibited, regardless of their motive.** > > Nevertheless, the Occupying Power may undertake total or partial evacuation of a given area if the security of the population or imperative military reasons so demand. Such evacuations may not involve the displacement of protected persons outside the bounds of the occupied territory except when for material reasons it is impossible to avoid such displacement. Persons thus evacuated shall be transferred back to their homes as soon as hostilities in the area in question have ceased. > > The Occupying Power undertaking such transfers or evacuations shall ensure, to the greatest practicable extent, that proper accommodation is provided to receive the protected persons, that the removals are effected in satisfactory conditions of hygiene, health, safety and nutrition, and that members of the same family are not separated. > > The Protecting Power shall be informed of any transfers and evacuations as soon as they have taken place. > > The Occupying Power shall not detain protected persons in an area particularly exposed to the dangers of war unless the security of the population or imperative military reasons so demand. > > **The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.** Bolding mine. Do the bolded sections prohibit settlement building? The counterargument is [summarized as](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_law_and_Israeli_settlements#Fourth_Geneva_Convention): > [@](#): > > Those who reject the application of Article 49 to the situation in the Israeli-held territories argue that even if the Convention did apply, it should be read only in the context of the World War II forcible migrations. It is only intended to cover forcible transfers and to protect the local population from displacement: > Article 49 (1) specifically covers “individual or mass forcible transfers”, whereas the Israelis who live in the settlements have moved there voluntarily. > Article 49 (6) only applies when the transfer of the Occupying Powers civilian population involves the displacement of the local population, whereas the Israeli settlements are not intended to, or have ever resulted in, the displacement of Palestinians from the area. > > In addition, they state that the Geneva Convention only applies in the absence of an operative peace agreement and between two powers accepting the Convention. Since the Oslo Accords leave the issue of settlements to be negotiated later, proponents of this view argue that the Palestinians accepted the temporary presence of Israeli settlements pending further negotiation, and that there is no basis for declaring them illegal. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2013, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-israel-rich-and-palestine-poor/643629/167 "2013-03-29T15:25:06Z")
> [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > Yes, but The West Bank(Judea and Samaria) is not Gaza and AFAIK, the official position of the Israeli government is that Judea and Samaria are part of Israel and that is traditionally how they’ve put it on their maps to the point where I believe, though I’m not sure, it used to be against the law to even produce maps that displayed the green line. My impression is that the right-wing Israeli position on the WB is similar as on Gaza: that is, at one point (at the high point of their over-optomism) they wanted “it all”; however, in light of subsequent events (and being forced to face harsh reality), they have in fact accepted as an acknowledged fact that having “it all” is impossible and their focus has shifted to grabbing as much as they can realistically get away with. The building of the security wall indicates their true feelings on the matter, whatever they may say about “judea and samaria”. You don’t wall off land you think is yours. Not putting the green line on maps is sensible from their POV for the same reason that building the wall is: a desire to establish (or not establish) _de facto_ borders - either in documents or on the ground - that can very easily become _de jure_. That’s the significance of the green line after all - it really represents nothing more or less than a ceasefire line; but we in the West would very much like to regard it as a _de jure_ international border. The Israelis do not want this, of course, because it would prevent them from manipulating the borders to their advantage. The Palestinians are of two minds about it - naturally they want to prevent the Israelis from taking _even more_ than the Green Line; but on the other hand, to acknowledge the Green Line as an international border legitimizes what the Israelis already have. ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2013, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-israel-rich-and-palestine-poor/643629/168 "2013-03-29T15:47:57Z")
Also, point of fact: the Green Line was not just an armistice line, but one which was set up explicitly by treaty to not prejudice future negotiations as to where a border would be. ---
**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 29, 2013, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-israel-rich-and-palestine-poor/643629/169 "2013-03-29T19:23:59Z")
> [@FinnAgain](#): > > Just so ya know, “semantic” means “meaning”. > So you’re complaining that the term you want to use doesn’t have the correct meaning… and you’re annoyed at other people for pointing that out. > > Perhaps not the strongest debating stance, but at least it’s not uncommon. Just so you know, I’m a logician and a philosopher of language. No, I’m complaining that you are so hung up on sense that you cannot see the referent. I’m annoyed by cheap sophistry apologizing for unjustified human suffering. So is my Jewish wife. Perhaps not the strongest debating stance, but then I don’t give a shit about debating Guy On Internet. ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2013, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-israel-rich-and-palestine-poor/643629/170 "2013-03-29T22:38:46Z")
> [@Docta\_G](#): > > Just so you know, I’m a logician and a philosopher of language. […] my Jewish wife. Ah, Internet Credentials, with a Token Jew (wife) to back up your Internet Expertise. I’m sold. Of course, one might think that somewhere in your extensive training in Philosophy of Language, you encountered the idea that the semantic value of a statement should induce a proper cognitive response that is in accord with reality. As such, if you believe that the situation in an unjust occupation, then that is the correct verbiage to use, and “Apartheid” becomes not only improper, but misleading and actively detrimental to honest discussion. But what do I know, I care about accuracy and truth and not using bombast to sway people’s emotions. However… is your wife like, really, really Jewish? I mean, would eating bacon horrify her? Then your argument would be much stronger. You should tell us about how Jewed up she is, that way we can judge how correct your argument is. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2013, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-israel-rich-and-palestine-poor/643629/171 "2013-03-30T02:57:00Z")
> [@Docta\_G](#): > > Just so you know, I’m a logician and a philosopher of language. . . . > [@FinnAgain](#): > > . . . Of course, one might think that somewhere in your extensive training in Philosophy of Language, you encountered the idea that the semantic value of a statement should induce a proper cognitive response that is in accord with reality. As such, if you believe that the situation in an unjust occupation, then that is the correct verbiage to use, and “Apartheid” becomes not only improper, but misleading and actively detrimental to honest discussion. . . . I would have thought that someone with training in Philosophy of Language would know better than to use meaningless prefixes such as “quasi” attached to real words. This is something one might expect from a semi-meta-Philosopher of bogus-proto-language. Hell, the U.S. practices “quasi-Apartheid” in its system of Indian reservations. ---
**Author:** ![Molesworth\_2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9dc877/32.png) [@Molesworth\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Molesworth_2)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2013, 11:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-israel-rich-and-palestine-poor/643629/172 "2013-03-30T11:43:21Z")
I’m sure that there are other Australians who give the remotest of flying shits about this stupid conflict. but for me one of the best parts of living in a secular country is that I don’t have to. Except for that dragging-the-rest-of-the-world-into-your-petty-religious-crap thingy. That kind of sucks. Seriously, Israel and Palestine should just get a private room and sort themselves out, already. Same thing would apply to the Hutus and the Tutsis if that conflict was threatening to become global. Nobody else cares. PS Killing your foes with more advanced weaponry doesn’t give one the moral high ground. ---
**Author:** ![Noone\_Special](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/noone_special/32/2863_2.png) [@Noone\_Special](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Noone_Special)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2013, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-israel-rich-and-palestine-poor/643629/173 "2013-03-30T15:45:04Z")
> [@FinnAgain](#): > > However… is your wife like, really, really Jewish? _ **I mean, would eating bacon horrify her?** _ Then your argument would be much stronger. You should tell us about how Jewed up she is, that way we can judge how correct your argument is. (bolding mine) Oops… there go my credentials… 😛 (nom, nom, bacon! :D) - I don’t think that’s a fruitful line of argument there. To the question at hand (well, at least the one we initially started out with!) – it really boils down to leadership in my mind. Just look at an example of even closer populations – N and S Korea. One is one of the most industrialized nations on Earth with a high standard of living, and the other is… N Korea. It’s not like you can say it’s the people… or even it’s the land and natural resources. It’s who is leading you (and possibly who is leading your leaders – I’m sure S Korea benefited from their post-war Western aegis more than the N Koreans did from their Chinese overlords.) That’s really all it is in a nut-shell, IMHO, all the political sabre-rattling aside. ---
**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 30, 2013, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-israel-rich-and-palestine-poor/643629/174 "2013-03-30T16:48:02Z")
> [@Molesworth\_2](#): > > I’m sure that there are other Australians who give the remotest of flying shits about this stupid conflict. but for me one of the best parts of living in a secular country is that I don’t have to. > > Except for that dragging-the-rest-of-the-world-into-your-petty-religious-crap thingy. That kind of sucks… Nobody else cares. Well, for starters if you live in Australia you don’t live in a secular country. Australia isn’t Saudi Arabia, but it’s not Turkey, the US, or France. Second the fight between the Palestinians and the Israelis is no more about religion than WWII was. It’s about nationality. Third “they” aren’t trying to drag “the-rest-of-the-world” into the fight, “the-rest-of-the-world” is joining in because your claim that “nobody else cares” is utterly silly and demonstrably false considering how much attention in the world media this conflict gets. Hell, how many posts on SDMB does this conflict have. I don’t think I’ve seen a single one on the Northern Cyprus situation or any on Armenia’s occupation of Azerbaijan. ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2013, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-israel-rich-and-palestine-poor/643629/175 "2013-03-30T19:04:29Z")
> [@Noone\_Special](#): > > (bolding mine) Oops… there go my credentials… 😛 (nom, nom, bacon! :D) - I don’t think that’s a fruitful line of argument there. Wait… are you claiming that the Jewishness of someone, or who someone’s married to, doesn’t alter the quality of their argument? The devil you say! ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2013, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-israel-rich-and-palestine-poor/643629/176 "2013-03-31T02:03:09Z")
> [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > Well, for starters if you live in Australia you don’t live in a secular country. . . . Eh? I know it’s just Wikipedia, but they note, “Australia - Section 116 of the Constitution provides: The Commonwealth shall not make any law for establishing any religion, or for imposing any religious observance, or for prohibiting the free exercise of any religion, and no religious test shall be required as a qualification for any office or public trust under the Commonwealth.” Sounds rather secular overall. Where’s the state religion you see? ---
**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 31, 2013, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-israel-rich-and-palestine-poor/643629/177 "2013-03-31T04:40:03Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > Eh? I know it’s just Wikipedia, but they note, “Australia - Section 116 of the Constitution provides: The Commonwealth shall not make any law for establishing any religion, or for imposing any religious observance, or for prohibiting the free exercise of any religion, and no religious test shall be required as a qualification for any office or public trust under the Commonwealth.” Sounds rather secular overall. Where’s the state religion you see? The Australian High Court disagrees and they’re a vastly more reliable source than wikipedia. Beyond that, public schools in Australia have chaplains which would cause Pat Robertson to start orgasming in his pants. [http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/apr/29/australia-blurred-separation-church-state](http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/apr/29/australia-blurred-separation-church-state) There are a tiny number of western countries that are secular and Australia isn’t one of them. ---
**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 31, 2013, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-israel-rich-and-palestine-poor/643629/178 "2013-03-31T16:38:08Z")
Boom! ---
**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 31, 2013, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-israel-rich-and-palestine-poor/643629/179 "2013-03-31T17:16:59Z")
> [@Docta\_G](#): > > Boom! Could I trouble you for a translation? ---
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2013, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-israel-rich-and-palestine-poor/643629/180 "2013-03-31T18:36:38Z")
As already said, and I think this is the key, Israel from its modern birth was a European culture with European technology, education and expectations, unlike its neighbors and the Palestinian Arabs themselves. It’s a little like asking (although of course the gap between was far greater) why the English colonists in America did better than the American Indians, or the colonists in Australia did better than the aboriginals. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-israel-rich-and-palestine-poor/643629.md?page=8) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-israel-rich-and-palestine-poor/643629.md?page=10)