Why would Israeli entity seek to empty Gaza? Are there any economic objectives that can explain this? Part 1

Recently, the Palestinian academic Professor Atif Kubursi authored a powerful paper entitled “The Genocide Has Got Other Economic Factors”, which particularly focuses on routes such as trade routes and gas and natural resources.

The professor explains in his paper the economic benefits that Israel would reap from making the Gaza Strip empty.

“Occupation of Palestine has been very profitable for the Israelis to a great extent. Some of the studies by UNCTAD, of which I was a contributor, have shown that Israel derives substantial benefits from this occupation, even some have really gone as far as estimating it to be in excess of 11- 12% of the Israeli GDP is derived from brutal occupation. And I think that this in my view has always been an underestimate because somehow sometimes we only look at a few aspects, but if you try to estimate the resource transfer whether it’s of water, oil, gas and some of the most fertile agricultural land that had been occupied and commandeered by the Israelis, one would find that these economic benefits have been important consideration. So, the question I raised: Why would Israel seek to empty Gaza? Are there any economic objectives that can explain this? And I was able to see at least three, and there are really possible two more that I didn’t discuss but I could really mention,” the professor said in a statement sent to Syria Times e-newspaper.

Each party should have a claim in proportion to its property right. And I even argued some really interesting consideration here is that these resources take 10,000 years to accumulate, and therefore it’s not how much frontage you have. You also have to really look at the historical things. “Israel” has probably been in the region about 75 years and maybe even historically was not 70. Palestinians have been there for thousands of years. So, on one dimension you look at the geographical one, but on the vertical axis you look at time. And if you look at these two coordinates, the Palestinians have more claim to these resources, shared resources, higher than anybody else. Palestinians are historic people that have been in the region for thousands of years. But the story short, is that if we allow “Israel” to use these resources, they will diminish what’s available to the Palestinians; to the Lebanese; to the Syrians; to the Cypriots and to the Egyptians. And what’s even worse is that this resource is not only finite, which means if you take or one party take more, it will be less for others. It’s also nonrenewable. There’s no chance of replenishing this resource. So, to a great extent one has to be very careful and make sure that equity and efficiency require that there will be common exploitation and a just and equitable way of distributing it.

What does this mean? This resource now has become extremely more valuable.  And what’s happening today is that this common resource that belongs to all these countries is only exploited by the Israelis and denying the others. The Israelis at one time when Ehud Barak, for example, in 2007 and even before were trying to see if that gas that belonged to or in the economic zone of Gaza could be bought by the Israelis and piped into Ashkelon and used by the Israeli electricity company and paid the Palestinians $4 billion. This would be investment in peace so to speak, and then the Palestinians could now depend on their own natural resources and do not have to depend on international aid. But what Sharon and others have done is that the whole resource is totally commandeered, and there is no question in my mind that they are exploiting it and denying the Palestinians the fruits of this in violation of what international law and the Geneva Convention would say that the occupier has no right to exploit resources belonging to the occupied people unless it is used to help the occupied. But now what the Israelis are doing are siphoning up, slanted drilling, drilling directly and moving the resource to their areas without giving benefits to the Palestinian people, to the occupied people, to the very poor, the poorest of the poor in the region, the people of Gaza and the Palestinians.

So, the story of the gas is one that would definitely give incentive to the Israelis to keep a hold on Gaza to deny the Gazans, to deny the Palestinians despite all the agreements that they were able to reach before 2007. They’re completely scrapped and the Palestinians are losing billions of dollars by being denied access, and the only way you could guarantee this complete command and control over this is to make sure there is no Palestinian entity that could vye with the Israelis or compete with them.  So, this was one resource that I considered to be crucial incentive for the Israelis in going to Gaza and making sure they control this resource and deny the Palestinians any possible. If Gaza doesn’t have any legitimate control and  any effective control and it’s taken by the Israelis, you’ll be in a very difficult situation that denies these generations of Palestinians from the fruits of the exploitation of natural resources that belong legitimately and under international law and under any law to the people of Palestine.”

to be continued in part 2 …

By: Basma Qaddour