The good life on the West Bank

Ros

Exactly. When indeed do we hear anything positive in the British media regarding Israel? Sky News has their very own correspondent in Jerusalem whose remit is to write only scurrilous, specious articles. One Dominic Waghorn. He's the voice of the 'Palestinians', paid for by subscription. Don't get me started on the BBC!

Graeme

Melanie, the BBC can not promote a left-wing agenda if they reported all this. It reminds me of South Africa in the 1980's with the large numbers of black South Africans in Soweto driving BMW's and Mercedes and not reported by the BBC or by ITN for that matter.Saying that many Arabs in the West Bank have a good standard of living does not fit the Politically Correct, Left-wing ideal for the Western Media. Israel is supposed to be Jewish bourgeoisie leading an Arab proletariat in Liberal eyes.

Baron

When we might read this in the British press or hear it on the BBC?

Let me think. I reckon after the Pope renounced Christianity and married Richard Dawkins. Not immediately after, mind, but few decades later, and only if the BBC were not funded through the license fee.

C. Gee

Expect Hamas-driven sabotage of economic success on the West Bank.
If anything gives "credibility" to Abbas, it would be increasing wealth and the opportunity for Palestinians to live normal lives. Credibility is most definitely not gained by political progress towards peace or a two-state "solution". Everytime there has been a suggestion of political progress, the so-called moderate leaders have had to back pedal under threat from radicals.
With sufficient economic progress, it may be that the best outcome would be for Israel to protect the Arab's economic gains by assertion of sovereignty over the West Bank. The Arabs will have full protection under Israeli law as non-voting resident aliens. Eventually, the franchise might be extended.

Philo

Is the intention here to give us a picture not available to us from other media of how the average Palestinian in the West Bank lives? A "snapshot" of the West Bank economy? A glimpse of what awaits those who play the game (whose game)? Interesting anecdotes. I would be interested to hear more of the Israeli offer of 97% of the West Bank.

C. Gee

What should the pro-Pal media do?
Do they increase coverage of starvation, malnourishment, grass eating, medical crises in Gaza? (Israel still brutal.)
Do they increase coverage of smuggling in Gaza? (Plucky, indomitable Gazans.) Does reportage of goods coming in (even through smuggling) make the case that life under Hamas is not so bad - and Gaza can compete with life on the West Bank?

Provided the economic success of the West Bank is not publicized, Gaza's economic efforts in the face of "occupation" or "siege" can be reported with approval, an example of correct revolutionary freedom-fighting. Forget about the sell-outs of the West Bank.

Of the two Palestinian factions, Hamas is the BBC favorite.

The West should declare Gaza as an independent (rogue) state immediately. That would leave the West Bank to be coopted into sanity, as outline above.

The insistence on a unitary Palestinian state comprising the West Bank and Gaza is a manifestly lunatic idea.

Miv Tucker

As it happens, Nablus will be the subject of Crossing Continents, 10.12.09, R4 11.00am.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00p6b3m

However, I suspect that the BBC reporter will probably be visiting a different Nablus.

The blurb from the R4 website gives us a flavour of what to expect:

"For years the West Bank town of Nablus was a community at war with Israel following the second Palestinian Intifada, or uprising, that began in 2000. Now Israeli checkpoints have been dismantled, Palestinian police officers patrol their own streets, and Nablus has become a shopping hub with an economy that is on the up.

"These kinds of changes are touted by Palestinians and the international community as evidence that the Palestinian Authority is running what could be a viable state if a peace deal were to be brokered with Israel.

"But how profound and durable is this transformation of the still-occupied West Bank? Crossing Continents takes the temperature in the homes and on the streets of Nablus."

Henry Sidgwick

"The streets of Palermo/Naples are filled with boutiques and fast cars and posh restaurants. How can the townspeople and the peasants in the surrounding country complain of poverty? Do they not know how much money the authorities are pouring in?" What should we think of this rhapsodist? Naive? Disingenuous?

Lizzy

Thank you Melanie. Eye-opening. And such a positive development. I am in awe of the goodness and generosity of the Israelis. Instead of reporting these developments and the help from Israel, the rest of the one-eyed mainstream media is hell bent on sowing destruction and divisiveness. Insanity. Someone should take away their licence to practice.

daniel maris

I sometimes think - leaving aside the issue of Islamic Jew hatred (always remember Saudi Arabia is a Judenfrei zone) - that the Palestinians are really all bound up in a grievance economy which can never secure independence or peace (as that, they fear, woudl lead to economic collapse - and they might be right).

It all began with the UN insane decision to keep the "refugee" camps going for decades - up to the present day. Then money started pouring in from the hate states - Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iraq and Iran. This was later boosted by the EU subsidy which continues to this day.

Bob McKenzie

How exactly are these people able to afford such luxuries and lifestyles?

Fabio P.Barbieri

Henry Sidgwick: Italy's GDP is bigger than Britain's. Naples and Palermo have their problems, but even they are richer than any Arab metropolis - you can tell by the number of Arabs trying to get there. If you want to make a comparison, try Glasgow - it will be easier for others to realize that you are hee-hawing. At any rate, this is typical of your incapacity to see anything except through a lot of distorting cliches. You are the perfect product of BBC "reporting", and evidently never wanted to know anything beyond what the boob tube shows you.

Guy

I just looked on journalist Tom Gross's website. On the bottom half of this page look at the photographs from Gaza last week. Amazing! It looks better than having an evening out in many English cities. Didn't see these pics in the Guardian! http://www.tomgrossmedia.com/mideastdispatches/archives/001072.html

Henry Sidgwick

Fabio P.Barbieri
December 4th, 2009 4:46am

Thank you for your temperate response. I am sorry if your national pride has been piqued. It is not a question of the GDP of Italy or the relative affluence of Glasgow or Palermo. It is a question of how it is possible for mobsters to get rich on government money and extortion while the population remains relatively poor. Any number of cities around the world could have stood in for Palermo. The PA and Fatah are provided with funds. Their militias are given training in counter-insurgency, surveillance and oppression by the experts. And lo! Boutiques, fast cars, posh restaurants, property developments flourish; secret police, torture, extra-judicial killing. I will withdraw my dated example of Palermo. Central America is a fine example of how the US and its friends work.

Rob-NY

"When might we read this in the British press or hear it on the BBC?"
That simply does not fit the media narrative.

gareth

AWESOME!! sing it from the rooftops BBC, it's good reporting and it's true, and people need to be told for that reason alone. Ditch your political propaganda for the liars and haters.
Thanks Mel!!!!!!!

Philo

I really would be interested to hear more about this offer by Israel of 97% of the West Bank plus 3% of Israel to the Palestinians; and about Abbas politely declining the offer because things were so good already for the Palestinians that they really did not need any more, but thank you for asking.

A. van der Kujik

Graeme
Tut! Tut!
You should know by now that it is forbidden to compare the West Bank to Apartheid Africa. Such Freudian slips will have you jumped on by other posters here!

Trumpeldor

Hi Melanie,

I reviewed the TV serie "The winds of war" based on Herman's Wouk's novels
The author described the refusal by the BBC to inform the auditors of the grim discoveries by the red army when they liberated Sobibor extermination camp.
At that time, BBC already displayed its typical and venomous antisemitism .
As it is written in Talmud: NOTHING NEW UNDER THE SUN !

Greg D

Yes, yes Melanie. What about this - www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1058758.html - ?

Mark

Has anyone ever seen the movie Zoolander with Ben Stiller? It's hilarious. Anyway, after dealing with Derek Zoolander's idiocy for too long, Mugatu says in frustration "I feel Like I'm taking crazy pills!".
That's how I feel after reading this.

Miranda Rose Smith

I noticed, over 20 years ago, the horrendous poverty some West Bank Arabs live in and the mansions other Arabs, often close by, live in. I also noticed that you see Arabs plowing fields with donkeys and harvesting with sickles and you see Arab-owned fields that, even to my city-dwellers eyes, are obviously cultivated by modern techniques.

Augustus

Israel is a mature and well-
established nation. But the Jews are still not treated as normal people, or Israel as a normal country. Nowhere on Earth is criticised as much as Israel, and nowhere else compared to Nazis, or demonstrated against with such evil outpourings. And anti-Semitism is on the increase, although it never really went away. Only for a period after WW2 was there an interval of sympathy and repressed anti-Semitism.

Not all criticism of Israel is necessarily anti-Semitic, but there's plenty of accusations about a perceived shady power of a Zionist lobby, or the power
of Jews in general, even if this doesn't directly relate to the state of Israel. On the other hand, criticism of Israel
often reverts to criticism of Jews in general, which in itself
is somewhat logical because Israel is the Jewish state, and country and people are closely
bound to each other, even if not every Jew is uncritical of Israel. But Israel's perceived
'crime' against the Palestinians
is to have victimized them for over 60 years. This is the great
irrational argument, because it denies the fact that Palestinians have had their own fate in their hands all along, and could have broken the spiral of violence if they had put their minds to it. Any other
arguments are only cliches and false propaganda.

Rob

You might hear it on the BBC at 1100 on Thursday morning on Radio 4, if you ever listened to the BBC instead of whingeing about it. mind you, iof you did that you'd have to agree that far from the hotbed of antisemitism you love to depict it's actually infamous for spouting Israeli government propaganda, such as the recent incident where Radio Times claimed that Bethleham was in Israel, and the total lack of reporting of the Israeli settler who was arrested by the IDF for firing rockets at Panestinian villages. Now when will we see THAT on the BBC. eh?

davod

"The PA and Fatah are provided with funds. Their militias are given training in counter-insurgency, surveillance and oppression by the experts. And lo! Boutiques, fast cars, posh restaurants, property developments flourish; secret police, torture, extra-judicial killing. I will withdraw my dated example of Palermo. Central America is a fine example of how the US and its friends work."

You need to read again what you wrote. Your statement is an indictment of Statehood. The US and Britain, and the rest of the world for that matter, gave the Palestinians money and training for what. So those in power can steal the money and use the training to subjugate the population and wage war on Isreal.

evianalmighty

When you give billions in welfare it makes it easy to live well. Stop alll aid and there will be peace. It is a criminal racket. Kinda like all muslim places. Welfare kills.

Henry Sidgwick

Davod,
The US does not provide funds and training to just anyone. It does so to ensure that the "right" people exercise power and the "wrong" people understand that they should not interfere if they do not want to end up dead. I refer you again to its behaviour in Central America (or if you want to study some history, just about anywhere it has ever intervened). In this instance, the "right" people are the Israeli government. The role of the collaborators is to ensure (for a price) that the "wrong" people learn their place. It is ingenious of you to use such an arrangement as an argument for why the "wrong" people should remain subjugated.