By all accounts, in the two years since [Salam] Fayyad was named [Palestinian] prime minister, the West Bank has been transformed from a besieged and impoverished bantustan into a rough sketch of what a functioning Palestinian state might look like. …
Ramallah is awash with construction cranes and new shopping centers. Since 2008, the World Bank found, 6,000 news jobs have been created. Trade with Israel is up 82 percent; tourism in Bethlehem is up 94 percent; and agricultural exports are up 200 percent. Since Netanyahu took office, the IDF has dismantled dozens of manned roadblocks, increasing mobility in the territory; according to numerous reports, there are also plans to allow several hundred Palestinian businessmen free access to Israel.
“They’ve been easing our restrictions, yes,” Fayyad acknowledged, “but we want more to produce a critical mass of change in a way that’s going to impress the business community. Incrementalism isn’t good.” The key to past and future successes, he said, is bolstering internal security, perhaps his biggest preoccupation: “The main reason we have seen improvements in the economic sphere is that—long before Israelis eased restrictions—there were improvements in our security. Security is as much a Palestinian need as it is an Israeli one.” Of the 25,000 members of the Palestinian Authority Security Forces, about 2,100 paramilitary troops have been trained by U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Keith Dayton; their capabilities are such that Fayyad has used them to conduct autonomous operations against sectarian militants, especially those affiliated with Hamas. Access the full article>>
