Here’s another bit from Wikipedia:
Since 2010, Israeli high-tech companies have begun to employ Palestinian engineers. To date, most of them are outsourced workers, but Mellanox, a computer hardware firm, plans to hire 15-20 Palestinian engineers as regular employees.
Starting in 2008, Cisco Systems began a concerted effort to jump-start the nascent Palestinian IT sector with a holistic ecosystem approach, encompassing venture capital, private equity, capacity building and direct outsourcing to Palestinian companies. The company invested $15 million toward that end and drew in other major international investors and donors, including Microsoft, HP and Google. The Palestinian IT sector has since grown from .8% of GDP in 2008 to 5% in 2010.
Every penny that goes from “donor nations” into the hands of PLO and Hamas bosses will, by default, work against economic growth. That money will be used to support a patronage network of police, security and civil servant lackeys whose mission is to keep the boot of the two gangster governments on the necks of creative, productive Palestinians.
Only direct investments in Palestinian businesses have a chance in hell of boosting the economy there, on three levels:
- With the growing wealth, a circle of plenty will be created around those businesses, providing consumer goods, services and labor.
- Growing wealth in third world countries always spells declining birthrates, also a very good thing for a population that currently reproduces at a rate of more than 5 births per female.
- Most importantly: as the population’s wealth grows, its desires for honest, democratic government grows, and their demands of their oppressors become real.
Instead of blaming Israel for daring to protect itself against some of the most vicious murderers on the planet, the World Bank should help the Palestinians protect themselves from those very same vicious murderers.