This is the 4 part of a 5 part series from The Real News Network – Class Struggle in Palestine – Ali Abunimah on Reality Asserts Itself (4/5).

And, again, this was all marketed as building the state, building the economy, creating jobs. But what they’re actually doing is creating these extraterritorial zones where Israeli and international companies can come in, get cheap workers. There’s no protections for workers’ rights. There’s no environmental protection. Israel is already using the West Bank as basically a toxic dump site and moving its dirty industries there. This is only going to get worse if the World Bank and IMF-type schemes continue. And these industrial zones, they hand them over to private companies, who then have the right to set up private armies, and nobody can come in without their permission, no Palestinian officials can come in. So in essence you’re going to have private corporations on Palestinian land who have more sovereignty than the Palestinian Authority. And they don’t have to pay taxes. They get, you know, export/tariff-free access to world markets. And this totally undercuts and destroys indigenous Palestinian businesses. This is what’s happening now.

This is an aspect of the Palestinian situation that I have not heard about before. As in this country, a rising average wealth is touted as a sign of universal progress, when the average is skewed by all the gains going to a few people at the top.

Many times the rich have a better understanding of the rich in other cultures than the poor do in understanding the poor in other cultures. Of course the rich have a vested interest in maintaining this disparity, so it should come as no surprise.

The first three segments in this series were covered in my previous post Awakened by the Palestinian Intifada – Ali Abunimah on Reality Asserts Itself (1/5).