Palestine Inc.

I recall hearing that, because of all the international aid, Gaza and the West Bank had some of the highest per capita incomes in the non-oil Arab world. I decided to investigate. Finding answers was harder than one would expect. There are per capita GDP numbers published. Those per capita GDP numbers look almost identical to those of Egypt. The two, Egypt (in green) and West Bank/Gaza (in blue), below:

In fact, on average, the numbers for Gaza and the West Bank look a bit better than Egypt. Listening to the MSM, one would conclude Gaza & West Bank were impoverished because of blockades by those dastardly Jews. Huh? Guess not.

And here’s the kicker…GDP does not include tens of billions of dollars in foreign aid received over decades. Investigating this aid is especially difficult. There was no per-year breakdown. There was precious little description of what the money was used for or even an indication of whether it was spent in Gaza and/or the West Bank. If this money is legit, I’d expect either the senders to trumpet all the good their billions were doing. Or… I’d expect the “Palestinian” recipients to be publicly thankful for these billions, showing all the good that those billions were doing. But I don’t see that either. Hmmmm. Makes me wonder.

Now, I’m not saying that these dots should be connected… but …

Yasser Arafat died with assets of at least $300 million and perhaps as much as $3 billion. His successor, Mahmoud Abbas, has assets of at least $100 million. Both sets of finances are extremely opaque. Perhaps this explains why elections in the West Bank have been cancelled again… as they have been for 22 years. And that’s just two guys. You can be forgiven if the words “cash cow” pop into your head. They did mine.

I’m left with the impression that the reason there isn’t a “Palestinian” state is that such a state might cause the gravy train to stop rolling. Can’t have that.