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<div class="header reader-header reader-show-element"> <font
size="-2"><a class="domain reader-domain"
href="https://english.palinfo.com/articles/2019/1/10/Palestinian-farmers-caught-between-Israeli-rock-and-PA-hard-place">https://english.palinfo.com/articles/2019/1/10/Palestinian-farmers-caught-between-Israeli-rock-and-PA-hard-place</a></font>
<h1 class="reader-title">Palestinian farmers caught between
Israeli rock and PA hard place</h1>
<div class="credits reader-credits">By Alaa Tartir - January 10,
2019<br>
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<article id="ltrFullPageDiv"> Agriculture is commonly
perceived as the backbone of Palestinian society and
economy, with farmers viewed as the last stronghold of
resistance.
<p>
Working the land is seen as an illustration of
steadfastness, as farmers continue to preserve and
reclaim land, build self-reliance and challenge forced
dependency and economic asymmetry. In essence, farming
is a political act that aims to challenge oppression and
achieve freedom.</p>
<p>
In reality, however, this backbone has been severely
damaged, if not paralyzed, by the continuation of
Israel’s occupation and the damaging policies of the
Palestinian Authority (PA). Palestinian farmers have
been shackled by both Israeli colonialism and
Palestinian neoliberalism. </p>
<p>
<strong>Stealing land<br>
</strong>As the colonial power, Israel continues its
land confiscation and territorial annexation policy by
expanding settlements, nourishing settler violence,
stealing land and natural resources, imposing policies
of siege and blockade, and controlling exports and
imports. Each is an element within a matrix of control
directed at colonizing Palestinians. </p>
<p>
In recent decades, Israeli authorities have uprooted
more than 2.5 million fruit trees and 800,000
Palestinian olive trees - equivalent to 33 New York
Central Parks.</p>
<p>
Meanwhile, PA policies and the donor-driven
“development” model have contributed to the
deterioration of the agriculture industry, with less
than one percent of the PA’s budget allocated to the
besieged sector. This terrible neglect has contributed
to a pervasive process of de-development that has
gradually deprived farming of its transformative
potential, while expanding Israel’s territorial
dominance and control. </p>
<p>
While the implications of this politically constructed
process extend beyond agriculture, this sector most
clearly conveys the problem. By essentially adopting the
“rich individuals, poor nation” mantra, the PA has
unconsciously echoed the practices of the Israeli
occupation.</p>
<p>
<strong>Bleak prospects<br>
</strong>Additional indicators illustrate the sector’s
bleak prospects. Agriculture barely contributes to the
Palestinian GDP, while the agricultural labor force has
fallen dramatically as a percentage of the total labor
force. The average yield per dunum (1000 square meters)
is half that of Jordan and only 43 percent of that of
Israel, despite the fact that these countries share an
almost identical natural environment. Palestinian water
use for agriculture is estimated to be one-tenth of
Israel’s, according to the UN. </p>
<p>
Only one in four households in the West Bank and Gaza is
food secure, while more than 70 percent of communities
located entirely or predominantly in Area C in the
occupied West Bank, under full Israeli control, are not
connected to the water network. Around 95 percent of
Gaza’s main water supply is unsafe for drinking without
treatment.</p>
<p>
The World Bank has estimated the potential direct
additional output of a number of sectors, including
agriculture, at around $2.2bn - equivalent to 23 percent
of the 2011 Palestinian GDP. The UN Conference on Trade
and Development, meanwhile, has estimated that the
Palestinian agricultural sector is currently operating
at perhaps a quarter of its potential.</p>
<p>
Yet, from the Israeli perspective, this damage
translates to clear benefits for the Israeli economy and
settlers. For the Israeli government, agriculture is an
offensive weapon that can be used to deny Palestinian
rights. Many of the agricultural products grown by
Israeli settlers in the occupied Palestinian and Syrian
territories are exported to Europe. </p>
<p>
<strong>Colonial strategy<br>
</strong>The fundamental deficiencies that plague the
Palestinian agricultural sector are driven by the
decades-long Israeli colonization of Palestine. This
process of colonization rested upon the conquest of
Palestinian land, which sought to restrict and confine
independent Palestinian development, both political and
economic. De-development is not an unfortunate or
coincidental outcome, but a deliberate and focused
colonial strategy.</p>
<p>
Far from challenging or contesting colonial power, the
PA has instead often functioned as a conduit for it.
Trapped as it is between Israeli colonialism and
Palestinian neoliberalism, the Palestinian agricultural
sector is in a pernicious double-bind that frustrates
its contemporary and future development. </p>
<p>
To continue under these circumstances is to undertake an
act of resistance: to farm Palestine is to farm for
freedom.</p>
<p>
<em>- Dr Alaa Tartir is program adviser to Al-Shabaka,
the Palestinian Policy Network, and a research
associate at the Center on Conflict, Development and
Peacebuilding (CCDP) at the Graduate Institute of
International and Development Studies (IHEID) in
Geneva, Switzerland. His article appeared in the
Middle East Eye.</em></p>
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