Rushing to meet with leaders of Israel, Jordan and Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority, Secretary of State John Kerry hoped to stop growing tensions in East Jerusalem, West Bank and Gaza Strip. Watching Palestinian youth burn tires and hurl rocks at Israel authorities, Kerry hoped to prevent current unrest from morphing into a new “intifada” or uprising, sometimes spreading violence for years. Today’s unrest stems again from an Israeli crackdown on violence in East Jerusalem, around Muslim’s third holiest shrine AKA Al-Aqsa Mosque. Israel’s late Prime Minister Ariel Sharon once visited Temple Mount Sept. 28, 2000 sparking a five-year Palestinian uprising. Sharon’s visit followed a collapse of intense Mideast peacemaking when the late Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arfat rejected a peace deal with the Clinton White House.
Today’s unrest in East Jerusalem, West Bank and Gaza Strip, all stem from a failed Palestinian state, unable to mend rifts with the terrorist group Hamas, controlling the Gaza Strip since June 15, 2007 when it booted out the Palestinian Authority, led by 80-year-old Mahmoud Abbas. Since then, Hamas, under the leadership of 52-year-old Ismail Haniyeh, has controlled the Gaza Strip but unable to encourage the kind of industry necessary to grow the economy and create jobs. Joblessness in Gaza, West Bank and East Jerusalem, remain at record highs, causing Palestinian youth to protest violently a bleak future. Palestinians compare themselves to Israelis, often blaming Israel for their lack of economic success. Rioting in the Palestinian territories relates to systemic problems with corrupt governments, unable to deliver basic services but, more importantly, jobs and opportunity.
As long as Palestinian leaders place higher priority with destroying Israel than finding ways to bolster the economy, the youthful population faces radicalization. “All violence and the incitement to violence must stop. Leaders must lead,” Kerry told the press after meeting with Jordan’s King Abdullah and Palestinian Authority Leader Mahmoud Abbas. Kerry wants 24-hour video surveillance at East Jerusalem’s holy sites, known to Jews as “Temple Mount” or Palestinians as “Haram al-Sharif.” Video monitoring won’t fix East Jerusalem, West Bank and Gaza Strips chronic unemployment, robbing Palestinian youth of any kind of future. Since the founding of Israel in 1948 with its many wars, especially the1967 Six Day War where Israel annexed Jordan’s East Jerusalem and West Bank, Syria’s Golan Heights and Egypt’s Gaza Strip, Palestinians have been consumed with destroying Israel.
Palestinians blame the U.S. for providing the military and humanitarian aid needed for Israel to become one of the Mideast’s most prosperous nations. Meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and German Chancellor Angela Merkel Oct. 22, Kerry urged Netanyahu to find a fix to recent violence. “I hope that based on these conversations we can finally out to rest some of the false assumptions, perception” about Muslim holy sites. While it’s true that false perceptions ad to the violence, it’s also true that Palestinian youth have a bleak future. Unless the global economic community can make commitments to the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and Gaza Strip, there’s little a peace deal can do stop the violence. “Those perceptions are stoking the tensions and fueling the violence . . .” said Kerry, ignoring the basic economic roots of the Palestinian problem.
U.S., U.N. and European Union officials have to face the reality of corruption and incompetence in the Palestinian territories. When Hamas went to war against Israel in July 8, 2014 to Aug. 26, 2014, it caused of 2,200 Palestinian deaths and nearly 11,000 injuries, causing billions of property damage in Gaza. Gaza’s Hamas rulers had run out of cash, couldn’t pay its civil servants and had to rely on rich oil sheikhs to re-fund the bankrupt government. Hamas used the Israeli War to appeal to petrodollar-rich Arab donors, seeking urgent cash infusions to local governments. No matter how destitute the Gaza Strip, West Bank or East Jerusalem, Palestinians can’t expect generous Arab sheikh’s to bail them out forever. For any lasting peace, Palestinians must look to the future, encouraging more business in the Palestinian territories, the only sure way of creating enough jobs for its population.
Riots in the Palestinian territories stem largely from political corruption and failed economy to sustain its population. Unlike most Mideast countries, whatever one says about Israel, Jewish leaders understand you can’t sustain a country without jobs and workable infrastructure. Given billions, if not trillions over the years, to develop the Palestinian territories, Palestinian leaders have failed their people by using the cash to build tunnels and make rockets to fulfill the ongoing delusion that they’ll eventually destroy Israel and take back the land. Whether Palestinians had the land or not, it would be another failed state, giving rise to various terrorist factions, each claiming its own territories and political agendas. “I think with our collective will and efforts, we can certainly overcome what may be perceived as insurmountable difficulties. Everything is resolvable,” said Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh.
