| ID | 154307 |
| Title Proper | Fifty years of Israeli-Palestinian economic relations, 1967-2017 |
| Other Title Information | what have we learned? |
| Language | ENG |
| Author | Samhouri, Mohammed |
| Summary / Abstract (Note) | Since the military occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip (WBGS) in June 1967, the Palestinian economy has been tightly linked to Israel in an involuntary relationship that can best be characterized as asymmetric in all its aspects. Given the wide economic and developmental gap between the two sides, and according to the basic precepts of neoclassical trade theory, such a relationship was supposed to benefit the less fortunate Palestinian economy more than the more developed and advanced Israeli economy. Over time, the theory predicted a sustained convergence between the two economies should be realized, and the income gap subsequently narrowed. That, however, did not happen, and the economic gap that separates Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories (OPT) continued to grow steadily.1 In 1968, for example, while GDP per capita in Israel (at $1,674) was 10 times higher than that of WBGS, the gap became wider in 2015, with Israeli per capita income (at $35,728) more than 12 times higher than the Palestinian one (at $2,866).2 The absolute gap in GDP per capita between the two economies, however, is much more revealing. While the difference in GDP per capita between Israel and the WBGS was only $1,500 in 1968, the absolute difference jumped to close to $33,000 in 2015. Put differently, while GDP per capita in WBGS increased by only $2,700 over the entire five-decade period, Israel’s GDP per capita increased by more than $34,000 over the same period. |
| `In' analytical Note | Palestine Israel Journal Vol. 22, No.2-3; 2017: p.137-144 |
| Journal Source | Palestine Israel Journal 2017-06 22, 2-3 |
| Key Words | Israeli-Palestinian Economic Relations ; Fifty Years ; 1967-2017 |