The Gaza Strip: The Political Economy of De-development

388 Pages·1995·8.941 MB·English

by  Sara Roy

The Gaza Strip
The Political Economy of De-development
Sara Roy
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The Gaza Strip
The Political Economy of De-development
Sara Roy
Institute for Palestine Studies
Washington, DC
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The Institute for Palestine Studies, founded in Beirut in 1963, is an independent
nonprofit Arab research and publication center, not affiliated with any political
organization of government. The opinions expressed in its publications do not
necessarily reflect those of the Institute.
© 1995 by the Institute for Palestine Studies
All rights reserved.
I.B. Tauris & Co., Ltd., London, is the exclusive distributor of IPS publications
outside of North America.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publkation Data
Roy, Sara M.
The Gaza Strip : the political economy of de-development / Sara Roy.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.
ISBN 0-88728-260-1. - ISBN 0-88728-261-X (pbk.)
1. Gaza Strip-Economic conditions. 2. Gaza Strip-Economic policy. 3.
Israel-Economic policy. 4. Palestinian Arabs-Govemment policy.—Israel.
I. Title.
HC415.25.Z7G397 1995
330.953 l-dc20 95-12112
Printed in the United States of America
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To the camp people
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Our territory is inhabited by a number of races speaking different languages
and living on different historic levels___A variety of epochs live side by side in
the same areas or a very few miles apart, ignoring or devouring one another....
Past epochs never vanish completely, and blood still drips from all their wounds,
even the most ancient.
Octavio Paz
Labyrinth of Solitude
The Jewish state cannot exist without a special ideological content. We cannot
exist for long like any other state whose main interest is to insure the welfare of
its citizens.
Yitzhak Shamir
New York Times
14 July 1992
There is no primitive. There are other men living other lives.
Paul Rabinow
Reflections on Fieldwork
in Morocco
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Table of Contents
Acknowledgments XI
Preface xiii
Part I: History
Introduction: The Gaza Strip and the Question of Development 3
Chapter 1: The Gaza Strip Today: An Overview 13
Chapter 2: The Development of the Gaza Economy during 31
the British Mandate—The Peripheralization
of the Arab Economy in Palestine
Chapter 3: Gaza under Egyptian Military Administration 65
(1948— 1967)—Defining the Structure of the
Gaza Strip Economy
Chapter 4: The Gaza Strip under Israeli Military 103
Occupation (1967-1987)—A Political History
Part II: Israeli Occupation and De-development
Chapter 5: Theories of Development and Underdevelopment: 117
The Particularity of Palestinian Dependence
Chapter 6: The Policy Roots of De-development 135
Chapter 7: Expropriation and Dispossession 161
Chapter 8: Integration and Extemalization 209
Chapter 9: Deinstitutionalization 263
Part III: Continued Economic Dislocations
Chapter 10: The Intifada—Economic Consequences of a 291
Changing Political Order
Chapter 11: The War in the Gulf and the March 1993 309
Closure—Gaza's Economic Dismemberment
Part IV: The Face of the Future
Conclusion: The Gaza-Jericho Agreement: 323
An End to De-development?
Bibliography 335
Index 365
Maps 373
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Acknowledgements
I am indebted to literally hundreds of people, without whose assistance this
book could not have been written. Many if not most of these individuals,
both Palestinian and Israeli, risked a great deal to help me. The people of Gaza’s
refugee camps, to whom this book is dedicated, deserve special mention. On
occasions too numerous to count, they willingly endangered themselves and
their families by allowing me to live with them and by escorting me surrepti­
tiously throughout the camps so that I could do my work. No one ever refused
me, and no request was ever too great. I cannot name all or even most of them,
for they fear retribution. But they know who they are, and I shall never forget
what they did for me.
I would like to thank the following people for the roles each played in the
writing of this book: Alya Shawa; Talal Abu Rahme; Haidar and Huda Abd al-
Shafi; Martha Myers; Meron Benvenisti; Henry Selz; Sharhabeel Alzaeem;
Kassem Ali; Abu Abed; Mohammed Abu Shawish; Abu Mahmood; Itaf and her
parents; Raba; Halima; Hatem and Aida Abu Ghazaleh; Oun Shawa; the late
Assad Saftawi; Mohammed Najah; the men and women of the popular commit­
tees; Yassir, Fatma; Salah; Mohammed Zenadine; Abdel Latif Abu Middain;
Salah El Ryashi; Mary Khass; Hisham Awartani; Salah Sakka; Hatim Abu
Shaban; Samir Badri; Khaled and Salah Abd al-Shafi; Fawaz Abu Sitta; the
“bad boys”; Ahmad Abdullah; Rhona Davies; Peter Johnson; Rick Larson;
Douglas Ross; Michael Daum; Jake Walles; Agneta Bohman; Jorgen and Carmen
Rosendal; Dean and Donna Fitzgerald; Leila Richards; Ulrike Krammer; Klaus
XI
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