scholarly journals Post-Oslo Palestinian (un)employment: A gender, class, and age-cohort analysis

Author(s):  
Jennifer C. Olmsted

A strong Palestinian economy in the aftermath of the 1993 Oslo agreement has not materialized. This has had serious implications for employment outcomes in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. A number of authors have analyzed Palestinian labor markets during this period, but have focused almost exclusively on men's employment. This article examines changes in both women's and men's employment patterns in the post-Oslo period. It finds considerable shifts in the types of work that are available, with more educated, older men in particular gaining at the expense of youth, women, and less educated men. This, it is argued, is a function of Israeli, Palestinian, and U.S. policies. Economic ties between Israel and the Palestinian territories have been severed, to the detriment of less educated Palestinian men and women in search of employment. U.S. policies no doubt exacerbated this result, granting Jordan more favored trade status as part of the peace plan, thus contributing to the decline in the Palestinian textiles and apparel industries. The creation of a Palestinian public sector has led to some job creation, but primarily for more educated individuals, not those who were most likely to have lost their jobs in recent years.

Author(s):  
Osama Hamed

The de-development of the Palestinian economy began in 1967, following Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip (WBGS). Following the Oslo Accords of 1993, this de-development has continued. The WBGS remained dependent on the Israeli labor market for jobs until 2000, when Israel curtailed the flow of Palestinian labor to Israel following the 2000 intifada. This curtailment has resulted in sharp increases in unemployment and poverty rates in the WBGS. Closures and other actions taken by the Israeli government since 2000 have led to further de-development of the Palestinian economy. Although the WBGS has received substantial foreign aid in the post-Oslo period, the positive economic impact of such aid has been more than offset by the punitive measures taken by Israel in this period. It is highly unlikely that the Israeli government will allow the number of WBGS workers in Israel to return to its pre-2000 level. Hence, the revitalization of the Palestinian economy will require huge private investment. Such investment cannot be expected without a permanent settlement of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict that includes a Palestinian state with control over its borders and a strong link with diaspora Palestinians.


2004 ◽  
Vol 103 (669) ◽  
pp. 31-36
Author(s):  
Sara Roy

The tragic ongoing violence between Palestinians and Israelis shields a greater tragedy currently unfolding in the West Bank and Gaza Strip: the dismemberment of the Palestinian economy.


1996 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-81 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arnon A. Bar-On

ABSTRACTOver the years during which Israel has occupied the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian economy has become heavily dependent on wages earned in Israel. Yet Israel has done relatively little to modernise these territories' social security arrangements, or to enable Palestinian frontier workers to benefit from its own social security system. This article compares the occupational welfare, public assistance and health insurance programmes in the three entities, and suggests how they could be better organised to protect Palestinian workers and their families against daily contingencies which can decimate their economic security.


2015 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 351-362 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jamil Hilal

The 1967 occupied Palestinian territories have undergone three major types of development since the Oslo agreement between the Palestinian Liberation Organization and Israel was signed in 1993 and the Palestinian Authority was established in 1994. These developments have brought far-reaching structural changes in Palestinian politics and society. They have rendered Palestinian communities – inside historic Palestine and outside - very vulnerable, and made collective action against collective colonial repression (including a third intifada) more difficult. The three developments are identified as: the emergence of a political discourse that evicts Palestinians from history and geography and denies them a national identity; the escalation of collective repression, and settler-colonization; and the localization of Palestinian politics and the atomization of Palestinian society (in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and probably elsewhere) under the impact of settler-colonialism and neo-liberalism.


1999 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 64-82 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Roy

The years since the Oslo agreement have seen a marked deterioration in Palestinian economic life and an accelerated de-development process. The key features of this process have been heightened by the effects of closure, the defining economic feature of the post-Oslo period. Among its results are enclavization, seen in the physical separation of the West Bank and Gaza; the weakening of economic relations between the Palestinian and Israeli economies; and growing divisions within the Palestinian labor market, with the related, emerging pattern of economic autarky. In the circumstances described, the prospects for sustained economic development are nonexistent and will remain so as long as closure continues.


1970 ◽  
pp. 10
Author(s):  
Lebanese American University

The AIDOS Project: The Institute for Women's Studies in the Arab World, (IWSAW) was selected to take part in an international project aimed at establishing four documentation centers -specialized in women's human, civic, labor and reproductive rights- in fourArab countries: Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan, the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The main objective of the project is to create an information network of women's organizations throughout the Mediterranean area.


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