Reports and statistics tell the story; foreign aid is maintaining Palestinian existence.

A World Bank report, West Bank and Gaza: Economic Developments and Prospects - March 2008, states that "Real GDP in 2007 is expected to be about $3,901 million, some 14 percent lower than its peak in 1999," and foreign assistance is maintaining the Palestinian economy: "A combination of borrowing, remittances and increased aid that flowed around the PA has propped up GDP in the past two years and has allowed both public and private consumption to remain strong." Nevertheless, "Despite large inflows of aid, the shrinking economy has led to increasing poverty. Unemployment in WB&G stands at nearly 22 percent up from only 10 percent before the beginning of the Intifadah in 2000.The percentage of Gazans who live in Deep Poverty has been steadily increasing, rising from 21.6% in 1998 to nearly 35% in 2006. With the continued economic decline in 2007 and the implementation of even more strict closures on Gaza, the current Deep Poverty rate is certainly higher."

Excerpts from a report by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs:

Consolidated Appeals Process: Humanitarian Appeal 2007 for Occupied Territories, 30 Nov. 2006
relate another part of the story.

      Since the beginning of 2006, political, economic and social conditions have sharply deteriorated for Palestinians in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt).  A political impasse has taken hold, characterised by economic and military pressure by Israel including the withholding of Palestinian customs revenues, increasing divisions within the Palestinian Authority, and the diversion of direct international assistance away from key Palestinian Authority institutions.

Poverty rates stand at 65.8% and continue to rise; food insecurity has risen by 13% during 2006.  Restrictions on the movement of Palestinian goods, workers, businessmen, officials and public service providers have intensified dramatically 

The Gazan population is undergoing a virtual "siege" by historical standards.  Normal market mechanisms have faltered and aid dependency has risen.  Palestinian goods have consistently been unable to move out of the strip, businesses have closed and have moved elsewhere.  Exports are a tiny fraction of what the Agreement on Movement and Access foresaw in November last year.  

The number of checkpoints and roadblocks in the West Bank has increased by 40% through 2006. The West Bank is being divided into increasingly small pockets, the checkpoints diverting Palestinians off the main roads that are reserved for Israelis to reach their settlements.  Jerusalem, the cultural and economic heart of Palestinian life, is open only for those who hold the correct permit which excludes the vast majority of Palestinians.  And the Jordan Valley is now off-limits to all but a few Palestinians living there or working in Israeli settlements.  In addition, over half of the 703 km-long Barrier route has been constructed, despite the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice, which declared the route in contravention of international law. 

...for most residents of the oPt, the situation at the end of 2006 was worse than in 2005 and holds little reason for hope in 2007.  As explained in this document, the United Nations Country Team predicts that the current impasse will endure well into 2007.

Could the policies that have impoverished the Palestinians been intentional? It is impossible that Israeli governments remained unaware that their efforts in the West Bank and Gaza would impoverish the Palestinian people. It is inexcusable that once noting the obvious results of these efforts that a government would not amend its direction in order to prevent a total breakdown of a people's life. It is inconceivable that a government would defy world institution laws and the appeal for a change in course in order to remedy the disastrous consequences inflicted upon the Palestinians. It is obvious that Israel's polices have prepared the complete destruction of the Palestinian people.

Is this agenda part of a larger agenda that intends to reshape the Middle East regardless of the destruction committed against Arab people? The last sixty years have witnessed several wars in which Israel has expanded from the original partition plan to control of all Mandatory Palestine. The Golan has been seized from Syria and its territory cleared of almost all Syrian inhabitants and their previous villages. Israel captured the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt during wars in 1956 and 1967 and was forced to relinquish its occupation. In several wars, Israel occupied Lebanon until the Litani River and was responsible for mass displacement of Lebanese civilians, almost 1 million in the 2006 war. The Christian Science Monitor reports that: "In the June 6-to-Aug. 25 period (1982) of fighting following the Israeli invasion, another 17,825 people were killed and 30,103 wounded in Lebanon, according to the best available sources. These figures do not include those killed in Israel's overrunning of west Beirut in mid-September nor in the massacres in the city's Palestinian camps a few days later. Nor is the continuing toll from internecine warfare in Tripoli, the Shouf region, and the Bekaa Valley taken into account."

Concurrent with the horrors inflicted by several wars, the political aspirations of Arab nations have been subdued. All pan-Arabic and nationalist movements, emphasized by Egypt's Gamal Nasser, Iraq's Saddam Hussein, Libya's Muammar al-Gaddafi, Syria's Hafez al-Assad, and others, have been suppressed. Sudan and Syria, two Arab nations that openly counter Israel's policies, are stressed, the former with continuous civil war and threat of dismemberment; the latter with open military attacks that tend to weaken and destabilize the regime. Lebanon remains in a state of near anarchy, mainly due to western pressure to limit Hezbollah power, despite doubts of the present power sharing arrangement.

Iraq, that exhibited the greatest potential to become a Middle East power, has been almost completely destroyed and is in danger of being dismantled. Israel participation in this venture is obvious from its incessant promotion for toppling the Saddam Hussein regime, its closeness to the Neocons, who are accused of preparing the U.S. attack against Iraq, and reports of Israel's training of Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq.

The latest interference in Middle East nations has Israel's Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz threat to consider "all options to prevent Iran from producing nuclear weapons." Israel's urgings to the U.S. to take the necessary measures to prevent a nuclear equipped Iran, or it will perform the task, is a tactic for initiating regime change in Iran.

What do the years since Israel's inception show? Clearly, the Middle East is being arranged in accord with western interests regardless of the turmoil, damage and loss of life to Middle East peoples.

Will these policies threaten the peace and security of the entire world? The policies have already resulted in damage to the world community. The terrorism in western nations is more directly related to western support of oligarchic Arab regimes and Israel's oppressive actions.