West Bank Sucess Story (The Palestinians are flourishing economically. Unless they live in Gaza.)

Opinion Journal ^ | AUGUST 13, 2009, 7:15 P.M. ET | MICHAEL B. OREN

[11th Commandment]

Imagine an annual economic growth rate of 7%, declining unemployment, a thriving tourism industry, and a 24% hike in the average daily wage. Where in today's gloomy global market could one find such gleaming forecasts? Singapore? Brazil? Guess again. The West Bank.

[11th Commandment]

This is very interesting on several levels.

1.) Zero stories in the MSM about the success of the West Bank (See Tony Blair's comment)

2.) Abbas has basically suspended Democracy in the West Bank. This is not reported in this article, but Abbas removed the elected prime minister and put in Fayyad. He has not been approved by the legislative council.

3.) The US Military is responsible for training the new security forces in the West Bank. I wonder where the UN observers are.

4.) As Penn & Teller stated in a recent episode of Bullsh$t, what creates peace is trade and economic opportunity. TRADE IS UP WITH ISRAEL, travel is being loosened.

5.) All Obama can do is b$tich about settlements. Same old lie about land for peace when peace is happening under his nose.

[Venturer]

Anything the Palestinians take from the Israeli’s turns to crap gaza was thriving when the Israelis ran it. They had Greenhouses and such, they turned it over to the Palestinians and they destroyed it over night. The same thig will happen to Jerusalem.

The same thing that happens in this country to cities like Atlanta and Philadelphia.

[Oldexpat]

We sure didn’t see many tourists in the West Bank when we visited a year or so ago. It was empty and the stores were empty. I don’t see how they could have low unemployment..just sayin.

[Iron Munro]

All Obama can do is b$tich about settlements.

Well... That's not totally true. He likes to give our tax dollars to them too:

Obama pledges $900 million to "rebuild" Palestine

"The United States plans to offer more than $900 million to help rebuild Gaza after Israel's invasion and to strengthen the Western-backed Palestinian Authority, U.S. officials said on Monday."