Investing in Palestine

* username: rupertbu

I arrived Saturday afternoon in Port Moresby, the capital of Papua New Guinea, after a week on the West Bank and a 36-hour voyage that started in Ramallah, the West Bank city that serves as the administrative capital of the Palestinian National Authority, and involved eight time zones, five airports, four flights, three airlines, and two bags, which missed my connection in Sydney but arrived two days later on the Monday Air New Guinea flight. The only bright spot was when Emirates Airlines upgraded me to first class on the nine-hour Bangkok to Sydney segment, which entitled me to a private suite nearly as big as my first apartment in New York, plus as much 2000 Dom Perignon as I cared to drink.

I was in Palestine to help the Palestinian Investment Promotion Agency (PIPA) develop a new strategy and corresponding organizational structure. I am not going to talk about “the Palestinian Question” here, I promise. It’s been making people crazy for at least 3,000 years (the Arabic word for Palestine is “Philistine”), and if people as smart as Tony Blair and George Mitchell can’t come up with anything intelligent to say about it I am not even going to try. It reminds me of the old question, beloved of preadolescent Catholic schoolboys: “Sister, Sister, if God is all-powerful can he make a rock so heavy he can’t lift it?” We have our answer. With respect to Israel and Palestine, He has already done so.

It is refreshing, therefore, that the Palestinian Prime Minister, Salam Fayyad, first appointed in 2007 and reappointed in 2009, has adopted an entirely pragmatic approach to improving the lot of people in Palestine which, although it doesn’t ignore the wider political realities, concentrates on practical measures to develop the economy and create durable institutions. In his August 2009 working plan for the Palestinian National Authority, entitled “Palestine – Ending the Occupation, Establishing the State,” Prime Minister Fayyad sets out a two-year working plan to develop the infrastructure and institutions of a state, including separation of powers, a stock market, and a free market economy.