US Taxpayers and Palestine's Forced Dependency on Israel

As U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry continues his drive to establish a "framework for negotiations" for Israeli-Palestinian peace, news items paint a disturbing picture of increasing forced Palestinian dependence on Israel.

A case in point is energy. In January, the Palestine Power Generation Company signed a deal with an Israeli-American consortium to supply $1.2 billion worth of Israeli gas over a 20-year period. The implementation of the agreement reportedly awaits guarantees from both the Israeli and Palestinian governments.

The deal is alarming, however, because Palestine has natural gas reserves of its own: over one trillion cubic feet worth, just off the coast of Gaza, valued at $6.5 billion. This is enough to meet Palestinian needs for 15 years. Yet Israel has prevented the Palestinians from exploiting these reserves. This is just one of Palestine's many resources -- others include water and perhaps even oil -- that has fallen victim to Israel's nearly 50-year military occupation.

The commercialization of these reserves by a sovereign Palestinian state would be an important factor in reducing Palestine's dependency on foreign aid. As a taxpayer, I want Americans' $600 million-a-year contribution to the Palestinian Authority (PA) to help end this occupation, not make it easier for Palestinians to endure it.

In 1999, the PA granted the British Gas Group (BGG) and its later partners, the Palestinian Investment Fund and the Consolidated Contractors Company (CCC), a 25-year exploration license covering the entire marine area offshore from Gaza (Palestine's Exclusive Economic Zone).

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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jacqueline-sansour/israel-palestine-economy_b_5045274.html