Israel/Palestine
In reply to the discussion: Hillary Clinton Slams Methodist Church for Boycott Israel Push [View all]Little Tich
(6,171 posts)Giving a Palestinian state a few square miles of desert won't make it more contiguous or even remotely viable. Any development in these amazing new areas won't change the facts that all communities in the West Bank and Jerusalem are isolated from each other, have nowhere to expand and have no access to resources.
There are more than a few serious reports detailing the problems of the economy in the occupied territories, but there's not a single viability study of a two-state solution with the settlements remaining. Perhaps it's because the settlements completely prevent a viable two-state solution?
Anyway, here are some reports on the difficult economic conditions in the occupied territories and their causes:
The economic costs of the Israeli occupation for the occupied Palestinian territory September 2011
Source: The Palestinian Ministry of National Economy and the Applied Research Institute - Jerusalem
http://www.un.org/depts/dpa/qpal/docs/2012Cairo/p2%20jad%20isaac%20e.pdf
East Jerusalem 2015: Facts and Figures
Source: Association for Civil Rights in Israel, May 2015
http://www.acri.org.il/en/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/EJ-Facts-and-Figures-2015.pdf
Palestinian Authority Incurs US$285 Million in Annual Fiscal Losses
Source: The World Bank
Read more: http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2016/04/18/palestinian-authority-incurs-us285-million-in-annual-fiscal-losses
Any two-state solution that doesn't remove all or at least most of the settlements is guaranteed to fail, regardless of how much money is used. A non-viable Palestinian state can't be made more viable without addressing the cause for it being non-viable. Besides, who's going to pay for all this? It seems horribly expensive. This idea of yours seems more like the brain farts of an armchair economist than an actual serious proposal.