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New Palestinian metropolis offers economic route around occupation

Palestinian leadership should focus on advancing economic independence, and the new Palestinian metropolis Rawabi is certainly a first step in this direction.
A picture shows the new West Bank Palestinian town of Rawabi, just north of Ramallah, on September 29, 2017.
Rawabi project, that includes homes for at least 25.000 residents, and perhaps in the end even 40.000, is the first planned city of its kind and described as the largest privately-funded development project in Palestinian history.   / AFP PHOTO / ABBAS MOMANI        (Photo credit should read ABBAS MOMANI/AFP/Getty Images)
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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shed no tears when he heard Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas announce that he was ending relations with President Donald Trump. The peace that could threaten his seat is as unlikely as ever. At worst, a few European countries will recognize a Palestinian state. But even if all of Europe, Asia and Africa recognized Palestine, not a single Israeli outpost in the occupied West Bank would be dismantled. The power of the US veto at the UN Security Council will save us, Netanyahu believes. Trump’s ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, said in an interview last week that the Palestinian decision to oust the United States from the Israeli-Palestinian peace process proves that they don’t even want peace. In a worst-case scenario, the Palestinian Authority would suspend its security cooperation with Israel, resulting in a third intifada. But why would the Palestinians believe that another violent uprising would succeed when the two previous ones failed?

In light of the receding diplomatic option for Israeli-Palestinian peace and the uselessness of a military option, more and more Palestinians are concluding that they are doomed to live forever under occupation. But the newly built Palestinian West Bank town of Rawabi on the outskirts of Ramallah presents them with a third option: a Palestinian declaration of economic independence. Palestinian-American businessman Bashar Masri, who created this ambitious project flourishing in the center of the West Bank, has proven that such an idea is feasible.

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