Palestinians marked two significant economic breakthroughs on Tuesday, counterpoints to the growing crisis in peace negotiations with Israel: a second cellphone company opened, with a planned investment of hundreds of millions of dollars; and a long-closed crossing point from Israel opened to limited motor traffic.
Both events were overseen by Tony Blair, the international envoy to the conflict and former British prime minister, who is focused on Palestinian institutions and economic progress. After two years of pressing Israel and nurturing the Palestinians on both issues, he was manifestly delighted to be cutting ribbons and offering congratulatory remarks.
“This is a sign of sovereignty and statehood, and it is vital to build on it,” Mr. Blair said at the ceremony in Ramallah for the local arrival of the Qatari-controlled telephone company Wataniya, which amounts to the single largest foreign investment in the Palestinian economy. “We all know about the political challenges, and we hope they can be overcome.”
Both the cellphone company and the crossing required the Israeli occupation authorities here to yield on security issues and both took considerably longer than expected. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu came to office last spring vowing to create the conditions for West Bank economic improvement, and Mr. Blair said Tuesday that the growth had been significant, probably in double digits.
Nonetheless, Palestinians say that they fear Mr. Netanyahu wants only economic growth, without a clear path to an independent state. They fear that prosperity would serve as a substitute for sovereignty.
Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, has been so despondent over what he considers Israeli political intransigence and American timidity that he has threatened to quit his post, producing turmoil in Palestinian politics.
Because Mr. Abbas is considered among the more moderate Palestinian politicians, many world leaders, and Mr. Blair, have been urging him to reconsider, as have fellow Palestinians.
But Tuesday’s economic advances served as a counterweight to the diplomatic gloom and allowed Mr. Blair to make the point that there is more hope for Palestinians than many realize.
“The potential for the economy here is enormous,” he told a group of Palestinian businessmen over lunch in the northern city of Jenin.
The new vehicle crossing between Israel and Jenin, the site of a grinding Israeli offensive in 2002, was opened by a ceremony at which Palestinian and Israeli officials complained about each other’s peace policies.
The crossing will permit hundreds of Israeli Arabs to drive into the West Bank to buy food and appliances, visit a dentist and generally spend their money. The change is expected to produce a real lift for the Jenin economy. For now, Israeli Jews will not be permitted.
The Israelis had long resisted allowing Israeli-owned cars to make the trip, for fear that they would be rigged with explosives before the return trip and pose other security concerns. Mr. Blair called the process of getting permission for the opening “agonizingly slow.”
Another successful endeavor of the past 18 months has been the growth of Palestinian security forces, trained with American and European money and guidance. This has allowed Israel to take more risks than it would have two years ago.
Jenin, until a year or two ago a symbol of chaos, is making clear progress on several fronts. Its main streets were bustling on Tuesday. A new courthouse built with Japanese donations handles several hundred cases a week, disputes that were simply ignored or postponed before. There is also a movie theater going up, the city’s first in two decades.
The new cellphone system had to battle long and hard to overcome Israeli objections to freeing up bandwidth. One result has been that some 40 percent of Palestinian cellphone customers use Israeli phones. That has meant no license fee or tax revenues for the Palestinian Authority, according to Mashhour Abu Daqqa, the Palestinian minister of telecommunications.
But he and others complained that Israel had so far granted the company only a portion of the frequency it needs to grow.
Mr. Blair acted as a kind of missionary for the idea that economic growth is a vital component of a sovereign state, but many here are skeptical of its value without political progress.
“I don’t want food, I want freedom,” remarked Jibril Rajoub, a former security chief and now a top official in Mr. Abbas’s Fatah party, when asked about the economic developments. He was waiting outside Mr. Abbas’s Ramallah office, where he and other Fatah leaders were to meet with Mr. Abbas on Tuesday.
Mr. Blair said that it was urgent that the political breakdown be fixed, so that a Palestinian state could emerge, and that the economic breakthroughs of the day should serve as a large incentive for both sides to seek progress. He emerged from a meeting with Mr. Abbas saying that a way had to be found to keep the Palestinian leader in his job, because Mr. Abbas remained deeply committed to the two-state solution.
Mr. Rajoub agreed, saying, “We all need him to stay.”
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