‘Demographic dividend’ a long-term casualty of Myanmar’s civil war

Conflict has cost the developing economy the ability to train and keep a skilled workforce.

A commentary by David Hutt
2024.07.06

 Illustration by Amanda Weisbrod/RFA; Images by Adobe Stock

Aside from the human tragedy of the ongoing civil war in Myanmar, the economic fallout has been dire. 

But ten or twenty years ahead lies another bad consequence of the 2021 military coup: Myanmar was poised to ride a demographic wave over the coming decades, but probably won’t now. 

Workers labor at an irrigation construction site, May 2013 in Mawlamyaingyun, Myanmar. (Marcel Crozet via Flickr)

There are numerous reasons for Southeast Asia's economic success in recent decades. One was that in the 1990s the likes of Vietnam, Cambodia, and Myanmar ditched statist economic models and embraced free trade, giving them access to world markets for the first time ever. 

Another key factor was demographics. The median age of all Southeast Asian states, bar Singapore, was below 30 until the 2000s.

Myanmar, for instance, entered the global capitalist system with around 35 percent of its population aged 15-34. The median age was just 20 in 1990. This was ideal for attracting lower-end manufacturing that countries like Malaysia and Thailand, which began industrializing and urbanizing much earlier, had outgrown. 

However, because Myanmar’s workforce is still quite young and because of its low starting point, productivity rates remained the second-lowest in Southeast Asia in 2019 — just $5.15 in terms of GDP per hour worked.

Before the military takeover in February 2021, Myanmar had ample time to rectify this.

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Lost opportunities

The working-age population can generally be divided between those aged 15-44 and those aged 45-64. The size of each group usually defines a country’s economy. 

A youthful workforce is beneficial for labor-intensive, lower-skilled production – like garment manufacturing, which has driven Myanmar’s growth – and for domestic consumption. 

Once a country’s demographics change and it has  a growing percentage of older workers, they typically have a far more productive workforce, as people have had twenty-odd years to get good at what they do.  This also leads to a more capital-rich economy since those in middle-age have done most of their consumption and child-rearing and are now saving for old age. 

Before the coup, Myanmar had around three decades to enjoy this transition, allowing it to reinvest revenue from economic growth into education and skill development as the workforce naturally aged. 

Construction workers, July 20, 2016 in Yangon, Myanmar. (Alex Berger via Flickr)

The share of 35-64 year-olds was forecast to increase from around 35.2 percent in 2020 to 39.5 percent in 2050. In real terms, since Myanmar’s population was set to grow overall, that’s up from 18 million to 23 million people, according to my analysis of UN data. 

Meanwhile, the number of 15-34-year-olds was expected to decline slightly from 18 million in 2020 to 16 million in 2050 – or from 33.2 to 27.7 percent of the population.

The coup and civil war likely haven't drastically altered these numbers. The Peace Research Institute Oslo reported last year that at least 6,000 civilians were killed in the first 20 months. 

Total casualties are likely in the tens of thousands. Many times this number have been wounded, maimed or psychologically scarred, hindering their ability to return to the workforce.

Missing a critical transition

Most importantly, however, the conflict has stolen this critical transitional period from young workers, depriving them of the time they needed to become more skilled and productive in later life.

According to the latest estimates, there are 3.1 million internally displaced people, about 5 percent of the entire population. Around 8 percent of young adults are now unemployed, a significant increase from pre-2021 levels. 

The number of people in formal employment has fallen substantially. Many have traipsed back to rural areas to work on family farms due to poor job prospects and rising food prices. 

A man rests on a bundle, July 20, 2016 at Yangon Market, Yangon, Myanmar. (Alex Berger via Flickr)

The mandatory conscription announced by the junta in February has intensified both internal migration and emigration.

The latest World Bank report on Myanmar indicates that around 28 percent of firms have lost staff due to workers moving to the countryside or abroad, up from 11 percent in April 2023.

"About half of the employees that resigned migrated to other countries while about a third relocated to other parts of Myanmar," the report noted.

Hard to keep skilled workers

One of Myanmar's perennial challenges, even before the coup, was retaining its skilled workers. Neighboring Thailand, a rapidly aging country, will see its workforce shrink by around a third by 2050 unless it can attract millions of migrants, primarily from Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar.

Myanmar would have struggled to retain the best of its workforce without the coup. Depending on how long the civil war lasts, there could be no chance of keeping them. A recent World Bank survey found that 52 percent of highly skilled graduates aged 20-40 want to emigrate. 

Since the coup, Myanmar’s university student population has fallen by more than 90 percent. The share of youths aged 6-22 enrolled in educational institutions dropped from 69 percent in 2017 to 56 percent in 2023. Potentially almost a million children are displaced.

Women carrying sand to a construction site from a pile, June 6, 2015 on Botahtaung Pagoda Road, downtown Yangon, Myanmar. (Remko Tanis via Flickr)

The demographic dividend Myanmar was set to enjoy included a growing older workforce and a steady expansion of young workers. 

This balance would have been crucial for maintaining low-skilled, low-value-added industries like garment manufacturing while also allowing for the development of higher-value-added sectors thanks to a growing, more experienced workforce. 

That has been upended by the coup. 

There is no sign of the civil war ending soon. If it goes on for much longer — a decade-long conflict isn’t zero-risk — it will strip Myanmar of whatever demographic benefits it could have enjoyed in the 2030s and 2040s.

David Hutt is a research fellow at the Central European Institute of Asian Studies (CEIAS) and the Southeast Asia Columnist at the Diplomat. He writes the Watching Europe In Southeast Asia newsletter. The views expressed here are his own and do not reflect the position of RFA.

France: Why a former left-wing district now votes far right

Lisa Louis Cher department, France

France votes in the second round of the election on Sunday with the far-right National Rally widely expected to come out on top. Even those in former left-wing strongholds are now choosing the far right.

Genevieve de Brach feels let down by the traditional parties

Image: Lisa Louis/DW


The Cher department in central France used to be a stronghold of the left.

During World War II, it was one of the heartlands of the French resistance fighters known as maquisards. France was at the time partly occupied by Nazi Germany, while the rest of the country was under the rule of French general Philippe Petain, whose Vichy government was collaborating with the Nazis.

Since the 1950s, several provincial towns of the Cher, such as Vierzon, even voted in the Communist Party.

But in last Sunday's first round of voting in France's parliamentary elections, candidates from the far-right National Rally (RN), the party of former presidential candidate Marine Le Pen, came first in all three of Cher's constituencies.

On a national level, the RN won the highest share of votes, with more than 33%. The left-wing alliance New Popular Front (NFP), including far-left movement France Unbowed, the Socialist Party, the Greens and the Communist Party, came second with about 28% of the vote.

The camp of President Emmanuel Macron, who had called the snap elections as a reaction to his party's crushing defeat in June's EU parliamentary elections, landed a distant third place.

Economy and immigration big issues

RN candidate Bastian Duenas outdistanced the communist runner-up by more than 10% in one of the Cher's voting districts.

"Our party cares most about the French," the 22-year-old told DW, as he was preparing to hold a public gathering in a small village called Mehun-sur-Yevre just out of Vierzon before campaigning closed last Friday.

Bastian Duenas wants to make the region competitive again and create new jobsImage: Lisa Ellis /DW

The law student has been a municipal councilor in nearby Mereau since 2020. Just like 28-year-old RN president Jordan Bardella, Duenas is active on the social network TikTok, where he publishes videos with catchy background music showing his day-to-day life.

He says his party will redress the region economically. Unemployment here exceeds the national average of 7.5% after decades of economic decline in an area where industry and the railways used to be the biggest employers.

"We have economic measures such as tax rebates to encourage companies to set up shop in the area. That will make our region competitive again and new jobs will be created," Duenas said.

But for his supporters at the meeting that day, other arguments seemed more crucial. "The RN represents our values and will make our country great again," said 21-year-old Herman Caquais, who is aspiring to become a firefighter.

He was accompanied by 19-year-old Jules Pelladoni, who plans to become a police officer. "I want a future for French civilization," Pelladoni told DW.

Herman Caquais (left) and Jules Pelladoni hope that RN will reduce immigration

Image: Lisa Louis/DW

Despite his grandfather immigrating to France from Italy, Pelladoni said he was against mass immigration. "Many immigrants refuse to work and don't want to adapt," he said.
Established parties seen as elitist

20 kilometers (12 miles) further northwest in the hamlet of Saint-Hilaire-de-Court, Genevieve de Brach was giving food to a few of her 110 cattle grazing in her fields.

"Raising livestock was my childhood dream, but things have become really difficult with rising taxes and ever more bureaucratic burden," said the 64-year-old mother of three, who's also the head of the local branch of farmers' union Rural Coordination.

For the first time in her life, like many other voters in the area, de Brach is considering voting for the far right in Sunday's run-off.

"There are no GPs left in this area. The government is spending lots of money to construct a new bridges elsewhere, while our roads are full of potholes," she said. "I feel like having a political elite up there who decide what's good for us. But we have to live with their decisions."

In rural France, the RN appeals to those who have hardly benefited from globalizationImage: Lisa Louis/DW

Political scientist Vincent Martigny, a professor at both the University Cote d'Azur in the southern city of Nice and also at Paris' Ecole Polytechnique, thinks that many people in France share that view.

"The RN appeals to those who have hardly benefited from globalization, feel left behind and have seen their income fall over the past decades," he told DW.

Legal history professor Pierre Allorant from the University of Orleans in the Cher, thinks President Macron has strengthened this feeling of alienation.

"He's been governing in a top-down style and depicting himself as the symbol of mainstream politics and the best rampart against the far right," Allorant said, adding that many voters feel the only protest vote against him is the RN, whereas in the past, they could also opt for communist party.

France: National Rally captures ex-Communist strongholds 03:28

Allorant isn't surprised that between a fifth and a third of 18- to 24-year-olds voted for the far right in the first round, according to polls.

"Young people don't know much about World War II — many of them have hardly heard of former RN leader Jean-Marie Le Pen," he stressed.

Jean-Marie le Pen, the father of Marine Le Pen, was convicted several times of downplaying crimes against humanity, such as saying the gas chambers used to kill Jews in the Holocaust were a "detail" of history.

Jean-Marie Le Pen's leadership of the RN turned away many voters in the past. His daughter Marine excluded him from the RN in 2015 in a bid to get away from the RN's antisemitic image.

Can the RN be blocked?

Vierzon's communist mayor Corinne Ollivier doesn't believe in turning people against each other.

"I believe in the value of solidarity," said Ollivier, a former railway worker who came out of retirement to take up the job as mayor. "It's unbearable that one camp always stokes the fear of others."

DW met with Ollivier as she visited a kindergarten being refurbished by the government for €1.6 million ($1.7 million). "When we provide such high quality infrastructure, we hope people will understand that we care about them and give us their support," she said while walking through the freshly painted classrooms.

"I believe in the value of solidarity," said Corinne Ollivier, the communist mayor of Vierzon

Image: Lisa Louis/DW

The communists might indeed still come out on top here on Sunday. In the voting district around Vierzon, the third-placed candidate has withdrawn from the race to avoid splitting the vote in an attempt to stop the National Rally from winning.

Around another 210 third or fourth placed candidates that made it to the second round have also rescinded their candidacy in a bid to foil the far right.

"The withdrawals could prevent the RN from obtaining an absolute majority in parliament, although polls still predict the party will get the highest number seats," said political researcher Martigny.

But, one day, that strategy might no longer be enough to prevent the far right from coming to power in France.

Edited by: Kate Hairsine

Israeli Airstrikes Kill Five Journalists in Gaza

July 6, 2024
in News, Gaza

Five Palestinian journalists were killed in the past 12 hours due to intensive Israeli airstrikes targeting various areas in the Gaza Strip, including Gaza City and the Nuseirat refugee camp.

The massacred journalists included:

• Saadi Madoukh, Director of Deep Shot Media Production CompanyA
• Adeeb Sukkar, Media Specialist at Deep Shot Media Production Company
• Amjad Jahjoh, Journalist at Palestine Media Agency
• Wafaa Abu Dhabaan, wife of Amjad, Program Host at Islamic University Radio in Gaza
•  Rizq Abu IShkiyan, Journalist at Palestine Media Agency

Journalist Amjad Jahjoh, his wife Wafaa Abu Dhabaan, and their child were killed on Saturday morning in an airstrike on the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, sources told Days of Palestine. Journalist Rizq was killed in the same raid too.

On Friday, journalists Saadi Madoukh and Adeeb Sukkar were killed in an Israeli airstrike that targeted the Madoukh family home in the Al-Sahaba neighborhood of Gaza City.

With the murder of these five journalists, the total number of Palestinian journalists killed since the start of the Israeli war on Gaza on October 7 has risen to 158, according to the Government Media Office.

Deadliest War for Gaza Journalists

The Center for the Protection of Palestinian Journalists condemned the killing of journalists Saadi Madoukh and Adeeb Sukkar in the Al-Daraj neighborhood of Gaza. The center noted that their deaths occurred just one day after the killing of Al-Quds TV journalist Mohammed Al-Sakani in a similar airstrike on his family home in the Al-Tuffah neighborhood of Gaza City.

The center emphasized that the current conflict has become the most deadly for Palestinian journalists in modern history. It called for an independent and comprehensive international investigation into Israeli crimes against journalists.

Data from the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) indicates that the war on Gaza is now the deadliest for journalists since the organization began documenting journalist killings worldwide in 1992.

Shortlink for this post: https://daysofpalestine.ps/?p=54864

Five journalists killed as Israel steps up bombardment across Gaza

Journalist couple Amjad Jahjouh and Wafa Abu Dabaan and their children were killed in a strike on the Nuseirat camp.


Video Duration 04 minutes 43 seconds04:43
Published On 6 Jul 20246 Jul 2024

At least five journalists were killed in attacks by Israeli forces in the last 24 hours in Gaza as bombings and air strikes across the besieged enclave intensified.

On Saturday, Gaza’s Government Media Office said separate Israeli strikes killed three journalists in the Nuseirat refugee camp in the centre of the territory and two in Gaza City, raising to at least 158 the number of media workers killed since the current war erupted on October 7.

Those who were killed in Nuseirat were identified as Amjad Jahjouh and Rizq Abu Ashkian, both from the Palestine Media Agency, and Wafa Abu Dabaan from the Islamic University Radio in Gaza.

Abu Dabaan was married to Jahjouh. Their children were also killed during the strike, according to Al Jazeera’s team on the ground. At least 10 people were killed in that attack on Nuseirat.

Palestinian journalists Saadi Madoukh and Ahmed Sukkar were killed on Friday following an Israeli raid that targeted a home of the Madoukh family in the Daraj neighbourhood of Gaza City.

Before the latest deadly attacks, Israel’s war on Gaza was already considered the deadliest conflict for journalists and media workers in the world.

The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, which has a separate database on Palestinian journalists killed in Gaza, put the number of media workers killed as of July 5 at 108 since the war began, also making it the deadliest period since the group began gathering data in 1992.

Al Jazeera journalist, Hamza Dahdouh, the eldest son of Al Jazeera’s Gaza bureau chief, Wael Dahdouh, was among those killed by an Israeli missile strike in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, in January.

Hamza was in a vehicle near al-Mawasi, an Israel-designated “safe zone” that its forces have repeatedly attacked. He was with another journalist, Mustafa Thuraya, who was also killed in the attack.

An earlier Israeli attack had wounded Wael and killed his cameraperson Samer Abudaqa during a reporting assignment in southern Gaza in December.

The Guardian newspaper reported in June that at least 23 members of the Al-Aqsa network, a media channel linked to Hamas, were killed by Israeli strikes since October.
Death toll tops 38,000

Gaza’s Ministry of Health said on Saturday that 87 people were killed across the enclave over the last 48 hours, including the five journalists, bringing to at least 38,098 the number of people killed in the last nine months.

More than 87,700 people have been injured in Israel’s military offensive during the same period, the ministry said.

Reporting from Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud noted the “surge in air attacks across the central area, the southern part of the Gaza Strip, and also in Gaza City’s Shujayea neighbourhood in the north”.

In eastern Khan Younis and Rafah city, at the southern edge of the Strip, bodies were being taken out of the hospital morgue for burials.

“It’s a scene that we’ve been seeing over and over for the past nine months, crying parents over the bodies of their children,” Mahmoud said. “It’s heartbreaking and it’s becoming the daily norm for people here.”

Among the victims in the recent assaults was a worker for the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) after an Israeli strike hit the organisation’s warehouses north of the Maghazi camp in central Gaza, according to Al Jazeera’s fact-checking agency Sanad.

Another person was also killed in that attack on the UNRWA facilities.
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Video footage verified by Sanad showed the arrival of their bodies, as well as those injured, at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir el-Balah.

The UNRWA employee was wearing his jacket clearly identifying him as UN staff while working in the agency’s warehouses.

Meanwhile, the Palestinian Information Center reported on Saturday at least six policemen were killed in an Israeli bombardment that hit their car in the Saudi neighbourhood of western Rafah.

One person was also killed as a result of an Israeli bombing of a police car in Gaza’s al-Shakoush area, northwest of Rafah.

Why there is no uprising in the West Bank – yet

The West Bank remains unusually calm as Israel carries out its genocide in Gaza. But while Israeli repression has dissuaded an uprising in the streets, the tectonic plates underneath continue to shift.

BY QASSAM MUADDI

JULY 5, 2024 

MONDOWEISS

PALESTINIAN PROTESTERS CARRYING TIRES FOR BARRICADES AT THE NORTHERN ENTRANCE TO RAMALLAH/AL-BIREH, MAY 18, 2021. 

(PHOTO: QASSAM MUADDI/MONDOWEISS)

As war rages on in Gaza and along the Lebanese border, the West Bank has taken a backseat in the news in the wake of Israel’s unrelenting genocide. Absent the proliferation of small pockets of armed resistance in refugee camps and urban centers in the north, the West Bank has maintained an uneasy sense of calm.

This silence is uncharacteristic. In previous years, Palestinians in the West Bank have reacted to the occupation’s crimes through a series of mass mobilizations, daily clashes with Israeli troops, general strikes, and campaigns of civil disobedience. The First Intifada of 1987, although beginning in Gaza, was mobilized into a united and organized movement in the West Bank, a role which it has continued to play in the thirty-odd years since.

This includes the “Unity Intifada” in May 2021, when Palestinians in the West Bank, Jerusalem, and ‘48 Palestine rose up in a collective reaction to Israeli attempts to expel Palestinian families from their homes in Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood. The wave of mass protests across the West Bank’s cities was larger than it had ever been, reaching its peak on May 18 when a general strike was observed in all of historic Palestine, from the river to the sea.

This all changed after October 7. Over the past nine months, mass mobilization has been virtually absent, despite the unprecedented horrors of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, which has claimed the lives of over 37,000 Palestinians.

Yet with the memories of past events of popular revolt still fresh in people’s minds, the current lack of mobilization in the West Bank has led many to conclude that Israel has effectively neutralized it as an arena of struggle.

Before October: anything but neutralized

To look at the news in the months and years before October 7, any observer would have thought that the West Bank would be an active front in the war. Daily Israeli raids on Palestinian cities and refugee camps were met with confrontation by Palestinians, who increasingly began to use arms instead of stones to face off against the troops invading their homes. Locally-based armed resistance groups began to spread across different cities, from Jenin, to Nablus, Tulkarem, Tubas, and Jericho.

The phenomenon attracted analysts and journalists, who spoke of a “new generation of Palestinian resistance.” Western news outlets reported on the armed rebellion of “the West Bank’s Gen Z fighters” in outlets like The Economist, the Wall Street Journal, and Vice. Many were left wondering whether what was happening in the West Bank could be called a Third Intifada.

Read also: Inside the “Wasps’ Nest”: the rise of the Jenin Brigade

This situation of upheaval was at least two years in the making. In 2021, the escape of six Palestinian prisoners from the Gilboa maximum security prison sparked a wave of armed resistance in Jenin, where two of the escapees had taken shelter. Israeli forces recaptured them after clashing with a small group of gunmen. After the recapture, more youth began to join the group, until the Jenin Brigade came into existence. It was followed by the Lions’ Den in Nablus, the Tulkarem Brigade in Tulkarem, and the Tubas Brigade in Tubas. These cities and their adjacent refugee camps became havens for armed resistance groups

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PALESTINIAN RESISTANCE FIGHTERS FROM THE LIONS’ DEN AT MARTYRS’ FUNERAL CEREMONY IN NABLUS, FEBRUARY 10, 2023. (PHOTO: NASSER ISHTAYEH/SOPA IMAGES VIA ZUMA PRESS WIRE/APA IMAGES)

Simultaneously, local civil resistance movements increased in several locations where lands were threatened by settler expansion, like in Kufr Qaddoum, Salfit, and Nabi Saleh. In some places, civil resistance had been ongoing for over a decade. In others, it had been absent since the First Intifada — but now sprang back to life. One of the most famous cases is the village of Beita, south of Nablus, where residents have been protesting the Israeli settler outpost of Evyatar on Mount Sabih for three years. Israeli forces imposed and continue to impose repetitive closures on the village, patrolling its entrance, raiding it regularly, revoking working permits of its thousands of breadwinners who work in Israel, arresting and wounding hundreds of residents, and killing at least ten of Beita’s youth to date.

After October: new levels of repression

While all pales in comparison to Israel’s genocidal campaign in Gaza, the Israeli crackdown on resistance in the West Bank took on an entirely different meaning after October 7. Israel revoked tens of thousands of work permits for Palestinians, blocked dozens of roads that Palestinians used to move around between cities and villages in the West Bank, and dramatically intensified its arrest campaign against Palestinians.

In the first two months after October 7, Israel doubled the already existing Palestinian prison population, at one point reaching over 10,000 prisoners. The number of administrative detainees — those detained without charge or trial — has reached 3,600, whereas the number was 1,300 before the war.

The scope of arrests also increased, widening to include Palestinians from all walks of life, including many who are not politically active. Many of the arrestees are community leaders, journalists, and civil society activists with little to no tenuous ties to politics. Inside the prisons, human rights reports and testimonies of released Palestinians all revealed unprecedented levels of humiliation, abuse, and torture, effectively extending the genocide of Palestinians to Palestinian prisoners in Israeli custody.

According to a spokesperson of the Addameer Prisoner Support Association, who asked not to be quoted by name, “Israeli arrests systematically target active members of the community who have the capacity of mobilizing it, especially those who have a past in doing so,” adding that “this is clearly seen in the arrests of individuals who work in civil society, in academia, in the media, and in human rights.”

Read also: Gaza is showing the rest of Palestine the truth of struggle

Outside cities, the violence of Israeli settlers rampaged exponentially, effectively expelling some 20 rural communities in the West Bank through violent attacks and death threats. Israeli settlers also increased their attacks against Palestinians traveling on West Bank roads, adding to the risk of beatings and arrests at Israeli military checkpoints.

These Israeli measures have resulted in the killing of 554 Palestinians and the arrest of 9,400 in the West Bank, including east Jerusalem, over the past nine months.

The reason for the intensity of the Israeli crackdown is no mystery. It is preemptive, designed to shock and dissuade Palestinians in the West Bank from opening up a second front in the “al-Aqsa Flood” battle

.

MARCH IN RAMALLAH CITY CENTER, FEBRUARY 20, 2024. (PHOTO: QASSAM MUADDI/MONDOWEISS)

The impact on the streets

In the northern cities of Jenin and Tulkarem, the meteoric escalation of Israeli raids in both number and scope of violence and destruction resulted in an increase in the intensity of armed confrontations with Palestinian resistance fighters. At least seven Israeli soldiers, including two officers, have been killed since October 7 in West Bank raids, including the death of an officer and the injury of 17 soldiers in Jenin just last week.

Yet as the armed groups in the West Bank have managed to so far weather the onslaught, civil mobilization in its traditional form in the West Bank has remained largely absent.

On October 17, ten days into the genocide in Gaza, Palestinians in several West Bank cities took to the streets following the news of Israel’s bombing of the al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza, which killed 500 people. In Jenin and Ramallah, some protesters chanted slogans against what they saw as the PA’s inaction. Protests turned into clashes with the Palestinian police, and five protesters were killed. In the following weeks, protesters avoided clashing with the PA, as their numbers grew smaller, and more leading figures of the protests were arrested by Israel.

On March 30, which marked Palestinian Land Day, the city of Ramallah had a special moment of revival. Thousands marched through the streets of the city, including people of all ages, for around two hours, chanting in support of Palestinians in Gaza and denouncing the genocide. Then it was all over.

Read also: ‘Army and Arabs’: truth, play, and illusions in the West Bank

One protester told Mondoweiss after the march that “people saw it as an opportunity to express themselves after months of being silenced, which is why the number of participants was higher than other marches since the beginning of the war, and also why it lasted for so long.”

“Traditionally, the march would head to the city entrance [near the Beit El settlement] and end with some protesters clashing with occupation soldiers, but this time, everybody knew that it was not going to happen, which is why the march roamed the city center for so long,” the protester said.

PART OF THE LAND DAY MARCH IN RAMALLAH CITY CENTER, MARCH 30, 2024. (PHOTO: QASSAM MUADDI/MONDOWEISS)

On May 15, which marked Nakba Day, dozens of Palestinians, mostly young people, took their chances and headed to the northern entrance of Ramallah and al-Bireh, demonstrating in front of the Beit El checkpoint. Several were wounded, and one Palestinian protester was killed.

Aysar Safi, 20 years old, was a second-year student of physical education at Birzeit University from the Jalazone refugee camp north of Ramallah. He was the sixth Palestinian from Jalazone to be killed by Israeli forces since October 7.

Aysar’s older brother and his father are both detainees in Israel’s jails. Since their arrest, Aysar had been taking care of his father’s aluminum shop, working and studying at the same time. His uncle described him as “his mother’s right hand.” His mother, meanwhile, was too deep in grief to speak.

“Aysar was very affected by the genocide in Gaza and said that we had to do more here in the West Bank to help our people there,” a friend of Aysar told Mondoweiss. “He was always present at the reception of released prisoners and funerals of martyrs.”

“His killing wasn’t random. The occupation soldiers aimed at his stomach,” the friend pointed out. “They were using live fire, not rubber-coated bullets. They were sending a message that they will not tolerate any protests, because they want to keep people scared and keep the West Bank passive.”

But for Palestinian historian Bilal Shalash, who studies the history of Palestinian resistance, “the West Bank is anything but passive.”

“Historically, there is a pattern in Palestine, where high waves of resistance start in one region, then when it calms down, it is picked up by another,” Shalash tells Mondoweiss. “The occupation is afraid of the West Bank picking up from Gaza, especially in the north, and this is why it intensifies its crackdown on it in such a brutal way.”

As for civil mobilization, Shalash believes it has been highly dependent on geography. “It is not completely absent,” he notes. “In the villages close to the annexation wall or to Israeli settler roads, mass mobilization can vary. Some villages have developed their local mass movement in the past years or decades and continue to protest weekly, while in other villages, a few young men clash with occupation forces and settlers when they raid.”

In the cities, people often protest within their urban centers without confronting the occupation, a product of the Oslo regime’s spatial separation of Palestinians from the occupier. This has led many to refrain from participating in such actions, Shalash notes. “They don’t see the point of it,” he explains. “Some do still participate because they want to send a message to the PA concerning internal Palestinian politics.”

The PA has shown its intent to suppress a mass upheaval in the West Bank, but Shalash believes that there are limits to how much the PA can ban protests without risking a larger backlash. “That’s why these protests can still happen,” he says.
Read also: Oslo lives. Death to Oslo.

Additionally, mass mobilization in Palestine has been partly dependent on the involvement of the middle class, which formed a part of the political intelligentsia and popular movement. That same middle class has now been drawn into a consumerist and depoliticized lifestyle, which is only maintained by the continuous flow of money from outside the country — both to the PA and to the NGO sector.

Yet that very stability is now being undermined by Israel.

As Israel refuses to end its war on Gaza and tensions rise across the region, all previous signs of stability in the West Bank have disappeared, one after the other. Israel has only responded with even greater repression, hoping to prevent a major shake-off, at least at surface level. The trouble is that underneath, the tectonic plates have not stopped shifting.

Qassam Muaddi
Qassam Muaddi is the Palestine Staff Writer for Mondoweiss. Follow him on Twitter/X at @QassaMMuaddi.

A hollow Palestinian state

Spain, Ireland, and Norway recently made headlines for recognizing the State of Palestine. But the only effective policy for any state recognizing Palestine is also the diplomatic and economic isolation of the Israeli state. There is no other way.

BY MUHANNAD AYYASH

JULY 6, 2024 

MONDOWEIS

DESTRUCTION IN THE VICINITY OF AL-SHIFA HOSPITAL, GAZA CITY, APRIL 2, 2024. (PHOTO: © OMAR ISHAQ/DPA VIA ZUMA PRESS/APA IMAGES)


When Spain, Ireland, and Norway joined the majority of the world’s states to recognize the State of Palestine, attention immediately turned to what such a recognition will mean on the ground. Is this purely or primarily a symbolic move? What does it mean in a practical sense for Palestinians? Will it in fact create material pressure on the Israeli state and advance the Palestinian aspiration for freedom and liberation? Is it a first step towards creating that pressure? Can this help the Palestinians at the United Nations and/or in international criminal courts? Among others.

In the recently passed United Nations Security Council Resolution 2735, we find a reaffirmation of the international commitment to the “two-State solution where two democratic States, Israel and Palestine, live side by side in peace within secure and recognized borders.” The same questions apply here as well.

It is clear to honest observers that what is required in the current comment is more than these types of recognitions and statements. What is required is a severing of diplomatic and economic ties with the Israeli state. Without this substantial and immediate material pressure, the Israeli state will continue to calculate that is has little to lose and everything to gain by continuing the genocide of the Palestinian people, not just in this genocidal operation but over the long term as well.

Therefore, any state action that does not take a policy position of severing all ties with Israel or genuinely building towards such a policy position is, in the last analysis, state inaction in the face of Israeli settler colonialism.

Recognition of a Palestinian state is only meaningful if it is understood as the recognition of the Palestinians’ inalienable right to live a sovereign life on all their lands, and is part of a larger strategy to place material pressure on the Israeli state.

Recognition of a Palestinian state is only meaningful if it is understood as the recognition of the Palestinians’ inalienable right to live a sovereign life on all their lands, and is part of a larger strategy to place material pressure on the Israeli state. Indeed, only if politicians around the world, not just from Europe, but from the Global South as well, including the Arab states, begin to openly speak about adopting such a strategy, and taking practical steps towards it, can we be assured that such diplomatic statements and moves are not going to remain purely symbolic and entirely ineffectual.

I want to suggest that the only logical conclusion to the path taken by every state that has recognized the State of Palestine is in fact this diplomatic and economic isolation of the Israeli state. There is no other way.

Why do I say that? Let’s first pull back and ask: what exactly is being recognized? What is a Palestinian state? According to the majority of the world’s states, a Palestinian state would be fully sovereign. That is, it would enjoy full rights of self-determination which include developing a military, an independent foreign policy, and an independent economy; it would have contiguous territories along the 1967 borders with a corridor connecting the West Bank with the Gaza Strip; and East Jerusalem would be its capital. Most remain silent on the Palestinian right of return to their lands across all of Palestine from which they have been expelled since 1948. But let’s put this last critical point to the side for now, and come back to it at the end.

Taking the position of full sovereignty and 67 borders at face value, this means that states around the world are suggesting that all the Israeli settlements across the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, should they remain there, would be under Palestinian sovereignty. In effect, Israeli Jews would have to submit to the authority of the Palestinian state, which, among other things, means that these settlements would cease to be exclusive to Israelis Jews.

Not only has every Israeli government in history outrightly rejected this idea of Israeli Jews living under Palestinian sovereignty, they in fact have always rejected the very notion of Palestinian sovereignty. Throughout history, including the years of the “peace process,” Israel never agreed or offered the kind of sovereignty that states around the world recognize as the right of the Palestinian people. Never, not once.

So, we have a situation where Israel along with its main backer, the United States, are refusing the very idea of the State of Palestine as that idea is understood around the world. Instead, the U.S. continues to say that the core issues of borders, Jerusalem, sovereignty, etc., “should be resolved in negotiations.” Why would they say that? Why do they not want to openly support the recognition of the State of Palestine in line with the rest of the world? For a simple reason: they know that Israel does not want that particular kind of the Palestinian state. So, what kind of Palestinian “state” does Israel want? The U.S. empire understands very well that Israel (1) will never accept Palestinian sovereignty; (2) believes that all of Jerusalem belongs to Israel; (3) that Palestine cannot have a military, an independent foreign policy, or an independent economy; (4) that Palestinian territories will be discontiguous; (5) that the Palestinian right of return is not on the table; and (6) that Israel will officially annex large chunks of the West Bank and now perhaps the Gaza Strip. In essence, when the US says, “these are negotiations issues,” which it is saying again in its promoted ceasefire plan in regards to Gaza, what it is really saying is that Israel, after subduing the Palestinians into servitude and obedience, will force the Palestinians to accept something that is not a real state, but where the Palestinians will agree to publicly and officially end all their claims against Israel.

Unfortunately, it is not impossible to find corrupt Palestinian leaders who have sold out the people’s struggle for freedom in order to accept such crumbs for the benefit of themselves. In other words, this outlandish, brutal, colonial plan is not only achievable but its success is probable as far as the US and Israel are concerned.

But thus far, Palestinian resistance, as a people’s resistance, has withstood the effort to subdue it once and for all. And I believe that this will continue to be the case. The Palestinian people have refused the fate of elimination for over 100 years, and will continue for another 100 years or more if necessary.

And so, this is where things stand today. The U.S.’s version of the “new Middle East” is one where Arab states have accepted the idea that a “Palestinian state” exists and the issue resolved once and for all, but in reality, it will exist in name only. In line with Israeli aspirations, the so-called Palestinian state will be restricted to approximately 18% of the West Bank, Jerusalem will be under exclusive Israeli Jewish sovereignty, and perhaps something around 70% of the Gaza Strip will remain under Palestinian self-administration. When you calculate what’s left of the land of historic Palestine for this fake hollow state, you are talking about approximately 5% to 8% of discontiguous territories of historic Palestine being left for limited Palestinian self-administration, not self-determination.


Here is the gauntlet that is being presented to the whole world: if you do mean what you say about 67 borders, East Jerusalem as the capital, contiguity, and self-determination, then you have to do something to make that a reality because the enemies of that State do not want it.

If recognizing the State of Palestine is going to mean anything, it cannot mean this. So here is the gauntlet that is being presented to the whole world: if you do mean what you say about 67 borders, East Jerusalem as the capital, contiguity, and self-determination, then you have to do something to make that a reality because the enemies of that State do not want it. They are looking at this idea and are responding with: only 5% to 8% of historic Palestine will be under limited Palestinian self-administration, which will moreover always be under the ultimate authority of Israeli sovereignty. This is not a gap that can be resolved in negotiations. What we have here is the continuation of settler colonial conquest or its ending and undoing through boycotts, sanctions, and divestments.

Here we come back to the Palestinian right of return. Ignoring the Palestinian right of return in state discourse worldwide, in addition to being unjust, is defeatist and inconsistent with the idea of Palestinian sovereign rights. When states and Palestinian leaderships give up the Palestinian right of return to all the lands of Palestine, they are not practicing a politics of the possible as they claim, but rather they have already given away the whole farm to the Euro-American imperial world order, of which Israeli settler colonialism is a critical part. That is defeatism. That is itself a hollow conception of the State of Palestine, and therefore only encourages Israel to pursue an even more hollow version of it.

The Israelis are now accustomed to impunity from the international community, which is secured for them by the US. In order to actually bring the Israeli state into a position where it will undertake genuine negotiations with the Palestinians about the core issues, and about how best to move forward and find a just solution that works for all of the people on the land, the indigenous Palestinians and the Israeli settlers, then pressure must be brought to bear on them. If the Israelis begin to see that the international community is determined to turn into reality the Palestinian right of return, and begins to feel economic pain from its ongoing settler colonial project, then Israelis will have to start to accept the idea of a one state solution and shared sovereignty. Only then, can we seriously move towards stability, peace, and justice.

Moments of great volatility, chaos, and violence require, not the careful politics of the possible, but the daring politics of the just. A new world is waiting to be created, but it is being obstructed by the politics of the possible. Who will be daring enough to activate the politics of the just and properly enter history as the inaugurator of the new?

Two-thirds of Israelis back hostage deal over continuing war in Gaza – poll

Respondents prefer former prime minister Naftali Bennett (by 11%) or National Unity leader Benny Gantz (by 6%) to Netanyahu as PM

By TOI STAFF

6 July 2024

Protesters led by the mothers of Hamas-held hostages demonstrate in support of a hostage deal in Tel Aviv on July 5, 2024. The banner reads: A mother never gives up. (Tomer Neuberg/Flash90)

Two-thirds of the Israeli public believe returning the hostages is more important than continuing the war in Gaza, according to a poll published by Channel 12 News on Friday.

Asked what is most important at this time, 67 percent of respondents said returning the hostages, compared to 26% who said continuing the war in Gaza, and 7% who said they didn’t know.

Israel sent a delegation of negotiators headed by Mossad chief David Barnea to Doha on Friday after Hamas submitted its latest response to the hostage deal proposal. Negotiations are expected to continue in the coming week.
Jerusalem’s marathon ‘sleep-in’ protestKeep Watching

Responding to the question of why they think the war hasn’t ended yet, 54% said it was because of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s political considerations, 34% said it was due to substantive and operational considerations and 12% weren’t sure.

Sixty-eight percent of respondents said Israel is far from the “total victory” pledged by Netanyahu, compared to 23% who said Israel is close and 9% who were unsure.

Recently, multiple officials, including Israel Air Force commander Tomer Bar and IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi, have said that Hamas’s military wing is close to being defeated in Gaza.

IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi speaks at a graduation ceremony for pilots, June 27, 2024. (Israel Defense Forces)

Netanyahu has repeatedly insisted that the war will continue until all Israel’s goals are achieved, specifying that Hamas must be destroyed, all hostages returned, and the threat of a future major security threat to Israel from Gaza neutered.

Meanwhile, Netanyahu’s approval ratings on his handling of the war were significantly low. While their approval ratings were not high either, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant’s and Halevi’s scores were far better than the prime minister’s.

More than two-thirds (68%) of respondents said Netanyahu’s performance was not good, as opposed to only 28% who said it was. Four percent said they didn’t know.

Meanwhile, almost half (49%) said Gallant’s performance was not good, as opposed to 43% who said it was. The remaining eight percent said they didn’t know.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu leads a cabinet meeting at the Kirya military headquarters in Tel Aviv, January 7, 2024. (Yariv Katz/Pool)

Halevi was the only prominent figure in the poll to have more people say his handling of the war was good (46%) than not good (44%); the other 10% said they didn’t know.

With the country’s leaders’ approval ratings low and constant protests calling for new elections, respondents were asked when elections should be held. Forty-three percent said as soon as possible, 29% said when the war is over, 23% said when the current coalition’s term expires in October 2026, and 5% said they were unsure.

Asked who is most suited to serve as premier, Netanyahu or opposition chair Yair Lapid, 31% of respondents said Netanyahu, compared to 30% who said Lapid. A further 35% said neither and 4% were unsure.

When the choice was between National Unity leader Benny Gantz and Netanyahu, 35% said Gantz and 29% said Netanyahu. An additional 31% said neither and 5% were unsure.

When the choice was between former prime minister Naftali Bennett and Netanyahu, 37% said Bennett, 26% said Netanyahu, 33% said neither of them and 4% said they were unsure.

Former prime minister Naftali Bennett arrives at the scene of a terror attack in Ra’anana on January 15, 2024. (Itai Ron/Flash90)

When the choice was between Bennett and Gantz, 27% said Bennett, 26% said Gantz, 42% said neither of them and 5% said they were unsure.

Finally, as United States President Joe Biden tries to convince the American people that he is fit to run for the presidency after his disastrous debate with Republican candidate Donald Trump last week, 48% of respondents said they preferred Trump to win, 27% said Biden and 25% said they were unsure.

The network did not say how many people took part in the poll, which was conducted by the Midgam research firm along with online polling firm iPanel. They did not provide a margin of error.

ISRAEL

Protesters call ‘shut down’ on Sunday, demanding elections on 9-month war milestone

Major companies announce workers may partake in rallies; anti-government activists say they will block throughways, call on Histadrut (UNION) leaders to strike in solidarity

By TOI STAFF

Today, 

Anti-government protests demand immediate elections at the Amiad Junction in northern Israel, July 6, 2024. (Shay Zeltzer/Pro-Democracy Protest Movement)


Anti-government groups have announced a “day of disruption” on Sunday to demand new elections as Israel enters its tenth month since October 7, with 116 people kidnapped in the shock Hamas attack still languishing in captivity in Gaza.

Sunday’s demonstrations will form part of the “week of resistance” protest groups kicked off at their weekly protests on Saturday evening. The protesters said they would block major throughways on Sunday, including Routes 2, 4 and 6, and hold rallies across the country, culminating in a mass demonstration outside the Kirya military headquarters in Tel Aviv.

The Kirya demonstration will follow a rally outside the Histadrut’s Tel Aviv offices to call on Israel’s largest labor federation to strike in solidarity with the protest groups’ demand for the government to step down. A demonstration is also planned for Sunday morning outside the Kiryat Ono home of Histadrut chief Arnon Bar-David, who has previously indicated his support for the anti-government protests.

Some of Israel’s leading companies, mainly from the tech and finance sectors, said they would let their workers take time off to join in the protests, which anti-government groups announced in late June.

The protests will mark exactly nine months since Hamas’s October 7 onslaught, which saw some 3,000 terrorists burst across the border into Israel by land, air and sea, killing some 1,200 people and seizing 251 hostages, mostly civilians, many amid acts of brutality and sexual assault.

Protest groups had rallied weekly since early 2023, when the government introduced its plan to weaken the judiciary. The demonstrations were paused for a few weeks after October 7 before returning full force to call for new elections, claiming the government has a moral imperative to regain the public’s trust after failing to avert the largest massacre in the country’s history.

Anti-government protesters block Ayalon Highway in Tel Aviv as police use water cannons against them on July 6, 2024. (Lior Segev/Israeli Pro-Democracy Protest Movement)

In recent months, the central anti-government protest in Tel Aviv has taken place in conjunction with the Hostages and Missing Families Forum rally calling for the release of their loved ones. Amid the war, protest groups have also doubled down on their opposition to legislation exempting yeshiva students from military service, which critics describe as a power-grab by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ultra-Orthodox coalition partners.

“Nine months have passed since the October 7 disaster, and we still have the same government on whose shift the inconceivable failure happened,” Eran Schwartz, the executive director of the “Free in our Land” coalition of protest groups, said in a statement, claiming ministers were abandoning the hostages, engaging in discrimination and “hanging on to their chairs at any price.”

“On Sunday we will ask the public to shut down the country, because this reality must change,” he added. “We won’t stop until a date is set for elections, and the country is back on track toward recuperation, unity and hope.”

It is believed that 116 hostages abducted by Hamas on October 7 remain in Gaza — not all of them alive — after 105 civilians were released from Hamas captivity during a weeklong truce in late November, and four hostages were released prior to that. Seven hostages have been rescued by troops alive, and the bodies of 19 hostages have also been recovered, including three mistakenly killed by the military.

The IDF has confirmed the deaths of 42 of those still held by Hamas, citing new intelligence and findings obtained by troops operating in Gaza.

One more person is listed as missing since October 7, and their fate is still unknown.

Hamas is also holding two Israeli civilians who entered the Strip in 2014 and 2015, as well as the bodies of two IDF soldiers who were killed in 2014.

Anti-government protesters start ‘week of resistance’ with Saturday rallies

Sunday will be ‘day of disruption’ with protests and rallies across the country demanding hostage deal and new elections, culminating outside Netanyahu’s Jerusalem home

By TOI STAFF

6 July 2024

Anti-government protesters march to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's house in Jerusalem, July 4, 2024. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Anti-government protesters were set to flock to Tel Aviv’s Hostage Square and to events throughout the country Saturday in weekly protests calling for a hostage deal and new elections.

The main Tel Aviv rally was set to begin at 8 p.m. and would be dedicated to the mothers of hostages being held in Gaza.

Protests groups have said Saturday’s rally will kick off a “week of resistance,” with Sunday, July 7 being a day of protests and disruptions to mark nine months since the October 7 attacks and the start of the Israel-Hamas war.

According to a schedule sent out by the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, the protest would begin with a featured video of Almog Meir Jan, who was rescued from Gaza by special forces last month.

The video would be followed by various speakers including released hostage Danielle Aloni, Meir Jan’s mother Orit, the mother of Tal Haimi who was killed by Hamas and whose body is held in Gaza, and the mothers of four other hostages still being held in Gaza.

Saturday night protests have in recent weeks been marked by violent clashes between demonstrators and police, with protesters injured by police water canons and arrests made.

Protesters demonstrate for a hostage deal and end to the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, in Jerusalem’s Paris Square on June 29, 2024. (Charlie Summers/Times of Israel)

Beginning with a protest in the southern Kibbutz Or HaNer at 6 a.m., Sunday’s protest schedule features rallies and protests at key intersections and major highways across the country.

The day was set to culminate with a march from Jerusalem’s Sacher Park to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s home, where a rally would be held demanding he step down and set new elections.

Sunday will mark nine months since October 7, when Hamas launched an unprecedented attack on Israel, murdering some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking 251 hostages, sparking a war with Israel.

It is believed that 116 remain in Gaza — not all of them alive. Recent days have seen Israeli officials express cautious optimism that indirect negotiations with Hamas for the release of hostages may be making progress.