Um dia na semana passada conversei com um usuário de Bitcoin dentro da Faixa de Gaza.
Ele pediu para permanecer anônimo e usar o nome de Uqab-a palavra árabe para”águia”-porque correu um grande risco pessoal para falar comigo.
Nós conversamos no Telegram e tínhamos para cronometrar nossa ligação, pois Uqab tem apenas algumas horas de eletricidade por dia. Para ele, nosso bate-papo foi no meio da noite. Um amigo palestino ajudou a traduzir a ligação ao vivo. Enquanto conversávamos, era difícil imaginar como era a vida do outro lado da linha.
Uqab estava falando conosco de Rafah, uma cidade no sul de Gaza, uma zona de guerra apenas um poucas semanas depois de ser fortemente bombardeado pelos militares israelenses. Eu senti como se estivesse falando com alguém de um planeta diferente.
Ele falou de estradas destruídas, edifícios vaporizados, corte de energia e suprimentos restritos. Um mapa de ataques de mísseis israelenses faz Gaza parecer um queijo suíço e dá uma ideia do danos estruturais.
Uqab me pediu para considerar o quão ruim as coisas estão economicamente ao redor do mundo, mesmo nos Estados Unidos, por causa da pandemia e dos bloqueios que se seguiram, e disse: “Agora imagine como tem sido para nós. ”
I. Um posto de controle que está sempre aberto
A Faixa de Gaza é um pedaço de território com cerca de 8 km de largura e 45 km de comprimento, espremido entre o canto sudoeste de Israel, o Sinai egípcio e o Mar Mediterrâneo. Originalmente o local de uma comunidade palestina inundada por refugiados que fugiam do que hoje é Israel após a guerra árabe-israelense de 1948, é hoje um dos lugares mais densamente povoados do planeta. Gaza tem menos da metade do tamanho de Austin, Texas, mas tem mais do que o dobro de sua população. Pense em Hong Kong, mas sitiada em um deserto, com infraestrutura em ruínas.
Nas últimas quatro décadas, os dois milhões de habitantes-metade deles com menos de 18 anos-sofreram um colapso civilizacional quase total.
Em 2006, o Hamas-que foi fundado com a missão de destruir Israel e não reconhece seu direito de existir- ganhou as eleições palestinas, no que foi amplamente visto como um voto de protesto contra o extrema corrupção e inépcia que o partido governante Fatah exibiu nos 12 anos desde a criação da Autoridade Palestina. As eleições não foram consideradas legítimas por muitos atores internacionais-os EUA e a UE, por exemplo, considere o Hamas um grupo terrorista-e o Fatah se agarrou ao poder na Cisjordânia. Enquanto isso, os habitantes de Gaza caíram sob o domínio ditatorial de um estado policial islâmico. Em retaliação, em 2007 os governos israelense e egípcio fecharam Gaza do mundo exterior.
Um jovem de 15 anos que mora em Gaza hoje é o sobrevivente de quatro grandes guerras entre as Forças de Defesa de Israel (IDF) e o Hamas, o mais recente ocorrendo há dois meses.
Entre 10 e 21 de maio deste ano, o Hamas disparou mais de 4.300 foguetes contra cidades e vilas israelenses, e as FDI responderam com mais de 1.500 mísseis por conta própria. Esta batalha foi a pior entre os dois desde 2014. Um relatório da ONU publicado no mês passado estimou os danos entre $ 280 milhões e $ 380 milhões, e projetou um orçamento de recuperação entre $ 345 milhões e $ 485 milhões. Em meio aos escombros, 800.000 habitantes de Gaza permanecem sem acesso a água potável. Eles só podem sair oficialmente para o mundo exterior por meio de dois postos de controle, que também foram ligados e desligados durante a violência.
Em 2012, a ONU publicou um artigo prevendo que Gaza seria“ inviável ”em 2020. Essa previsão é tragicamente precisa. De acordo com um Banco Mundial relatório publicado há duas semanas, mesmo antes da última onda de bombardeios, a taxa de desemprego em Gaza era de 48% e 64% para aqueles com menos de 30 anos. Um em cada dois habitantes de Gaza-incluindo mais de 400.000 crianças-vive na pobreza, e mais de 80% das famílias dependem de doações de alimentos ou algum tipo de assistência social.
De acordo com um relatório do FMI , a guerra entre Israel e o Hamas no final de 2008 destruiu mais de 60% do capital de Gaza e os bombardeios em 2014 destruiu 85% do que restou. Nos 25 anos entre 1994 e 2018, Gaza sofreu um declínio de 44% no PIB real per capita, com os habitantes de Gaza passando de 96% da renda média de seus homólogos da Cisjordânia para apenas 30%. Tudo isso apesar de ter uma das taxas de natalidade mais altas do mundo, em mais de 3,5 crianças por família hoje, contra quase sete crianças por família em 1990.
O investimento externo em Gaza tem diminuiu de 11% do PIB palestino total em 1994 para apenas 2,7% em 2018. No rescaldo da guerra de 2008 a 2009 entre Hamas e Israel, foi estimou que mais de 90% das fábricas de tiras fecharam. Restrições extremas ao comércio com Israel cobraram um preço alto. A única usina de Gaza opera apenas em um fração de sua capacidade, devido à impossibilidade de importar combustível e peças suficientes. O setor agrícola entrou em colapso, pois os agricultores perderam seu principal mercado israelense de produtos e foram forçado a vender para a população muito menor de Gaza a preços mais baixos. Em alguns casos, eles tiveram que destruir suas plantações.
Em 2020, um relatório da ONU considerou um contrafactual em que os habitantes de Gaza não enfrentaram restrições adicionais depois de 2006 e, em vez disso, sua economia continuou a crescer à mesma taxa que a da Cisjordânia. Nesse mundo de “sonho”, a renda per capita seria 105,5% maior, chegando a US $ 1.539. Em vez disso, hoje, no verdadeiro pesadelo em que vivem os habitantes de Gaza, está bem abaixo de US $ 1.000.
O desastre econômico de Gaza não é novo e não é simplesmente o resultado dos últimos 15 anos de guerra e autoritarismo. Em vez disso, é o resultado de políticas que começaram há muitas décadas. Em 1987, a estudiosa de Harvard Sarah Roy publicou um artigo marcante usando anos de trabalho de campo e entrevistas para refletir sobre o o custo econômico de vinte anos de ocupação militar na Faixa de Gaza desde 1967. Para descrever o que viu, ela cunhou um novo termo, “desdesenvolvimento”. Este foi o “desmembramento deliberado, sistemático e progressivo de uma economia indígena por uma dominante, onde o potencial econômico-e, por extensão, social-é não apenas distorcido, mas negado.”
Rendas e produção econômica de Gaza aumentou significativamente de 1967 a 1987, impulsionado por remessas do trabalho em Israel e no exterior. Mas Roy observou que esse fluxo de capital era amplamente usado para comprar bens de consumo de Israel, com dois terços da renda disponível indo para o consumo privado em meados da década de 1980. Isso resultou em “aumento dos níveis de consumismo dentro da Faixa de Gaza, com pouco ou nenhum dos benefícios econômicos derivados de tal consumismo acumulando-se na Faixa”.
Roy observou que a alta porcentagem de mão de obra de Gaza em Israel não era um sinal de uma sociedade”experimentando padrões típicos associados ao processo de industrialização (ou modernização) em que o trabalho muda gradualmente de atividades agrícolas para não agrícolas… em vez disso, para a força de trabalho de Gaza, a decisão de buscar emprego dentro de Israel é um função da falta de opções comparáveis dentro da economia doméstica de Gaza. ” Em 1987, Roy pôde observar que as características distintivas da economia de Gaza eram “a erosão de sua própria base econômica interna e sua dependência resultante de Israel”.
Em 1991, o ministro da defesa israelense Moshe Arens criou o comitê Sadan, com a tarefa de explorar como a economia de Gaza poderia ser melhorada. A conclusão foi reveladora: “Na promoção dos interesses econômicos da população [palestina], o foco estava nos assalariados e no curto prazo. Com relação aos assalariados, a prioridade foi dada ao aumento de sua renda, empregando-os na economia israelense. Raramente a política optou pelo desenvolvimento de uma infraestrutura e pelo incentivo à criação de fábricas e empregos dentro da própria Faixa de Gaza. Nenhuma prioridade foi dada à promoção do empreendedorismo local e do setor empresarial na Faixa de Gaza. Além disso, as autoridades desencorajaram tais iniciativas sempre que ameaçaram competir no mercado israelense com as empresas israelenses existentes. ”
E assim, a terrível situação dos moradores de Gaza pode ser vista como o resultado de décadas de políticas externas. Primeiro, uma dependência forçada da economia israelense e desencorajamento do desenvolvimento industrial soberano sob a ocupação militar israelense. Então, o fechamento dessa tábua de salvação econômica, já que os habitantes de Gaza foram proibidos de trabalhar em Israel e, eventualmente, isolados do mundo exterior. E, finalmente, a destruição de sua infraestrutura por meio da guerra.
Algumas semanas atrás, a administração Biden enviou o Secretário de Estado Antony Blinken à Cisjordânia para se encontrar com o presidente palestino Mahmood Abbas, e prometeu $ 75 milhões em nova ajuda para ajudar a reconstruir Gaza. Mas a história regional mostra que muitos desses dons são embolsados pelas elites e não conseguem melhorar a vida das pessoas comuns. A ajuda sozinha não pode consertar um estoque de capital moribundo.
Apesar de tudo, os habitantes de Gaza continuam a mostrar uma persistência incrível. O dono de uma loja chamado Ashraf Abu Mohammad foi citado pela Reuters algumas semanas atrás como dizendo ,“ A vida vai voltar, porque esta não é a primeira guerra, e não será a última guerra. O coração está doendo, houve desastres, famílias foram varridas do registro civil e isso nos entristece, mas este é o nosso destino nesta terra, ser paciente. ”
Mas a paciência tem seus limites. Quando falei com Uqab, ficou claro que ele não esperaria para sempre. Ele me disse que quer fugir e construir uma vida melhor para sua família. E por meio do Bitcoin, ele encontrou uma saída.
Ele disse que tem havido uma demanda crescente por bitcoin em Gaza nos últimos dois anos, principalmente entre os jovens. Os habitantes de Gaza podem estar fisicamente presos e economicamente isolados do mundo exterior, mas Uqab chamou o Bitcoin de”um posto de controle que está sempre aberto”.
“Ele permitiu que algumas pessoas saíssem da pobreza”, disse ele. “Eles estão investindo pouco a pouco, gradualmente, mas está funcionando.” Ele até disse que os moradores de Gaza têm “comprado o dip” recentemente, acelerando suas compras conforme o preço do bitcoin caia.
Alguns recebem o bitcoin diretamente por meio de aplicativos móveis de amigos ou familiares no exterior. Outros usam grupos do Telegram para coordenar encontros pessoais para trocar dinheiro por bitcoin, ou levam dinheiro para lojas físicas e fazem as trocas lá. Nessas lojas, disse Uqab, as autoridades cortam e mantêm listas de quem compra e vende. Ninguém ainda, disse ele, foi preso por uso de Bitcoin. Para armazenar bitcoin em seus telefones, os habitantes de Gaza podem usar Binance ou Payeer como soluções de custódia, ou Blue Wallet, que tem suporte para o idioma árabe nativo, como uma solução de não custódia.
Apesar dos avisos de oficiais, mais habitantes de Gaza aderem a rede Bitcoin todos os dias.
“Temos um ditado”, disse Uqab: “Se o governo diz que algo é haram, isso significa que é halal.”
Falamos sobre muitas coisas: por que Uqab prefere bitcoin em shekels (tudo em Gaza é monitorado, mas você poderia ter muito bitcoin e sua família nem saberia); O IDF ou o Hamas podem impedir as pessoas de usar Bitcoin? (“Somos muito espertos para isso, sempre encontraremos uma saída”); Satoshi poderia ter previsto que as pessoas estariam usando Bitcoin em Gaza? (“Definitivamente não”); Ele tinha ouvido falar de El Salvador tornando o bitcoin com curso legal? (foi uma grande vitória, eles aplaudiram ao saber da notícia); Será que os habitantes de Gaza podem adotar o Bitcoin mais rápido do que os israelenses? (Eles podem não correr o risco que os habitantes de Gaza estão dispostos a correr); E o que há de errado com o sistema bancário? (“Todos nós sabemos que cobrar juros das pessoas às quais você empresta dinheiro é pecaminoso”).
Em Gaza, Uqab me disse, não há Venmo, nem PayPal e nenhuma maneira fácil de fazer transações com o mundo exterior. A infraestrutura financeira está entrando em colapso tanto quanto a infraestrutura física e social. Mas hoje, ele pode fazer com o Bitcoin o que antes era impossível: enviar e receber dinheiro de e para a família no exterior, de forma rápida, direta, quase sem taxas.
Para pagamentos internacionais, Uqab disse anteriormente um remetente no O Golfo ou os EUA teriam de enviar dinheiro por meio de uma conta bancária em um país como a China ou a Tailândia, com o dinheiro acabando indo parar em um escritório monetário em Gaza.
“Muitos intermediários tomariam sua parte”, disse ele, deixando o destinatário com apenas uma porcentagem do que foi originalmente enviado. Além disso, disse ele, hoje, os escritórios da Western Union começaram a pedir provas de relações de sangue, e os interrogatórios e confiscos são frequentes.
“Com o Bitcoin”, disse Uqab,”eu não preciso passar em todos os testes ou marcar qualquer caixa. Eu posso simplesmente usar. ”
Hoje, ele pode receber ou ganhar dinheiro diretamente, além das fronteiras, e ser seu próprio banco em um novo sistema financeiro.
“É muito melhor”, disse ele, orgulhosamente me dizendo que se sente, pelo menos em algum nível,”ponto a ponto”com outras pessoas no mundo.
“Com o Bitcoin, estamos seguindo com nossas vidas”, disse ele. “Inshallah, mais palestinos descobrirão essa tecnologia.”
Uqab ainda não conseguiu deixar Gaza. Mas, pelo menos por enquanto, ele é capaz de economizar no ciberespaço, mantendo seu dinheiro protegido das autoridades. É uma grande inovação, do tipo que os palestinos precisam desesperadamente.
Na cobertura constante de seu sofrimento político-presos pela ocupação militar israelense, as táticas de terror do Hamas, a Autoridade Palestina corrupta e um mundo amplamente indiferente-sua política monetária e a situação econômica freqüentemente não é contada. Mas o dinheiro está na raiz de suas lutas.
Os palestinos não têm controle de sua moeda. Sua falta de soberania econômica prejudicou profundamente seu crescimento e perspectivas para o futuro. Mas muitos como Uqab estão recorrendo ao Bitcoin como uma forma de obter liberdade financeira.
II. A History of Financial Repression
Mais de 30 anos depois de seu artigo de 1987 sobre Gaza, Sarah Roy refletiu que“ os eventos reduziram os palestinos a uma questão humanitária, privados (e indigno) dos direitos políticos e econômicos e dependente da comunidade internacional para seu sustento, onde a ajuda, e não o progresso, torna-se a principal, senão a única opção política. ” Ela escreveu que “os palestinos veem o presente como melhor do que o futuro.”
Muitas razões para esse desespero estão ligadas à sua situação financeira e econômica, onde os palestinos se tornaram profundamente dependentes do mundo exterior, mas isolados ao mesmo tempo. Mas o tema do dinheiro em si é marginalizado e às vezes ignorado no presente discurso. Por exemplo, em uma relatório sobre Israel e Palestina publicado em abril de 2021 pela Human Rights Watch, as questões de moeda, bancos, remessas e comércio praticamente não foram mencionadas. O Protocolo de Paris-um documento extremamente importante assinado em 1994 que ainda determina as regras do dinheiro e da economia para os palestinos-estava completamente ausente.
Para cavar mais fundo, temos que fazer novas perguntas. Por que a economia palestina é tão dependente da economia israelense? Por que os palestinos usam o shekel e não sua própria moeda? Por que os palestinos não podem facilmente fazer pedidos na Amazon ou receber dinheiro do exterior? Para saber mais, conversei com o economista político palestino Alaa Tartir.
Tartir, que agora mora na Suíça com sua família, nasceu em Ramallah e credita seus dias de trabalho quando adolescente por seu interesse em dinheiro. Quando ele tinha 14 anos, ele começou a trabalhar longos turnos em uma mercearia para sustentar sua família e economizar para sua educação. Ele não podia tomar nada como garantido e era totalmente autossuficiente. Isso o motivou a continuar trabalhando por sete anos até terminar a graduação em finanças e contabilidade.
Enquanto isso, ele cresceu estudando o sistema econômico ao seu redor. Ele estava”lidando com aristocratas e elites”, disse ele, e começou a entender como a Autoridade Palestina explorou sua posição e desviou ajuda e outras receitas para enriquecer, enquanto conluiava com o governo israelense para deixar o palestino médio no frio.
Tartir me guiou pela história econômica e monetária da Palestina moderna, que geralmente é ignorada ou, pelo menos, fica em segundo plano em relação à história política mais conhecida.
“Está basicamente escondido”, disse ele, “embora o domínio do ator israelense sobre o ator palestino esteja arraigado em tudo, desde o uso do siclo até a forma como o governo israelense coleta nossa renda no exterior para como não temos banco central. ”
Ele disse que o dinheiro é indiscutivelmente a força motriz por trás do motivo pelo qual os palestinos estão onde estão hoje, onde a ocupação, a corrupção e a guerra levaram ao desdesenvolvimento e à estagnação civilizacional e a erosão do estoque de capital.
Começamos nos anos após o início da ocupação militar israelense em 1967, quando suas políticas inicialmente pareciam ajudar os palestinos de uma perspectiva econômica. O comércio se abriu com outras nações árabes, e os palestinos puderam trabalhar cada vez mais em Israel por salários mais altos do que poderiam ganhar em casa.
Mas isso era com uma agenda maior. Nos anos 60, 70 e 80, o governo israelense projetou um sistema de ocupação que incentivava os palestinos a trabalhar em Israel e os impedia de desenvolver uma base de manufatura, aumentando a dependência das importações israelenses. Nas duas décadas de 1968 a 1987, a parcela industrial do PIB nos Territórios Palestinos Ocupados (OPT) (Cisjordânia, Jerusalém Oriental e Faixa de Gaza) caiu de 9% para 7%. Em 1970, havia 59.000 trabalhadores agrícolas na OPT, perfazendo 5,4% da população, comparados para apenas 54.000 ou 2,3% da população em 1993.
Tartir explicou que nas décadas de 1970 e 1980, a dependência de Israel tornou-se quase total, pois seus produtos excedido 90 % das importações de OPT, tornando os palestinos o segundo maior comprador de produtos israelenses, depois dos americanos. Como o estudioso econômico israelense Shir Hever escreveu , “O principal fonte de renda para os palestinos tornou-se remessas de trabalhadores palestinos… em 1974, um terço da força de trabalho palestina já estava empregada em Israel… muitos agricultores palestinos abandonaram suas terras para trabalhar em Israel, e as autoridades israelenses aproveitaram-se disso e confiscou terras que permaneceram sem cultivo por um certo período de tempo. ” Este é evidenciado por como “a produtividade agrícola palestina [caiu] drasticamente de 53% do PIB em 1967 para 13% no final da década de 1980.”
Em meados da década de 1980, a economia palestina o crescimento começou a desacelerar. O colapso do preço do petróleo e a inflação extrema em Israel fizeram com que as remessas palestinas do exterior caíssem. Em 1987, após uma enorme frustração política e depois que sua crescente qualidade de vida estagnou, os palestinos se levantaram em um movimento descentralizado voltado para a auto-soberania, conhecido como Intifada.
De acordo com o cientista político Tariq Dana , a Intifada era uma “guerra econômica” em duas partes :“ A primeira buscou prejudicar os interesses econômicos israelenses na OPT por meio de táticas de desobediência civil, como greves comerciais, boicote a produtos israelenses, retenção de impostos pagamento e recusando-se a trabalhar nos mercados e assentamentos israelenses… o segundo envolveu os palestinos adotando modelos domésticos de economia doméstica e de vizinhança para garantir a sobrevivência e a autossuficiência. ”
Inicialmente, disse Tartir, o governo israelense lucrou da ocupação. Os impostos cobrados superaram as despesas; Israel foi inundado por trabalhadores de baixa renda; obteve um mercado cativo para exportações de baixa qualidade; e poderia explorar, a preços abaixo do mercado, os recursos naturais do OPT. A intifada conseguiu tornar a ocupação muito mais cara para Israel-depois do início dos anos 1990, ela não deu mais lucro e se tornou um empreendimento caro-mas o levante não conseguiu alcançar a independência real para os palestinos.
III. O Protocolo de Paris
Em 29 de abril de 1994, delegados da Organização para a Libertação da Palestina (OLP) e do governo israelense se reuniram na França para assinar um documento raramente discutido chamado”Protocolo sobre Relações Econômicas”, também conhecido como o “Protocolo de Paris”.
Essa reunião fazia parte dos Acordos de Oslo, um processo de paz apoiado internacionalmente por meio do qual os palestinos receberam autonomia política. Oslo marcou o fim da intifada e o início da Autoridade Palestina (AP) e seu processo de construção do Estado. Isso desencadeou a era da ajuda externa para os palestinos, já que anteriormente os doadores relutavam em financiar Israel quando este era uma potência de ocupação direta. Mais notavelmente, ganhou o presidente da AP Yassir Arafat e os primeiros-ministros israelenses Shimon Peres e Yizhak Rabin o Prêmio Nobel da Paz por”esforços para criar paz no Oriente Médio”.
Por que o governo israelense abriria mão do controle total em relação ao OPT, cargo que ocupou nos 25 anos anteriores? A resistência palestina e a pressão internacional e doméstica foram fatores primários, é claro, mas Tartir acredita que uma das principais razões foi a capacidade de ser visto como um”presente”de autonomia política para a OLP por meio da criação da AP, enquanto na verdade retém o controle econômico nos bastidores por meio de o Protocolo de Paris.
Hoje, o Protocolo de Paris ainda orienta a política monetária, fiscal, tributária, agrícola, de seguros, industrial e trabalhista palestina, bem como o turismo e o comércio com Israel. Era para impulsionar o comércio palestino, permitir que a AP estabelecer um setor público formal e gerar receita fiscal de seus cidadãos e aumentar as oportunidades de emprego.
Mas, de acordo com Tartir, o processo de Oslo apenas alimentou um consumista cultura e aumento da dependência. “A liberdade individual e a soberania econômica”, disse ele, “foram sacrificadas por Arafat e seus comparsas para ganho pessoal”.
O protocolo era para ser temporário-deveria durar apenas cinco anos até 1999-mas permanece em vigor 28 anos depois. O documento decretou que os palestinos não teriam banco central, nem moeda própria. Em vez disso, eles obteriam a “Autoridade Monetária Palestina” (PMA), que foi erroneamente nomeada, porque não tinha nenhuma.
Israel controlaria a política monetária palestina e seu sistema bancário. O Novo Shekel israelense teria curso legal obrigatório na Cisjordânia e na Faixa de Gaza. Os bancos denominariam depósitos e empréstimos em shekels. A PMA teria discrição sobre os requisitos de reserva , mas pouco mais. Qualquer mudança neste sistema exigiria uma votação da Comissão Econômica Conjunta-uma meta organização que ao longo dos anos caiu em dormência e controle israelense.
Ao assinar o Protocolo de Paris, o governo israelense consolidou o seguinte:
Controle sobre a quantidade de alfândegas taxas, IVA e impostos de importação cobrados sobre bens que vão para a Cisjordânia ou Gaza, e a dedução de uma taxa de”processamento”de 3% para pagamentos liberados para o PAT; a capacidade de tornar os bens palestinos artificialmente caros, impedindo-os de competir com os bens israelenses, forçando os palestinos a importar e permitindo a Israel um mercado especializado para exportar produtos de alta margem e de baixa qualidade que não poderiam ser vendidos em outro lugar. Controle sobre a política comercial, dando a Israel poder de veto sobre quais mercadorias entram na Cisjordânia ou Gaza, limitando qualquer coisa considerada”dupla uso ”que poderia ser utilizado pelos militares, inclusive ng medicina e combustível. Isso é aplicado com a ajuda do governo egípcio. A capacidade de coletar impostos de renda e transferências sociais dos palestinos que trabalham em Israel ou nos assentamentos, que o governo israelense”libera”uma vez por mês para a Autoridade Palestina, permitindo atrasar pagamentos, cobrar juros sobre o capital em seu sistema bancário e até usá-lo para pagar dívidasSocial impostos de segurança, taxas sindicais e impostos de segurança foram impostos aos trabalhadores palestinos, mas eles não receberam os benefícios.
O impacto coletivo das reformas do Protocolo de Paris pode ser visto em uma estatística simples, mas chocante: setor manufatureiro da Palestina diminuiu de 19% para 10% entre 1994 e 2011.
Tartir disse que esta dependência externa coloca os palestinos em uma situação difícil de ser porque é tão difícil conseguir fundos do exterior de volta para casa. “Se eu quiser transferir qualquer quantia de dinheiro de Genebra para Ramallah”, disse Tartir, “tem que passar por um banco correspondente de Israel.”
“Como exportador ou importador palestino, você não pode fazer nada sozinho ”, disse ele. “Você precisa contar com uma contraparte israelense para ajudá-lo a executar seu comércio. Você não pode ter seu próprio espaço nos portos israelenses. Este elemento de contraparte forçada não apenas aumenta o custo de cada transação, mas também beneficia a economia israelense. Mas não temos escolha. ”
Em média, entre 1997 e 2017, pagamentos de compensação controlados por Israel e fluxos de ajuda externa constituíram 72% da receita total do PA.
Tartir também aponta a falta de fintech na Palestina. “Em Ramallah, não temos PayPal, nem TransferWise, nem Venmo, nem Revolut. Se você quer receber dinheiro do exterior, precisa ir buscar o dinheiro na Western Union ”, disse ele.
Ele explicou que até a Western Union costumava ser mais flexível e estava disponível em lojas de todo o mundo na Cisjordânia, mas devido às medidas de combate ao terrorismo, esses pagamentos agora só podem ser recebidos por meio de um ou dois bancos. Eles podem levar tempo-muitas vezes dias ou até semanas se forem sinalizados como suspeitos pela Autoridade Monetária Palestina-e são extremamente caros: uma remessa de $ 500 pode custar $ 30 ou $ 40.
Mas essa é a melhor opção se ele quer enviar dinheiro da Europa para a Cisjordânia hoje. Uma transferência bancária é um processo muito mais difícil, disse ele. E, de qualquer forma, enviar qualquer coisa acima de US $ 10.000 é “praticamente impossível”.
Um relatório da ONU de 2019 estimou que o custo fiscal total da ocupação para os palestinos de 2000 a 2017 foi de $ 47,7 bilhões, ou três vezes o PIB de 2017 da OPT. O relatório concluiu que 3,7% do PIB palestino vaza anualmente para o tesouro israelense como resultado dos mecanismos estabelecidos pelo Protocolo de Paris.
O que foi lançado como um passo em direção à independência palestina foi, na verdade, um conjunto de regras e políticas que aumentaram a dependência palestina da ajuda externa e da economia israelense. Israel gave responsibility over millions of Palestinians to the PA, but did not give up control of monetary policy, banking, natural resources, transport and borders.
As a result, even though the 1990s were boom years for Israel, the Palestinian economy contracted. Despite hope from the Oslo peace deal, the Palestinian standard of living fell during the following decades, according to some estimates, declining as much as 40% by 2008.
In September 2000, triggered by Ariel Sharon’s visit to the Al-Aqsa Mosque and a drinking water crisis in Gaza, a second Intifada began. The Israeli reaction was harsh, and ultimately devastating for the Palestinian economy.
According to the World Bank, between 2000 and 2003, Israeli restricted the number of West Bank Palestinians permitted to work in Israel by 53%, and Gazans by a staggering 86%. As a result, Palestinian per capita GDP dropped by 40%, surpassing the decline felt during the 2001 financial collapse in Argentina and the U.S. Great Depression in the 1930s.
IV. The Dependency Problem
Taken all together, the Paris Protocol restrictions have led to a chronic Palestinian balance of payments deficit. Typically when a nation finds itself in such a situation, it has a few options. First, it can print more money, devaluing the currency. But Palestine has no monetary discretion, no central bank, no way to do debt monetization, and no way to print money. A second option is drawing down reserves. But given its lack of monetary independence, it has few reserves. Third, would be to borrow through debt financing. But since Palestine is not a nation, few want its debt. So the fourth option is foreign aid.
Palestine has become dependent on foreign aid to function. If the aid checks do not arrive, the government often cannot finance the public budget. Since 1993, more than $40 billion has been spent in the West Bank and Gaza Strip by international donors, making Palestinians one of the highest per-capita recipients of aid in the world.
According to Tartir, “Palestinians have been forced to live in an aid-development paradox: large amounts of aid associated with a downward decline in socioeconomic and human development indicators. In cases like Gaza, those declines have been dystopian.”
Despite all of the aid, unemployment and poverty and debt are up; per capita income is down; the economic base deteriorated; costs of living and food insecurity are up; and the promised foreign investment has not materialized.
A 2010 analysis by Nikki Tillekens showed that 71% of aid to Palestinians ended up in the Israeli economy.
“Of the more than 12 billion dollars of foreign aid given to the Palestinians between 2000 and 2008,” she wrote, “8.7 billion dollars ended up in the Israeli economy.”
International donors are, Tartir said, whether they know it or not, helping to preserve this status quo.
Each year, Washington supplies Israel with $3.8 billion of aid, and remains by far Israel’s primary market for exports and source of imports. This makes for a bizarre situation where even though the Palestinians are highly dependent on aid, Israelis receive much more of it per capita. Before 1999, U.S. foreign aid covered the entire cost of the occupation.
Today, the U.S. still heavily subsidizes the occupation in an arrangement Shir Hever called a “profitable venture” where Israeli receives payments in dollars, but builds walls and pays troops in shekels. As a result, the foreign currency reserves in the Israeli central bank increase, which can be used to pay for trade deficits or to strengthen the shekel, which has appreciated against the dollar 25% over the past 20 years. Hever argued that the Israeli government goes to great lengths to protect this mechanism, even theorizing that a main motivation behind its attack on Gaza in 2008 was to stop an outflow of shekels that was pouring into Egypt through underground tunnels, in effect draining Israeli reserves.
The U.S. government also supports the Egyptian military dictatorship, the Jordanian king and the Saudi tyranny, who all work in concert with Israel to oppose threats from Iran and its allies in the region. Even with their nuclear arsenal, Israelis are understandably wary about the Iranian threat of annihilation, as it is not an idle one. Especially when one considers Israel’s history, where it was attacked upon its independence from all sides. So it would be naive for Palestinians to expect outside support for Israel to end anytime soon.
Supporters of the status quo insist that it is just a matter of time, and that with continued gradual improvements in Palestinian standards of living, that peace will one day come. This idea dates back to the 1970s and the Carter administration, which thought that “happy” Palestinians, “who had steady employment and a functioning administrative structure, would be willing to negotiate for a settlement while under occupation.” The result of this philosophy was to de-link economic aid from sovereignty.
Many Israeli, American and European officials and donors vehemently disagree, and say that they are doing their best to help support a vulnerable Palestinian population under the thumb of corrupt and violent leaders who pose a threat to regional stability.
Tartir also blames the PA for preserving the status quo. As we speak, he said, it is repressing protestors because it does not want anyone to disrupt the deal it has, where its inner circle benefits from cooperating with the Israeli government in running a broken rentier state.
V. Yasser Arafat’s Legacy of Corruption
Fadi Elsalamaeen is a Palestinian democracy advocate. As we spoke on the phone, he told me that Palestinians were protesting in huge numbers against President Mahmood Abbas, who has ruled the west Bank for 16 years. Elsalameen called him “extremely corrupt.”
Yasser Arafat’s kleptocracy was legendary: He was estimated to be worth billions, large chunks of which he plucked out of flows of income coming from the backs of Palestinian workers in Israel, and diverted to his own bank accounts, or to French accounts belonging to his wife.
Elsalameen said that Abbas has now followed in Arafat’s footsteps, where Abbas and family have used their political power to build an empire in industries like insurance, telecommunications, construction and tobacco. According to leaked documents from the Panama Papers, Abbas and his two sons “used power and influence to control the two major Palestinian economic boards (Arab Palestinian Investment Company, Palestinian Investment Fund) and built a West Bank economic empire worth more than $300 million.”
Abbas’s son Yasser owns Falcon Tobacco, which holds a monopoly over the sale of U.S.-made cigarettes in the West Bank. According to Elsalameen, Abbas raised taxes so high on West Bank tobacco producers, to benefit his own import business, that they collapsed. Critics have accused Abbas of pilfering hundreds of millions of dollars of Palestinian state money for personal gain. A 2016 poll showed that 95.5% of Palestinians viewed him as corrupt. He continues to rule by decree.
“I hate Hamas more than Abbas,” Elsalameen said, “but we have to target the head of the pyramid scheme here in the West Bank.”
Elsalameen told me that a reliance on foreign aid has made it so that the PA is less accountable to the people, and has also created a special elite class, separate from the rest of society. Public revenues, he said, have propped up this system for decades. In 2015,”only 16% of the PA’s annual budget was spent on education, nine percent on health and one percent on agriculture,” according to Al Jazeera, but 26% was spent on the security sector, which, Elsalameen said, often targets Palestinians.
Recent protests regard a case where Abbas had activist Nizar Banat, one of his fiercest critics, killed.
“His thugs,” Elsalameen said, “went at night and abducted Banat from his home and beat him to death with clubs. Abbas gave them complete immunity. So the family of the victim said: ‘We’re going to protest until he leaves.’ And then everyone else joined them on the streets.”
Thousands marched across the West Bank and demanded an “overthrow of the regime,” Elsalameen said, in scenes that reminded some of the Arab Spring a decade ago. But Abbas continues to survive. Elsalameen said Abbas stays in power by tell ing the Israelis, Americans and the World Bank: If you do not have me in power, you’re going to have Hamas.
“That’s how Abbas gets them to protect him,” he said. “He is their client.”
Elsalameen pointed to the failed protests and said that politics is proving of limited use to the Palestinian struggle. “You can only get so far with the ballot box,” he said.
When asked about Bitcoin, he said, “Yes, we can start fighting back peacefully with Bitcoin. It’s something that any young Palestinian can do. You give up price stability, perhaps, but in return you get freedom.”
A challenge, he said, is that “we have to get people to know about it.” It’s a new, weird concept, he said. But once people understand, he has no doubt they will use it. “It’s an upgrade over today,” he said, “where people keep cash under a mattress, or where they wait a month to receive a payment from their family abroad.”
Bitcoin could also fight corruption, he thinks.
“Today, if you bribe the payment authorities, they will let your wire go through faster,” he said. “They grow fat on this. That could end with Bitcoin.”
He noted that in the young generation, many Palestinians are already buying bitcoin.
“They don’t have the S&P 500,” he said.
Elsalameen thinks the fact that both the Israelis and the PA are criticizing Bitcoin is a good thing.
“That’s how you know it’s going to help the average Palestinian,” he said.
VI. From Banking To Bitcoin In Ramallah
With average daily wages at 264 shekels in Israel, compared to 123 shekels in the West Bank, who could blame Palestinians for seeking a higher income elsewhere, even if by doing so they deepen their own dependence?
Given this reality, I asked Alaa Tartir what a decolonial Palestinian economy would look like.
“It’s a future project,” said Tartir, depressingly. “It’s nothing very close.”
He did say that there has long been an idea in the Palestinian discourse of a “resistance economy” which would allow them to stay, resist and gain sovereignty. After the second Intifada, the Arab-Israeli author Azmi Bishara “lamented the lack of a single Palestinian bank, insurance company or printing press, and called on Palestinian investors to ‘begin to think of local economic ventures with their own structures, market, and labor.”
But, Tartir said, they have always been reliant on the shekel and the Israeli financial rails, and “have always lacked the tool to make this happen.”
A Palestinian former banker named Abuwedad thinks Bitcoin can be this tool. He did not want to give his real name for our interview, but spoke to me from his home in Ramallah, where he recently left his job after seven years in the industry. By the time he quit, he was a deputy financial manager for a major bank servicing the West Bank and Jordan. He left because he had grown sick over his personal role in spreading what he considers a financial disease hurting Palestinians: too much borrowing.
“The whole system,” he said,”has been based for the last 15 years on making people borrow much more than what they can afford.”
Even worse, he said, the loans are not used to start businesses or build infrastructure, but are spent on weddings, cars or apartments downtown. According to policy researcher Yara Harari, “over the past 10 years, car loans have jumped sixfold from $40m in 2008 to $250m. Thus, Ramallah… could easily be mistaken for a prosperous city with middle-class neighborhoods full of plush villas and shiny BMWs. But this is just a facade.”
Abuwedad said that with all the easy money — and with no Robinhood, no E-Trade and no access to the world’s top stock markets — people have piled into real estate. Between 1994 and 2016, 80% of Palestinian capital formation was in b uildings. This has made costs “surreal.” It could be $100,000 for a small apartment, he said, or $1,000,000 for 1,000 square meters of land, all in a place where the GDP per capita is somewhere around $3,500.
He said that banks are guilty of helping Palestinians increase their reliance on Israel, and decrease their own sovereignty. This is as a result of reforms brought in 2007 by then-Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, which Abuwedad said “prioritized consumerism over independence.”
The laws “required banks operating in Palestine to extend 40% of their credit locally… credit facilities skyrocketed from $1.3 billion in 2008 to $7.1 billion in 2018, a 450% increase,” according to “Political Economy Of Palestine, a new collection of essays edited by Alaa Tartir and others.
“Consider a member of the Palestinian security forces making $600 per month,” Abuwedad said. “They can now take a monthly loan 5 times or even 10 times their salary, and with 10% down in cash buy a fancy 120 square meter apartment in Ramallah.”
The banks are happy, of course, as they can make $200,000 over 25 years on every $100,000 they give out. But the people are now indebted, oftentimes for their entire lives. This is the reality now, Abuwedad said, for huge segments of Palestinian society that have borrowed to finance not just apartments but all kinds of personal goods.
Very little borrowing, he wrote, goes into industry, agriculture or entrepreneurship. In 2008, only 7% of credit was used for agriculture and manufacturing, versus 33% for “cars, credit cards, and consumption goods,” per “Political Economy Of Palestine.”
“It’s the same policies that many decades ago forced us away from creating an industrial base and made us reliant on external powers,” Abuwedad said, “just dressed up in new clothes of “state building” and “economic empowerment.”
Today, all Palestinians still look forward to freedom, he said, but the system “makes it much more difficult to focus on that ultimate goal and distracts them with immediate financial concerns.” People, he said, “are living paycheck to paycheck to pay back loans and enrich the bankers instead of saving and investing for their future.”
After leaving his job in banking, Abuwedad worked for a tech company in Ramallah for a few years, then tried to start a business with friends in the online gaming industry. He believes Palestinians can be competitive in eSports — even though they are not today — and that gaming can help with cooperation, team-building, increasing personal dignity and connecting with people abroad. However, there are so many obstacles, mainly, that the internet is not good enough (despite it being blazing fast a few miles away in Israel) and that computers are so expensive.
Abuwedad points to a laptop that might cost $1,500 in the U.S. or in Israel, and said that if he wants to buy the same thing in Palestine, it will cost as much as $3,500. At first glance, one might assume that because Israelis and Palestinians use the same currency, that inflation of the shekel would damage them equally. Abuwedad walked me through why that is not the case.
“When Palestinian imports arrive in Israel,” Abuwedad said, “they get taxed, then they cost money to store as they have to wait to be sent into the West Bank, as truck schedules are very restricted. Along the way, inventory often gets stolen. Then, local sellers mark up the goods to cover their own taxes and profits. By the time the laptop is sold in Ramallah, it could be two-to-three times more expensive than in Tel Aviv, even though everyone is using the same currency.”
Another account said that it took on average “38 days” for Palestinian traders to import and sell goods, while their Israeli counterparts could do it in 10 days. This led to an average cost per transaction of three times as much in Ramallah as in Tel Aviv. This aggressive inflation, Abuwedad said, is true for many consumer products.
“If we could import directly,” he said, “then it would be much cheaper.” He blamed the Paris Protocol, which he said is “outdated” and has not been updated in almost 30 years despite the fact that the world has changed dramatically.
Israeli and Palestinian inflation tracked together through the 1980s, when the shekel crash decimated Palestinian purchasing power, and through the 1990s. But they split after the second Intifada in October 2000. Israel experienced deflation, but the Palestinians experienced stagflation with a fall in income and a rise in prices. Palestinian purchasing power began to massively trail Israeli purchasing power. Shir Hever notes that by 2008, “the same product would have been 32% more expensive in a Palestinian city than in an Israeli city.”
Abuwedad’s plans to get out of this trap through starting a company were foiled by the COVID-19 pandemic, which he said hit the West Bank particularly hard, depressing economic activity. In the time since, he has gotten very into Bitcoin. He said there is a whole community in the West Bank and Gaza, now getting involved. I mentioned to him that global adoption of Bitcoin today is roughly around the same level as it was for the internet in 1997 — about 200 million people, or 2% of the population. He thinks that’s probably the percentage of Palestinians who are using Bitcoin, and said that will grow quickly in the coming years.
But how do Palestinians buy bitcoin?
“We always find the holes,” Abuwedad said.
He told me about a loophole, where the Palestinian Monetary Authority will block transactions from local bank accounts trying to buy cryptocurrency on exchanges. But there’s one exception, the tether stablecoin (USDT). He thinks that because Tether is linked to the dollar, they have let it slide, and so purchases of tether on platforms like Binance go unblocked. Abuwedad said that almost everyone he knows gets into cryptocurrency through tether. From there, he said, they may buy bitcoin as a savings instrument, or stay in tether as a “checking” account. He said that some people also go around the banking system entirely and use Telegram or Facebook groups to coordinate to buy tether or bitcoin in a peer-to-peer way.
Abuwedad seems to know that tether is not an ideal solution. But it works for now, he said. We discussed the idea that in the near future, Palestinians could have Lightning wallets that are “pegged” to a fiat currency like the dollar, and could use those instead of having to rely on tether. He did not know much about Lightning, but during our WhatsApp call, I showed him how to download a Muun wallet, and sent him $5 via Lightning.
“That was really fast,” he said, impressed by the instant transfer from Boston, where I was staying, to Ramallah. I told him there were virtually no fees either, and that got him even more excited. We took a moment to reflect on the fact that it is such a struggle for Palestinians to move money from one place to another, and discussed how game-changing Bitcoin is: from thousands of miles away, I sent him money and we did not have to deal with any customs police, delays, red flags, confiscations or VAT. The Israeli government did not get a cut, and neither did the PA.
He thinks stable Lightning wallets could be huge for Palestinians: a bank account where you do not need any ID, where you control your own funds, where you can transact instantly anywhere in the world for virtually no fees, and where you can choose to peg the value to the dollar or keep your money natively in bitcoin. “That’s the dream,” he said.
Abuwedad considers Bitcoin a peaceful protest against a corrupt, exploitative and centralized financial system: one that he saw from the inside during his career as a banker. The obstacle, according to Abuwedad, is that only a small number of Palestinians are using Bitcoin today.
“Most see it as an investment,” he said, “and not as a currency.”
It will take time, he said, for it to become a mass movement. Education, he said, is very important.
“People have a lot of questions, but over time, they learn, and they use,” he said.
He’s seen reports lately of the Palestinian Authority launching its own digital currency, but he does not think people will trust it. If anything, he said, it may encourage more people to use Bitcoin.
“If we want to make Bitcoin our way to say no to the world, to live free from the Oslo and Paris agreements, then we need to start using it in daily life. And that will take time,” he said.
“We all know,” he said, “that the international community will not give us freedom. So we must take it on our own.”
He told me that he chose the name Abuwedad as Wedad is the name he would call his daughter, if he eventually has one. And maybe, he said, she will grow up in a Bitcoin world.
VII. The New Resistance Economy
Kefah Abukhdeir is a third generation Palestinian-American. She grew up in Atlanta, but settled with her husband in East Jerusalem, and works as an educator.
Abukhdeir’s family originally left Jerusalem when it was under Ottoman rule, fleeing conscription to the U.S. and South America, but retained ties to the homeland. Her father returned to Palestine and became an outspoken dissident against the presence of the Jordanians in the West Bank in the 1960s. Eventually he left for good to the US, where he went to Georgia Tech and started a family in the American south. Like her family before her, Abukhdeir went back to the West Bank to Birzeit University in the late 1990s to learn Arabic. She ended up earning an education degree and eventually moved to East Jerusalem.
“If you want to break a Palestinian mother’s heart,” she said, “tell her that her child is going to study business or agriculture.” To achieve actual independence, she thinks, these two fields are critical, but it is discouraged or even shunned. It is a result, she said, of indigenous economic progress being seen as a “waste of time.”
Abukhdeir has spent the last decade working in education with Palestinian youth, with U.S. State Department programs and through Edureach, an organization that provides for teacher training and extracurricular programs for kids. There, she faced a dilemma: to be more competitive, the students have to learn English and go to school in Israel. She knows this continues to prolong the situation where Palestinians remain dependent on the world around them, and that it boosts the economy in Israel, but she wants the best future for the children, who want to be as employable as possible. “We stay up all night debating this,” she said.
“I started to feel guilty because I felt like I was facilitating brain drain,” she said. “If the kids are successful, they’ll go to college in Israel or the U.S., and they don’t want to come back.” They are then overqualified for jobs in Palestine. Best case, they could end up working for an NGO or foreign entity, like her. “We aren’t really part of the local economy,” she said. “We aren’t helping to reinvest.”
Her experience encapsulates the dilemma for many Palestinians since 1967. You could stay at home, or you could go work in Israel for higher wages and do more for your family. But you made a tradeoff, bringing economic activity and development there, instead of back home.
“Independence is financial,” Abukhdeir told me. “If we don’t have financial freedom, nothing is going to change.”
Abukhdeir pointed out that the currency usage in Palestine has varied over time. People still use the Jordanian dinar, as well as U.S. dollars, but lately, she said, the shekel has become even more popular, even in Gaza.
“Easily 80%” of your daily transactions are in shekels,” she said. This means that nearly every transaction a Palestinian makes “is supporting and deepening reliance on Israel.”
Growing up in Atlanta, she said that she learned a lot about the American civil rights movement, and studied similar movements in South Africa and Ireland.
“One of the first things they’d do,” she said, “is set up an independent economy. But we don’t have that. We just have red flags, confiscations and taxes that pay for benefits that we don’t even receive.”
Recently Abukhdeir started spending time at tech hubs in Ramallah and Jerusalem. There, she said, she was introduced to “tech colonialism.” Here, Israelis would come into recruit the best and the brightest, but there were no Palestinian companies recruiting.
“We’re creating a labor force for the ongoing occupation,” she said. “Tech is important because we need a plan that does not require raw resources. We can’t own land, we can’t manufacture — so what can we do?”
To make a change, Abukhdeir is looking at Bitcoin. She is part of a movement that will try to map the Palestinian business ecosystem, both Palestinian-owned businesses in Israel, as well as enterprises in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, and encourage new practices.
The idea is, if you’re a Palestinian-owned business, you can offer to take bitcoin for payment. It would, she said, spark curiosity, launch a circular economy, encourage more people to learn about Bitcoin, and teach them more about how money works.
“This,” she said, “is how we could end our reliance on the shekel.”
Today, Abukhdeir has teachers working for her in Gaza. She says that paying them is hugely complicated. “I can’t use PayPal, even though I’m a dual Israeli-American citizen. Even with my financial privilege, it’s hard to do,” she said.
She describes how she might take money out of her Israeli account through an ATM, deposit it in a Palestinian bank — which she could only open with her American passport — and then she can make a wire to the teacher’s account. This takes time and is expensive. But with Bitcoin, she said, she can send value instantly to the teacher in Gaza.
She said that she’s still putting the future picture together in her head.
“With Bitcoin, you could build a company that’s totally independent, where you don’t have to use a PA bank, and where you don’t have to rely on the shekel and the Israeli economy,” she said.
Abukhdeir thinks that change will ultimately come only through “huge amounts of violence or huge amounts of economic activity” and thinks the latter is the only way to find success. “We can’t settle for a half-baked solution,” she said, pointing to how the Oslo process failed.
“We need to escape completely,” she said. “If we don’t opt out of the currency, we are just going to end up strengthening the system.”
VIII. The Israeli Bitcoin Community
It is clear that some in the Palestinian community view Bitcoin as a way forward. But what about their Israeli counterparts? For background, I spoke to several Israeli Bitcoiners on the condition of anonymity.
Some are worried about the political environment in Israel right now. Some say it’s “not that bad,” but one entrepreneur told me that it is risky to do anything that could be described as “left-wing” (such as helping Palestinians through Bitcoin) and that it is getting harder and harder to speak one’s mind.
“The sentiment is getting worse by the day,” he said. “It reminds me of bad days in world history.”
He went on: “It makes it hard to think about a bright future here. It’s a huge dilemma about whether to even stay in the country.”
But while he said connecting with Palestinians about Bitcoin use has not been a topic or priority at the meetups in Tel Aviv so far — “never,” he said — he thinks it could be successful.
He said Bitcoin continues to build bridges, not walls. And when he stopped to think about how Israelis could actually extend freedom to Palestinians, Bitcoin could be a way.
“It’s not fake freedom,” he said, “like the kind we have tried to give before.”
“I’m here for coexistence,” the entrepreneur said. “I want a single state solution. I want one country with bitcoin as the currency, with the same rules for everyone. How Bitcoin can help create this atmosphere of co-existence is very important. It’s not about creating two states: it’s about reducing the power of the state.”
IX. An Israeli Settler’s View On Bitcoin
Many Israeli Bitcoiners are relatively progressive, and even sympathetic with the idea of helping Palestinians with open-source money. But what about nationalist Zionists? Or even settlers? Surprisingly, at least one of them is trying to promote Bitcoin in Palestine.
Jonathan Caras is an American tech entrepreneur and Bitcoin advocate who has been living in the West Bank for 10 years.
“I can see Ramallah from outside my window,” he told me as we spoke by video chat.
Today some 14 million individuals — approximately half Jews and half Palestinians — live between the Mediterranean Sea and Jordan River under the economic control of the Israeli government.
On one side in the state of Israel there are nine million citizens living in a robust, if eroding, democratic society. On the other, there is a military occupation of nearly five million Palestinians, now entering its 54th year. A 700-kilometer barrier — which is in many places a literal concrete wall — has been under construction for two decades, and separates the two. Caras and hundreds of thousands of other Israeli settlers live east of this barrier.
According to the Israeli civil rights group B’Tselem, “More than 2.6 million Palestinian subjects live in the West Bank, in dozens of disconnected enclaves, under rigid military rule and without political rights. In about 40% of the territory, Israel has transferred some civilian powers to the PA.” However, it reminds us, even there “the PA is still subordinate to Israel and can only exercise its limited powers with Israel’s consent.”
Sixty-one percent of the West Bank’s territory is classified as Area C — comprised of vast open spaces and farmland — and is directly controlled by the Israeli military. A 1995 agreement decreed that resource-rich Area C would be “gradually transferred to Palestinian jurisdiction” by 1997. But that has not happened. Instead, Palestinians have been prevented from harvesting or investing in this land, and Israeli settlers and companies have increasingly colonized the area.
Israel utilizes many resources in Area C, including solar power for more than 10,000 Israeli homes, water sources and farmland. At the same time, it confiscates Palestinian property. In the past 20 years, Israeli forces have, for example, uprooted more than one million productive Palestinian trees. Israel and Jordan make $4.2 billion per year selling minerals like potash and bromine from the Area C regions around the Dead Sea. A World Bank report states that Palestinians could increase their GDP by almost 10% if they were allowed to invest in this operation, too. In total, the report concludes that Palestinians could increase their GDP by 35% if they were allowed to harness Area C for agriculture, minerals, mining, construction, tourism and telecommunications.
The Israeli military has closed off most of the West Bank to Palestinian civilian access, and has installed checkpoints and barriers to stifle human movement in the remaining Areas A and B. A dizzying array of restrictions — imposed in the name of counter-terrorism — limit the ability of Palestinians to move, build, go abroad, marry, buy property, work and vote to participate in the system that governs them. The technology used to enforce this system is sold by Israeli companies like Candiru, Cellebrite and NSO Group to governments around the world. Marketed as tried and tested in the West Bank and Gaza, these surveillance products are highly sought after and considered world-class.
Hundreds of thousands of Jewish settlers now live permanently in West Bank settlements east of the Green Line, the border established as separating Israel and Palestine after the 1948 war. These settlers are financially incentivized and subsidized to move there by Israeli policies, including tax and housing benefits. In total, there are more than 280 Israeli settlements and a variety of industrial zones in the West Bank, with more than 60 outposts created in the past 10 years, all in contravention of international law. The maps of this shift in control are striking.
When the Oslo process began in 1993, there were a little more than 100,000 Israeli settlers in the West Bank, not counting East Jerusalem. Today, there are more than 475,000.
Caras is one of them. He said he is a “religious Zionist settler.” His goal is to “reinstate the Kingdom of David and build Solomon’s Temple.” Twenty years ago, he first came to Israel, and realized that “the best way for me to fulfill my Biblical obligation is to settle on an empty hilltop in the West Bank.”
In the past few years, Caras has given a number of lectures about “how technology can promote mixed interaction and co-existence.” He said that Bitcoin allows humans to cross borders that previously were impassable: legal, financial, and ideological.
“It allows us to come together,” he said. He sits on the Judea and Samaria Chamber of Commerce, and interacts frequently with Palestinians as part of his role.
He said that if he does business with a Palestinian, that could be a danger to their life. “If I want to start a business with my neighbor, his children could be killed,” said Caras. “So Bitcoin allows us to work together and keep him safe.”
He tells me that he’s seen cars get burned to the ground as a warning message for doing business with Israelis.
Caras argued that Palestinians have actually benefited from the strong shekel, comparing their plight with that of Lebanese, Syrians, Egyptians and others in the region who have suffered from high inflation or hyperinflation. He says Hamas and the PA are corrupt, but that the shekel has partially protected Palestinians from their misrule by providing a reliable unit of account, medium of exchange and store of value.
When I mentioned to him that Palestinians still suffer from significant price inflation, he said “a glass of water is always going to be more expensive in the desert than at Niagara Falls” and said this doesn’t have to do with the money, it has to do with control over the borders and goods and services.
“In the West Bank, Palestinians can’t just get stuff on Amazon,” he said. “There’s always going to be a price discrepancy.”
He said the restrictive economic regime that holds Palestinians back is “stomached” by the Israelis and the international community because of violent threats from Palestinians. “As long as Hamas and the PA are aiming to annihilate the Jewish state, there isn’t a hope for Palestinians to have the same prices as in Tel Aviv,” he said.
Ultimately, though, from a religious perspective, Caras thinks that the shekel and all fiat money will be “viewed as unethical and immoral from an Islamic Judeo-Christian perspective.”
He said that “fiat is rent-seeking, clearly a form of theft, you are paying interest to the government for building your own family’s wealth.”
He contrasted this to commodity-based money, like gold and bitcoin, where “every member of society is equal underneath heaven.”
With Bitcoin, “we all know what the rules are and we know that we can participate without people changing the rules in the future,” he said. “This is not the case when we work in a fiat system, where it’s by nature a two-party system. There’s the oligarchy of fat cats who set the monetary policy and control the flow of funds, and then the peons and serfs who are subject to its enforcement. It’s built into the name ‘fiat’ that we are not equals.”
Caras believes we are “in a messianic era” and that “Biblical prophecies are unfolding” and there’s “a lot of evidence” that Bitcoin falls under those prophecies.
When asked if he thinks the Israeli government will try to ban or restrict Bitcoin as a tool of terror or resistance, he said the Israeli people know that technological innovation and opportunity far outweighs the risks. He said that if Hamas is trying to circumvent banking restrictions by collecting funds in Bitcoin (as the Israeli government has recently alleged, seizing bitcoin on exchanges that it claimed was connected to Hamas), then that is more easily regulated than Caras “paying a gardener or web developer in bitcoin.”
He said the new Israeli prime minister has a background in cybersecurity and entrepreneurship and said a ban is unlikely.
“Banning Bitcoin,” Caras said, “is as ridiculous as banning marijuana. If I have a seed in my pocket, I can plant fields of crops. If I have 12 words in my head, you can’t stop me.”
Caras pointed out that Bitcoin is already much larger by market cap than the shekel today. He thinks countries are going to be forced to add bitcoin to their balance sheets as a reserve asset and make it legal tender, or try to ban or fight Bitcoin, a battle they will lose, and have to buy in later at a higher price.
He is a big critic of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), and talked about how cash is helpful because it is unstoppable and private.
“I would vehemently oppose replacing cash with a CBDC: it’s a form of control,” he said. “It can hurt your business if Twitter freezes your account for 72 hours. It can literally kill your business if there is no cash in society and the government doesn’t like who they saw you holding hands with on a security camera and so they freeze your account.”
But cash, he said, is still subject to debasement, and it hurts people’s ability to save for the long term.
“It will allow for a generation that believes in their ability to invest in themselves and to put money away every month that can be time locked, that can be used as collateral,” he said. “This will have a socio-economic impact, eventually, on a personal and national level for Palestinians and Israelis.”
“I put my money away for my children in Bitcoin,” he added. “I have more faith in Bitcoin than the Central Bank of Israel over the next 20 years. And I’m a big supporter of Israel. Think about that.”.
Caras does agree that paying someone in shekels is a power dynamic.
“That resonates with me,” he said, which is why he always offers to pay people in bitcoin first. “Even if they are just going to dump it,” he said, “first they’ll have to create a wallet, and begin to understand it.”
When asked if he thought Israel might lag behind Palestine in the adoption of Bitcoin, he said he is lobbying the Israeli government to be on the cutting edge. But if Palestinians made the switch to a Bitcoin standard first, he thinks it would cause Israel to “chase after them.”
Caras said he does not view himself as unbiased, and knows that some Palestinians will call him a war criminal, and a “physical representation of all of their hardships.” But, he said, he’s still been able to sit down and geek out about Bitcoin with Palestinians.
“We all want financial sovereignty,” he said. “I am interested in prosperity for everyone, not just the Jews.”
X. The Fight for Sovereignty
Many Palestinians are trying to push back against Israeli settlements, and some view Bitcoin as a possible tool that can aid this effort. To learn more, I spoke to Adam Albarghouthi, who works for the Palestinian Social Fund, an organization that is crowdfunding from the Palestinian diaspora to seed agricultural activities in the West Bank.
Albarghouthi said Palestine is “totally dependent on foreign aid and imports. Our production capacity has dwindled. We don’t have sovereignty.” He believes that the future is in “producing our own food.” His plan is to grow cooperatives across West Bank villages, and launch a new governance paradigm, not dependent on foreign aid or the Palestinian Authority, but one “that the individuals and communities own.”
It is a left-wing vision, for sure. I mentioned to him that there’s also a libertarian Bitcoin community in the U.S. that is trying to achieve agricultural self-sufficiency, to go “off grid,” raise animals and crops, and seek freedom and distance from the federal government.
“At the end of the day,” he said, “we are all human. We are occupied by Israel and what we are seeing now is that an agricultural solution is necessary. The Americans you speak of might be occupied instead by consumerism, but they seek the same thing. It’s two sides of the same coin.”
Achieving agricultural independence is hard. Israeli settlements, Albarghouthi said, are expanding.
“They are cutting us up geographically into Bantustans,” he said. “First they take the hilltops as vantage points, and then they go for the areas with the most fertile soil — for example the region around the Dead Sea — these places are great for growing produce all year round.”
According to B’Tselem, only one-eighth of the land under Palestinian control is even under cultivation because of Israeli’s strict permit regime.
“We must start with what we have,” he said: “the land around our houses. We can start to build a resistance economy that is more and more decentralized.”
Agricultural self-sufficiency was the spirit of the first Intifada, Albarghouthi said, but that was sacrificed by Yasser Arafat and his PLO cronies for money and personal gain.
“We have to try again,” said Albarghouthi.
A big problem Albarghouthi and his team face is that any money going into Palestine is inspected by Israel. The financial borders are controlled. Money gets delayed, taxed, trimmed and sometimes confiscated.
“Whenever they deem us a risk, they can freeze our assets in seconds, even if we are in Canada,” he said. So, he said, they are planning to raise money in bitcoin, and sidestep the whole restrictive system. His team is currently working on setting up BTCPay Server, an open-source payment processor.
But Albarghouthi wants to make it clear that an anti-colonial currency is, by itself, an incomplete solution.
“Monetary freedom must go hand-in-hand with building our production powers,” he said. “At the end of the day, any currency is an alias to resources, and we have to generate our own resources from nature and build them into valuable products that can be used in our society to further innovation and education and healthcare and food security.”
“In doing so, Palestinians should use a currency that we control, not one pegged to the Israeli economy or the petrodollar or anything else,” he added.
XI: The Future Of Bitcoin In Palestine
A few weeks ago, the Israeli government publicly announced the seizing of bitcoin funds connected to Hamas. It seems certain that the IDF will begin to demonize Bitcoin as a tool of terrorists and perhaps, make it harder for Israelis and Palestinians to use.
Given that the Israeli government has prioritized centralizing as many economic flows as possible under its control into and out of Gaza and the West Bank, any money moving outside “official channels” will likely be deemed suspicious. This could be a deterrent to future adoption.
But already today, Paxful and LocalBitcoins have vibrant peer-to-peer marketplaces in Palestine. If Bitcoin could become adopted by hundreds of Palestinian businesses, and hundreds of thousands of individuals, then it could become a remarkably powerful peaceful protest.
There is a possibility here for Palestinians — or any vulnerable population, whether trapped by foreign occupation, domestic authoritarianism, a collapsing economy, or a structural lack of opportunity — to adopt Bitcoin as a new currency. Millions of individuals are already making this choice in Turkey, Argentina, Nigeria, Iran, Lebanon and beyond.
More than two-thirds of Palestinians are under the age of 30, and more than 70% have internet access. Young people are more comfortable with the idea of mobile money, and will be looking for technological solutions to their problems. It is a risk, but adopting Bitcoin as a circular economy could very well give Palestinians a leg up on their neighbors, and position them relatively well for the next century.
El Salvador has provided a national template of how Bitcoin can be used not just as a savings instrument to invest in the future, but also as a payment network that can allow citizens to connect with anyone in the world instantly.
Could Palestine be the El Salvador of the Middle East? President Nayyib Bukele is, after all, Palestinian. His grandparents originally emigrated to El Salvador from the Jerusalem and Bethlehem areas during the fraying of the Ottoman Empire. His father even converted to Islam and “became a prominent imam in San Salvador and a vocal defender of the Palestinian cause.”
Bukele has been quoted as saying that he is very proud of his Palestinian origins, saying he “would like to see a thriving Palestinian state.” It is ironic that a person of Palestinian descent would be the first world leader to adopt bitcoin as a national currency.
There is no question that the Israeli government, American government, Palestinian Authority, World Bank and United Nations would all oppose such a move. They are all too invested in the status quo. So any adoption would have to come from a people power movement.
As for traditional attempts at reform, in the last few weeks there has been discussion of restarting the “Joint Economic Committee” (JEC) — the organization created at the time of the Paris Protocol, which would ultimately have the power to make a new currency for Palestinians. The JEC has not met since 2009 and has largely been used to oversee operations in the OPT, but Israeli and PA ministers are planning to revamp the JEC and “remove obstacles” to PA economic activity.
Palestinians have seen this movie before. An Israeli government push to help the PA has typically not done much for the average person in the West Bank or Gaza, beyond siphoning more money to PA leadership and introducing new controls on the ground. The stated goals this time are to issue 17,000 more permits to Palestinian laborers to “work in construction and industry in Israel” and to bolster the Palestinian Fuel Administration. Again, any reform here is likely to deepen Palestinian dependence on the Israeli economy and put the PA on additional life support.
Recently, the news broke that the Palestinian Monetary Authority is mulling a “central bank digital currency,” a new kind of asset meant to replace banknotes and coins with a digital central bank liability that individuals would hold on their phones. Critics have been blunt: “It’s not going to replace the shekel or the dinar or the dollar. It’s certainly not going to be a store of value or a unit of accounting,” said Barry Topf, a former senior advisor to the Bank of Israel.
Palestinians have not been able to mint their own cash — per the Paris Protocol — but even if they could, there’s no guaranteeing that the Palestinian Authority would not abuse its power and create massive inflation. Its track record on fiscal matters is poor. Topf might be right.
Moreover, the creation of a “Palestinian” currency (digital or otherwise) runs the risk of prolonging the power imbalances that exist today with the Palestinian economy. Would it provide financial “inclusion” — or global financial exclusion?
Even worse, transitioning the Palestinian economy to a digital one — whether it’s controlled by the PA, World Bank, Israel or anyone else — would be disastrous for the small amount of freedom that Palestinians do receive from cash and their informal economy, where they can save and transact outside of government control. A CBDC would enable greater blacklisting, confiscation and surveillance, no matter who is in charge of design.
XII: Activism Beyond Virtue Signaling?
A lot of the online activism for Palestine can be classified as “virtue signaling.” What does posting #FreePalestine actually achieve? Usually, very little. But by helping someone understand how to use Bitcoin, one can help them achieve a degree of real freedom: the ability to protect value from confiscation and to connect with anyone in the world.
For a people whose history is so filled with confiscation, Bitcoin gives Palestinians a way to take the fruits of their labor and time and lock it into an asset in cyberspace, beyond the control of Hamas, Israel, the PA or the World Bank, and secure it with math. It is a peaceful protest, a digital shield, that could lead to big change.
This has been underscored by the many interviews that I conducted to inform this essay. Beyond those whose stories were told, I spoke to a half-dozen other Palestinians for background. They all seemed to echo a few things:
First, as one said, “If we’re not taking matters into our own hands, then no progress will be made.” There is a tremendous (and understandable) lack of trust of the authorities on all sides, and a realization that the status quo will continue unless something new is tried.
Second, if only a few people are using Bitcoin, then everyone seems to agree that the authorities would go after them and put them in jail. But if 100,000 people are using it, then there is nothing they can do. Building a movement is paramount.
Third, if critics on the left do not get it, and continue to attack Bitcoin from their position of privilege, then, said one, they “seem to be more interested in talking about the problem than actually fixing it.” They went on: “Where’s their solution?”
The left traditionally dislikes or ignores Bitcoin. Left-wing critics and economists often call it useless: a Ponzi scheme, a tool for criminals, an environmental disaster and so on. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch continue to be silent on Bitcoin. Yes, they have done admirable work to detail the suffering of the Palestinians, but why not speak up about a technology that so many of them are already using for empowerment? The same can be said for the international community in general. If they actually want to get involved in changing the situation on the ground, it has to involve changing the money. And Bitcoin is one way to do that.
The Bitcoin silence is perhaps most sadly reflected by a search for the term on the websites of the establishment Palestinian economic think tank MAS or the Israeli civil liberties group B’Tselem: zero results. It is clear that Palestinians will continue to adopt Bitcoin. But it remains unclear if their supporters around the world will help them in this regard.
Today, Palestinians have no monetary independence, are increasingly forced to use the currency of their occupier, are unable to increase their capital base, have become more consumerist and debt-saddled, are entirely reliant on foreign aid and, in Gaza, face civilizational collapse.
When Sarah Roy reflected recently on “what is to be done,” one of her conclusions was that “knowledge production is itself a form of resistance.”
There is nothing to lose by sharing information about Bitcoin, which has already helped so many Palestinians. Perhaps the world’s largest open-source money project can help, where everything else has failed.
XIII: Fix The Money, Fix The World
In the Bitcoin community, there is a saying: “Fix the money, fix the world.”
Obviously, money is just one part of our social fabric. But it is a very important part, and at the end of the day, if Palestinians are not able to fix their money, they will not be able to fix their world.
At the end of my call with Uqab, he told me that many people were becoming so desperate in Gaza that they were selling their homes for Bitcoin. It was the same for businesses. “Any enterprise that opens in Gaza is doomed to fail,” he said, “so the owners would rather sell it than keep it.”
He said their calculation was the following: Real estate is “going to zero” in Gaza, so worst-case scenario, if bitcoin crashes, “it is the status quo for us.”
But if bitcoin continues on its historical trajectory and gains value versus fiat currencies? “Then we have a door to freedom.”
“I’m saving up for my kids,” he said, right before we hang up. “Bitcoin is going to be my ticket out of here.”
This is a guest post by Alex Gladstein. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.
