US embassy cable - 04TELAVIV1909

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 TEL AVIV 001909 
 
SIPDIS 
 
NEA FOR SATTERFIELD 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 05/29/2004 
TAGS: ECON, EAID, SOCI, ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN AFFAIRS, ECONOMY AND FINANCE 
SUBJECT: PALESTINIANS ANSWER "NO" TO QUESTION, "ARE YOU 
BETTER OFF?" 
 
Classified By: Economic Counselor Ted Mann per 1.4 b and d 
 
This cable is a joint message from Embassy Tel Aviv and 
Consulate General Jerusalem.  This cable is confidential 
until publication of World Bank Quarterly update. 
 
1.  (C) Summary:  Starting in October 2003, the World Bank 
and Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) have 
conducted a series of monthly surveys to measure Palestinian 
attitudes and expectations concerning their economic and 
humanitarian circumstances. An average of 1253 households and 
517 businesses have been surveyed over the four months.  The 
most recent survey results available are from January 3 - 26, 
2004.  An advance copy of the January results show that 
Palestinians continue to view each month as "worse" than the 
previous month.  Despite this history, they do not expect 
conditions to deteriorate further, but nor do they expect 
them to improve.  Mobility restrictions remain much more 
pronounced in the West Bank (WB) than in Gaza and have a 
differentiated impact in both WB and Gaza.  For example, 
access to elementary school remains good in both WB/G, but 
access to one's workplace can be more problematic. 
Palestinian households continue to report that on an 
individual level, the most pressing need is for food 
assistance.  However, their aspiration for their community is 
for more job creation.  Only 14 percent of respondents over 
the four months said they are aware of donor projects to 
address their communities' needs.  Business owners continue 
to have a conservative outlook on the future, anticipating no 
new hiring, no capital investments, and no increased revenues 
in the near term, leading the World Bank to question the 
prospects of future economic growth.  End Summary. 
 
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Quality of Life 
---------------- 
 
2.  (C) Over the past four months, Palestinian households 
have consistently reported that their overall "quality of 
life" deteriorated from the previous month.  Despite this 
negative trend, respondents have remained neutral or slightly 
optimistic about the future.  When asked to look forward one 
month, respondents expected life to be either "unchanged" or 
"somewhat better."  Jerusalem residents are the most negative 
in assessing their current situation relative to the previous 
month and also the most pessimistic in expectations of future 
improvements.  In the West Bank and Gaza, there has been a 
strong correlation between the assessment of the overall 
quality of life and the degree of Israeli military 
intervention in the area during the particular reporting 
period. 
 
--------------------- 
Movement Restrictions 
--------------------- 
 
3. (C) West Bank households reported an improvement in 
mobility between October and November 2003, but no 
improvements since.  It is important to note that in each of 
the four months, over 50 percent of the West Bank respondents 
reported that their mobility was restricted "a lot".  In 
Gaza, on average 30 percent of the respondents said their 
mobility was restricted "a lot."  Mobility restrictions have 
not had a universal impact.  Respondents were asked about 
their ability to access schools, health care, place of 
employment, and agricultural land.  For the most part, 
respondents said their children in both WB and Gaza are able 
to attend elementary and secondary schools without 
difficulty.  Accessing university, which often requires some 
travel, is more problematic, but still does not pose 
overwhelming difficulties for most respondents. 
 
4.  (C)  In Gaza, respondents reported few difficulties in 
accessing health care facilities. In the WB, the results are 
mixed, with residents of Hebron and West Bank villages 
reporting the most difficulty in the January survey. 
Residents of West Bank refugee camps reported the fewest 
problems, most likely due to the existence of UNRWA clinics 
within the camps.  Concerning access to employment, Gazan 
households reported that they have between "few" and "no" 
problems accessing their workplaces.  In the West Bank, the 
average fell between "few problems" and "difficult" and 
varied greatly by governant.  For example, in Nablus fully 35 
percent of those with/with jobs said it was "very difficult" 
or "impossible" to reach their workplace in the January 
survey.  In the WB, there has been a slightly positive trend 
regarding access to agricultural land over the past four 
months.  In Gaza, however, the trend has been negative. 
 
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Expect to get a job? 
-------------------- 
 
5. (C) In January's survey 26 percent of the WB and 28 
percent of Gaza respondents had no/no employed persons in 
their households during the previous week working either full 
time or part time.  At the same time 57 percent of the WB and 
60 percent of the Gaza households reported that they had no 
family members that were unemployed. Asked about expectations 
of finding work in the next month and over the next six 
months, both WB and Gaza unemployed were neutral saying they 
were "neither optimistic nor pessimistic".  These neutral 
expectations have been consistent for all four months of the 
survey.  If, however, the unemployed knew the replies given 
by business owners, perhaps they would be more pessimistic. 
For all four months, both WB and Gazan business owners said 
they did not anticipate hiring new staff in the following 
month.  Asked to project out six months, most WB employers 
still predicted that the employment levels in their companies 
would be "unchanged." Gazan businesses owners were slightly 
more optimistic about increasing hiring in October and 
November 2003, but in the December and January surveys, they 
too said that six months hence they expected their employment 
levels to be "unchanged." 
 
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I Need Food; My community needs employment 
------------------------------------------- 
 
6.  (C) Throughout the Intifada the international community 
has struggled to find the right balance between humanitarian 
responses and long-term development needs.  The World Bank 
surveys pose several questions related to this debate and 
asks participants to rank their most pressing needs as a 
household and as a community.  At the household level, food 
assistance was the need most often selected - it was both the 
number one ranked need (selected by roughly one-third of 
households each month) as well as the item most included 
among household's ranking of their top five needs.  However 
at the community level, job creation was the most perceived 
need, selected by a plurality in the WB and an absolute 
majority in Gaza.  Public infrastructure was second to job 
creation and selected as the number one community need by 
roughly one fourth of households in both WB and Gaza.  These 
rankings and shares have remained consistent over the course 
of the four monthly surveys. 
 
Household Number One Need - West Bank/Gaza 
       (January Survey) 
 
Food     35% / 32% 
Clothing       0% /  1% 
Education      8% /  9% 
Employment     16% / 25% 
Financial Assistance       26% / 19% 
Health         8% / 5% 
Housing        6% / 7% 
 
 
Community Number One Need - West Bank/Gaza 
         (January Survey) 
 
Employment    45% / 57% 
Health        13% / 5% 
Food    6% / 5% 
Education     4% / 5% 
*Public Infrastructure    25% / 26% 
No Needs      7% / 1% 
 
* Asked what type of infrastructure they required, Gaza 
residents chose sewage/wastewater disposal as their number 
one need, with roads second.  West Bankers were evenly split 
between roads, health facilities, and sewage/wastewater 
disposal.  In both West Bank and Gaza, answers varied widely 
based on the prevailing conditions within a locality. 
 
----------------------------- 
Most do not know donors exist 
----------------------------- 
 
7.  (C)  Only 14 percent of households in Gaza and WB said 
they were aware of donor financed projects designed to 
satisfy their communities' priority needs.  Those households 
who were aware of donor efforts generally expressed 
"moderate" levels of satisfaction with donor projects. 
(Comment:  The largest donor contribution - USD 230 million 
in 2003 in PA budgetary support - may be invisible to the 
average household. End Comment.) 
 
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Pal private sector says don't count on me 
------------------------------------------ 
 
8.  (C) Asked about the overall business environment and 
their establishments' sales, employment levels, profits, and 
costs, business owners/managers continue to report that the 
current period represents a deterioration from the previous 
month.  In January's survey, WB business managers in Qalqilya 
governate reported the greatest deterioration relative to the 
previous month; while in Gaza, Rafah establishments reported 
the greatest decline.  Looking forward, businessmen in WB and 
Gaza remain neutral, saying they do not expect their overall 
condition to change in the next month.  Specifically they 
said they did not anticipate increased sales, capital 
expenditures, or employment within the next month, nor within 
the next year.  All of these indicators led the World Bank to 
conclude the "modest economic recovery witnessed in 2003 may 
have been more along the lines of a partial rebound from the 
severe negative shock of 2002.  But going forward, economic 
growth will be tentative at best, and vulnerable to reversal." 
 
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Comment 
------- 
 
9. (C)  The fact that for each of the four months 
Palestinians have identified food as their most pressing need 
is an indicator of just how bad the economic and humanitarian 
situation is in the territories.  The assessment that each 
month is worse than the last suggests that Palestinians are 
not perceiving any benefit from intermittent Israeli 
initiatives to improve humanitarian conditions.  It is 
worrisome that that only 14 percent of respondents said they 
were aware of donor projects and suggests that the donor 
community needs to do more to publicize its efforts.  Looking 
forward, it remains clear that economic and humanitarian 
conditions will remain dismal absent progress on the 
political/security agenda that would enable greater private 
sector investment and an increased donor focus on long-term 
development needs.   End Comment. 
 
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