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Palestinian Authority’s Theory

Investors should learn from dirty politics and turn it into real business

Amr Tamimi
3 min readMay 5, 2013

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Welcome to Palestine, a land that connects three continents and the heart of the Middle East.

Mediterranean climate and great food. Beautiful and religious places are all around. From the Church of the Nativity where Jesus was born to the Dome of the Rock Mosque. Many civilizations have passed by, Canaanites, Jewish and Arab.

All these mixtures you’ll notice when you visit Palestine.

Palestine is beautiful, but on the other hand, these days, there is a big everyday-topic issue, not the one with Israel, but yet another thing: Money.

Since 1948, the Middle East region has an Arab-Israeli conflict, after being a Palestinian-Israeli one. Diving deeper, you will find another conflict between the Palestinian parties, Fatah and Hamas. Deeper, there are conflicts in each Palestinian party.

As we talk about the Palestinian Authority (PA), we are going to talk about the Fatah party. The leader of the this party is known as Abu Mazen. He’s the president of the State of Palestine, chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s executive committee, the president of the Palestinian National Authority, the commander of the Palestinian armed forces and security services, the prime minister of the West Bank (as May ‘13), and the head of Fatah movement (other titles?).

However, Salam Fayyad, the ex-prime minister (resigned) doesn’t belong to Fatah party, so you can guess it, Fatah always had arguments against his strategies.

Talking about money, there is over 100,000 governmental employees, and paying their salaries depends largely on foreign aid and donors.

The main resources of money for the PA are summarized as follows: A shared part of Israeli tax and customs revenues which PA suppose to receive each month from the Israeli side, and the foreign aid from USA, EU, Japan, Arab countries and others.

Moreover, there is a big lack of methods for generating money to fulfill the needs of the Palestinian people as they live in an “independent” state, but relying on foreign aid leads to control the politicians leaders of this state just like chess pieces.

PA is being fully controlled by the Israeli government, USA, Qatar and other countries who got the cash. Otherwise (being not controlled), the aid will be cut and manifestations will make the headlines next morning.

Such a weak company (with poor economic situation, inconsistent team and the disappearance of pluralism in leadership) makes investors run away. But the question is, why “investors” are running toward Palestine?

The huge availability of the untapped resources attract “investors” who plan for the future. Most of the investors can expect the success/failure of a company after studying its plans, structure and team. Investing in poor companies with promising potentials such as great minds and qualified employees would lead to establish a new firm, a better and a smarter one, built to the opposite of every point led to the weakness of the previous one.

This is exactly what’s happening in Palestine. People are being led by the cash receivers, who led by the cash donors. So one day, the donors would be the owners, and then they will apply their new plans, strategies and policies, getting rid of the unqualified (in their opinion) people, and make it better in their own way.

So, if you are an investor, look for a weak company, study it, push cash into it, own it (somehow), change it and make it better with your brilliant mind.

Unlisted

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