Pod Save America Hosts Call on Democrats to Cut All Israel Military Aid, No Longer Accept AIPAC Funding
Jews, Israelis Targeted in Austria Amid Surge in Antisemitic Incidents; Local Jewish Community Calls for Action
‘All of Our Strength’: Over 1,000 Pro-Israel Activists Gather in DC for Solidarity Conference
‘Devastated’: Wesley LePatner, Killed in Manhattan Mass Shooting, Was a Jewish Communal, Philanthropic Leader
Sen. Angus King Vows to No Longer Vote for Israel Military Aid Until Gaza Conditions Improve
Europe Won’t Pressure Israel to ‘Commit Suicide’ Amid Gaza Backlash, Palestinian State Push, Says Israeli FM
Israel’s National Soccer Coach Attacked in Athens Before Soccer Fans Chant ‘F–K Israel, Free Palestine’ at Match
New York Judge Sentences Neo-Nazi to 5 Years for Livestreaming Bomb Threats Against Jewish Hospitals
US Pressures Lebanon to Issue Cabinet Decision to Disarm Hezbollah Before Talks Continue
UK Plans to Recognize Palestinian State in September Unless Israel Meets Conditions, Starmer Says
IMF’s Lagarde Says West Bank, Gaza Growth Must Be Focused on Jobs
Error: Contact form not found.
by Reuters and Algemeiner Staff
White House senior adviser Jared Kushner speaks at the ‘Peace to Prosperity’ conference in Manama, Bahrain, June 25, 2019. Photo: Peace to Prosperity Workshop / Handout via Reuters.
Growth in the West bank and Gaza must be focused on jobs, the head of the International Monetary Fund said on Wednesday, at the start of a conference on the Trump administration’s $50 billion economic plan for Israeli-Palestinian peace.
Business leaders and politicians have gathered in Bahrain to discuss the plan that Washington says is vital to ending the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but which Palestinian leaders have dismissed as pointless without a political solution.
“One of the really good aspects of the plan … is that it identifies some of the sectors, some of the industrial and economic sectors, that will be conducive to jobs,” IMF managing director Christine Lagarde said during the opening session.
“It cannot be any kind of growth in the West Bank and Gaza, it needs to be job intensive,” she added, listing agriculture, tourism and construction as sectors that “will absorb a lot of labor.”
The IMF expects the Palestinian economy to contract by 1.6% this year and says unemployment stands at 30% in the West Bank and 50% in Gaza.
“There is an economic plan, there is urgency: it is a question of making sure that the momentum is sustained,” Lagarde said.
The IMF has been operating in the West Bank and Gaza since 1995, providing policy advice to the Western-backed Palestinian Authority.
