“Now, no one can deny that the West Bank is in the midst of an economic crisis. UN figures say that unemployment in the West Bank is 17 percent, a figure that may well under-represent the severity of the crisis, given the large numbers of under-employed in the West Bank. The Palestinian Authority has paid only partial salaries to its 114,000 civil servants in the West Bank, about 15 percent of the local work force, over the past few months because of a shortfall in its $4 billion budget.

Yet, Ms Sherwood does a great disservice to West Bank Palestinians by implying that their deepening impoverishment is due to uprooted olive trees. For it’s the PA that administers services to more than 90 percent of the West Bank Arabs.

West Bank Arabs apparently know something that Ms Sherwood doesn’t about their leadership…”

To read the entire essay as it appears in CiF Watch, click here: http://cifwatch.com/2012/10/16/uprooting-the-truth-olive-trees-as-the-latest-obstacle-to-peace/#comments