So much for the Israeli government’s plan of “economic peace” for the Palestinians:
Israel defines around 1.6 million dunams (some 4 million acres) in the West Bank as state lands and does not allow the Palestinians to develop them. Hundreds of thousands of dunams in the West Bank have been declared “closed military zones” or “engaged” – they are off-limits to the Palestinians. Also, World Bank data suggest that 68 percent of all West Bank communities have agricultural lands that are not being used or are not accessible, for reasons including water shortages and the withholding of land by Israel. For example, more than 10 percent of cultivated agricultural land in the West Bank (which produces 8 percent of all Palestinian agricultural produce), is directly affected by the physical obstacles that separate the land from its owners.