Abstract
West Bank exports to Israel have faced significant challenges due to the Israeli system of spatial control, aimed at controlling Palestinians and facilitating settler expansion throughout the West Bank. The routing of Palestinian commercial freight through the separation barrier has escalated logistics costs, while settlement expansion in Area C has further impeded mobility between Palestinian self-rule areas. This article highlights the tactics employed by Palestinian economic actors to offset these challenges within the confines of intensified Israeli spatial control. Using data from observations, interviews, and documentary sources spanning 2019–2023, the study focuses on Palestinian furniture exports to Israel. It reveals that Palestinians have leveraged colonial spatial variations to their advantage by forming partnerships with Israelis to export products through Jewish settlements. The article concludes by advocating a disaggregated level of analysis that uncovers the dynamic interplay between Israeli spatial constraints and Palestinian agency in response. In the case of furniture exporters, this has led to deepening Palestinian–Israeli economic ties and increased engagement with the infrastructure of Israeli occupation to mitigate its economic impact.
Introduction
This article focuses on overlooked dynamics underpinning Palestinian exports to Israel. These exports, highly dependent on Israeli markets, have faced increasing challenges since 2004. During this period, the evolution of the Israeli system of spatial control (SSC) resulted in the erection of a separation barrier and the institutionalizing of “back-to-back” as the only crossing system for Palestinian commercial exports. This system restructures exports according to stringent Israeli regulations that permits crossing through a few bottlenecked crossing gates, making commercial logistics costly and time-consuming.1
The negative impact of the SSC is repeatedly demonstrated in the literature and reports.2 While some exporters have exited the market, the majority have remained trapped, incurring losses. This article uncovers a different narrative utilizing a case study of Palestinian furniture exporters. By redirecting their export routes to circumvent the “back-to-back” system, these exporters demonstrate their agency in overcoming structural challenges. However, their tactics for mitigate economic costs associated with complying to the SSC resulted in partnership with Israeli actors.
The case study centers on Nablus, situated in the northern West Bank, home to numerous small-scale Palestinian furniture factories that direct roughly 55% of their output to the Israeli market. In the aftermath of the Second Palestinian Intifada (2000–2004), the flow of daily furniture shipments began channeling through a single designated gate for the Nablus area, escalating both the unpredictability and cost of exporting. Furthermore, manual inspections at the “back-to-back” crossing point resulted in significant damage to the furniture, harming exporters’ interests. To mitigate these challenges, Palestinian furniture exporters initiated relationships with particular Israeli stakeholders to secure storage spaces in nearby Israeli settlements located in Area C. When the freight originates from these settlements, it is reclassified not as “exports” but as “deliveries” between two Israeli locales, enabling the Palestinian goods to bypass both commercial checkpoints and Israeli tax authorities by utilizing settler-only pathways into Israel.
While this article focuses on the specific instance of furniture exports, it situates this case within the larger context of unexplored smuggling activities from the West Bank into Israel.3 Because each smuggling case has its own unique political–economic dynamics, the article argues that a disaggregated analysis is essential for revealing these aspects. Drawing on extensive fieldwork, including five in-depth interviews conducted in Nablus and documentary analysis, the study applies this lens to furniture exports to highlight emerging Palestinian–Israeli partnerships. These collaborations are initiated by Palestinian exporters who strategically navigate the constraints of the “back-to-back” system by forging relationships with Israeli settlements.
This article is organized in three sections. The first provides essential background on the trajectory of Palestinian export dependency on Israel, focusing on the intensification of Israeli spatial control measures after 2004. It challenges the conventional belief that such control solely harms Palestinian trade, arguing instead that the overlooked smuggling industry reveals Palestinian capabilities to adapt to or “make use of” the SSC. The second section illustrates these strategies through a case study on furniture exporters. The final section offers a political–economic discussion of the implications of Palestinian agency, including improvements in Palestinian exporters’ position within the post-2004 landscape and the deepening of West Bank dependency through new partnerships with Israeli actors.
Rethinking West Bank Trade with Israeli: The Overlooked Dynamics of Smuggling
Since 1967, the Israeli occupation of the West Bank has employed a settler-colonial dual strategy comprising (1) territorial colonization aimed at confining Palestinians to densely populated enclaves while facilitating Jewish settlement expansion;4 and (2) population management techniques designed to pacify Palestinians and deter anti-occupation activities,5 including fostering their economic dependence on Israel.6
This view illuminates the power imbalances characterizing West Bank–Israeli trade relations.7 Initially, Israel selectively channeled Palestinian industrial growth into low-value sectors, transforming Palestinian producers into subcontractors for Israeli firms8 and resulting in escalating trade dependency on Israel.9 Over the years, this dependency has deepened, and in 2021, Israel accounted for 88% of West Bank exports, totaling approximately US$1.16 billion.10 However, this dependency has been influenced by several key transitions that have restructured trade transactions in line with various institutional and administrative frameworks.
The first significant transition occurred with the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993. These accords transformed high-population Palestinian areas, which are the source of most Palestinian exports, into distinct self-administered zones (Areas A and B). Comprising about 40% of the West Bank, these areas became encircled by Israeli-administered Area C.11 Moreover, the Paris Protocol of 1994 established a virtual customs union, reorganizing West Bank–Israeli trade in accordance with a two-state model and stating that tax clearances are to be claimed by the importing country.12
The second significant transition unfolded in the aftermath of the Second Intifada (2000–2004), during which Israel intensified its system of spatial control, based on two core components: (1) settler-colonial expansion, characterized by an acceleration in Israeli settlements and land confiscations in Area C, which disrupts economic integration among different Palestinian self-rule areas;13 (2) the construction of the West Bank–Israel barrier. While the barrier ostensibly separates the West Bank, including both Palestinian self-rule areas and Israeli settlements in Area C, from Israel, it functions on ethnonational grounds by specifically tightening control over Palestinian crossings alone.14 This barrier regulates the transit of goods, subjecting them to various stipulations such as trade monitoring,15 taxation, and quality checks imposed by Israeli authorities.
To better contextualize the case of furniture exports from Nablus, it is crucial to focus on the inner working of the few crossing gates designated for commercial trade between the West Bank and Israel. Far from being simple security checkpoints, these crossings serve broader economic objectives.16 They monitor commercial movement, enforce tax collection, and ensure compliance with Israeli standards.17 After the Second Intifada, the “back-to-back” system was institutionalized, compounding logistical challenges for West Bank merchants. This system requires one Palestinian and one Israeli truck to meet at the commercial gate for the transfer of goods, effectively doubling shipping costs and labor time. Coupled with the limited number of crossing points and high shipment volumes, this results in a bottleneck, leading to extended waiting periods and limitations on daily shipments.18
In this context, existing literature on post-2004 West Bank-Israeli trade primarily explores the negative economic impacts of the SSC. First, reinforced borders increase logistical costs and disrupt Palestinian trade with Israel.19 This has subsequently led to reduced economic growth in the West Bank.20 Second, Palestinian trade activities became increasingly captive to Israeli border control.21 Instead of alleviating dependency on the West Bank, aspects such as Palestinian commercial mobility, logistics, time, and costs have become subject to Israeli control.
However, this narrative relies on a linear model of power dynamics. In particular, it posits a near monopoly of Israeli colonial control over logistical routes. Although rigorous, this perspective often misses burgeoning Palestinian activities that challenge this monopoly. The Israeli State Comptroller estimated that in 2018, informal trade reached US$2 billion, accounting for nearly one-fifth of the total trade between the West Bank and Israel.22
The importance of these data extends beyond simply acknowledging the volume of unregistered trade. The rigidity of borders and territorial fragmentation serve as a platform for the emergence of diverse dynamics to move around the Israeli control mechanism, a realm that has not yet been fully explored. In the case of West Bank-to-Israel smuggling, some involved Palestinian actors have traditional economic relationships with the Israeli market. Here, smuggling appears as a strategy to circumvent, or at least mitigate, the harsh conditions imposed by the SSC in order to preserve these traditional ties, as evidenced below by the case of furniture exporters. In other instances, the multifaceted nature of the SSC is viewed by some actors as an “opportunity” to engage in new forms of smuggling,23 some of them seasonal, such as the smuggling of butchered meat into Israel during religious holidays.24 These activities, which are both expanding and attracting new players, are driven by interest-based bottom-up agency and are drawing participants from both sides into new, complex relationships.
However, beyond some reports,25 the political–economic foundations of these activities have largely been overlooked in scholarship on the Palestinian economy under Israeli occupation. Its integration offers new avenues for understanding how the Israeli colonial structure contributes to diverse Palestinian economic practices, as discussed in the final section of this paper. The next section explores the case of Palestinian furniture exports, which both evade Israeli tax authorities and bypass the “back-to-back” system.
Post-Barrier “Improvised” Logistics: The Case of Nablus Furniture Exports
In 2015, Nablus was home to 340 workshops and factories specializing in furniture production, making up about 17% of such establishments in the West Bank.26 Most were small to medium-sized enterprises, generally employing five to ten workers. Together, they allocated around 55% of their production to the Israeli market. Often functioning as subcontractors, they adapted the quantity and quality of their products to meet Israeli business specifications. The annual trend of furniture renewal among Israeli Jews generated a steady demand for new, affordable items, which Palestinian manufacturers, especially those in Nablus, were well suited to fulfill.27
Between 2005 and 2006, Nablus saw a strengthening of Israel’s separation measures with the construction of the barrier, and confinement of all shipments into Israel to stream through one commercial gate called Al-Taybeh (Arabic) or Sha’ar Ephraim (Hebrew). This crossing connects the northwestern West Bank to the town of Al-Taybeh, located near Israel’s Highway 6 just inside the Green Line. In 2010, to accommodate the growing volume of goods from Nablus, Tulkarem, and Jenin, the crossing was expanded by USAID in collaboration with the Israeli Civil Administration. This expansion made it the second-largest commercial crossing, after Tarqumiya in the Hebron area.
Subsequently, the Al-Taybeh crossing emerged as a significant hurdle for furniture exporters in Nablus. Due to the “back-to-back” system’s challenges, the furniture industry faces unique difficulties tied to its product nature. Israeli regulations limit container space, compelling manufacturers to use multiple trucks for larger furniture items. Furthermore, the materials used—wood and fabric—are susceptible to damage during both security inspection and truck-to-truck transfers.
In a setting constrained by mandatory logistical pathways, Palestinian exporters use creative strategies to adapt and thrive. Notably, these exporters are a varied group with different capabilities and economic interests. One key element shaping strategies in the furniture sector is their indifference to the legal status of their relationship with Israeli tax authorities. Interviews with furniture exporters indicate that maintaining market relationships in Israel often outweighs the need to formalize their status with Israeli institutions.28
While the “back-to-back” system serves as the main channel for many exporters aiming to legitimize their trade with Israel, subcontracting relationships between furniture manufacturers and the Israeli market function within a more flexible ecosystem. A notable number of these workshops may not comply fully with official regulations. This noncompliance can manifest in various ways, such as underreporting workforce and production levels to Palestinian authorities or reporting trade inaccurately to Israeli tax authorities at crossing points.29
Within this context, a noteworthy alternative for some exporters has been the use of Israeli settlements. In 2014, one furniture manufacturer rented a modest 20-square-meter space in the Emanuel settlement near Nablus, repurposing it as a storage area for furniture pieces awaiting transit to Israel. As he explained,
Today I can bring the goods into Emmanuel, and from there I can quickly ship them westward [referring to Israel] by hiring trucks with Israeli plates, which pass through the wall through gates designated for the passage of settlers . . . I not only bypass the burdensome and humiliating commercial crossings, but also the Israeli tax.30
It is not suggested, however, that Israel be viewed as either condoning what it deems illegal smuggling or being entirely powerless to prevent it. The Israeli system of spatial control is multilayered, involving multiple agencies with distinct and overlapping interests and responsibilities, including police, anti-terrorism units, anti-money-laundering authorities, the Civil Administration, the military, and tax offices. Despite efforts to address inconsistencies in security–political agendas, the Israeli Comptroller’s report indicates an ongoing failure, or at least reluctance, to effectively resolve them.31
In all cases, leveraging the potentiality offered by settlements and settler-only roads became a growing trend among Palestinian and Israeli economic actors involved in export activities. Another example is a significant upholstery exporter who ranks his Palestinian business as the fifth largest supplier in the Israeli market. His strategic collaboration with an Israeli partner involves operating through a shell corporation, greatly smoothing the transit of goods. In 2016, his father, the company’s owner, decided to partner with one of his Israeli wholesale customers. They registered a dummy corporation in a coastal Israeli city and established its headquarters in the Barkan settlement.32 In an interview, he said that he transports goods daily to Barkan:
Sometimes I buy oriental sweets (kanafeh) for the settlement guard, but they know that we have a commercial interest inside the settlement . . . Passing from the Barkan settlement into Israel is very easy, because it does not involve passing through the Sha’ar Efraim crossing, but rather through passages designated for settlers.33
Out of the five interviewees specializing in exporting furniture to Israel, four acknowledged their strategic use of settlement infrastructure. Because the SSC links settlements in Area C with Israel through designated gates not intended for Palestinians, it has started to foster additional partnerships and cooperation between Palestinians and Israelis. My interviewees explained how this has evolved into a less known “black” industry. This includes opportunists leveraging their connections with Israeli actors for access to these roads and offering “delivery services” on demand. Furthermore, other players have found ways to issue fake invoices for merchants lacking a warehouse in the settlements, or those unable to secure fast and low-cost shipments.34
Discussion and Conclusions
Previous research has focused predominantly on the detrimental effects of Israel’s “back-to-back” crossing system, underscoring the economic challenges that post-2004 SSC measures present to Palestinian exporters. These studies tend to depict Palestinian economic activities as uniformly hindered by Israeli restrictions. This article, however, shifts the narrative. By examining the case of furniture exporters, it uncovers a more sophisticated landscape where Israeli structural constraints coexist with Palestinian agency in shaping trade dynamics. Specifically, it highlights how furniture exporters have partnered with Israeli actors to access Israeli settlements, thereby establishing alternative routes that circumvent the rigid “back-to-back” system.
The trend of using Israeli settlements as transshipment hubs extends beyond the scope of this article’s case study on furniture exports, encompassing diverse aspects of West Bank–Israeli economic relations, including both exports and imports.35 However, this study does not suggest generalizing this approach as an exclusive alternative to the “back-to-back” system across all economic sectors. Instead, it aims to shed light on often-overlooked dynamics related to growing challenges imposed by the SSC on Palestinians already tied to the Israeli market. It has been well established in the broader literature examining logistics,36 spatiality,37 and borderlands38 that structures of domination invite bottom-up engagement, whether through confrontation, negotiation, or circumvention. Such dynamics merits further exploration on the disaggregated level of analysis to reveal its diverse manifestations.
For instance, prior research has spotlighted entirely different strategies used by large-scale Palestinian producers in Hebron to overcome “back-to-back” limitations.39 These actors have successfully negotiated with Israeli colonial authorities to co-create alternative, expedited “door-to-door” logistical solutions. This collaborative process requires concessions from both sides. Developed between 2018 and 2020, these fast routes not only align with the Israeli security–economic goals underlying colonial spatial control but also demonstrate the extent to which Palestinian agency can introduce changes that are subsequently formalized within the colonial structure.
While both furniture exporters in Nablus and large-scale producers in Hebron aim to overcome border restrictions, their strategies and capabilities are quite distinct. Unlike large merchants, who occupy a more central economic role for Israel,40 small furniture factory owners do not possess a status that enables negotiation with the colonial administration for better conditions. For these small-scale producers, leveraging settlement infrastructure becomes crucial for sustaining access to the Israeli market. As previously mentioned, indifference to the legality of their trade with Israel also plays a role in choosing settlements as alternative routes.
It is advisable to use a disaggregated analytical approach to clarify the interactions between colonial top-down impositions and Palestinian interest-driven responses. This level of analysis takes into account Palestinian capacities and socioeconomic positionality. When West Bank–Israeli economic relations are examined, a closer look at the impacts of SSC shows that its rigidity induced Palestinians to innovate “solutions” from within its confinements; this results in deepening West Bank economic dependency by inducing new, and sometimes unexpected, economic connections. For instance, Palestinian furniture exporters have formed new collaborations with Israeli actors to gain better access to settlements. Likewise, in another analogous context of fuel smuggling in the West Bank, Palestinians engage creatively with borders and territorial fragmentation to form clandestine networks with Israelis.41
Given that Palestinian tactics for mitigating the economic costs of Israeli control actually strengthen Palestinians’ economic dependency on Israel by forging new partnerships with Israeli actors, this article refrains from terming these activities a “resistance economy.” While such practices may align with what James C. Scott terms the “Weapons of the Weak,” which involve tactics of refusal to abide to colonial systems,42 they fall short of the resistance criteria outlined by scholars such as Tariq Dana or Rayya El Zein.43 These scholars view resistance as the formation of localized, self-sustaining economic enclaves that not only are economically independent from Israel but also operate outside its colonial and neoliberal influence
While some Palestinians have mitigated the economic costs of the SSC, their economic status has indeed improved compared with that of others operating within the colonial framework. Thus, the impact of the SSC yields varied outcomes, challenging the singular narrative commonly present in the critical literature on West Bank–Israeli economic relations.44
The findings show, furthermore, that the economic dependency of furniture exporters on Israel extends beyond mere economic reliance. The interplay among Palestinian producers, Israeli clients, and settlement logistics reveals that certain Palestinian actors also rely on the physical infrastructures of Israeli occupation (mainly settlements and settler-only roads) to secure their economic interests. The ironic result is that in adapting to to new Israeli constraints, some Palestinian economic activities become even more deeply embedded within the SSC.
Critical literature often frames Palestinian sovereignty over land and borders as key to economic disengagement from Israel.45 However, the case of furniture exports indicates that, within the constraints of a colonial framework that perpetuates economic dependency, new dynamics suggests the evolution of a sort of unified Palestinian–Israeli economic ecosystem. Yet the crux of this study’s contribution is not the confirmation of this “one-state-ish” reality, but its implications for the increasingly complex West Bank–Israeli economic relations and growing dependency.
In December 2022, a right-wing Israeli government came into power, with the appointment of Smotrich, a hardliner favoring increased Palestinian–Israeli separation and settlement expansion. Because this article contends that the interplay between structure and agency is intrinsic to the Israeli system of spatial control, introducing new layers of spatial control—ranging from settlement expansion and spatial fragmentation to border regulations—increasingly serves as fertile ground for Palestinian–Israeli interactions.
Notes
This research was funded by the ZEIT-Stiftung Ebelin und Gerd Bucerius, Hamburg, within the Ph.D. scholarship program “Beyond Borders”
World Bank, “Unlocking the Trade Potential of the Palestinian Economy: Immediate Measures and a Long-Term Vision to Improve Palestinian Trade and Economic Outcomes,” Working Paper ACS22471 (Washington, DC: World Bank Group, 2017).
Jake Alimahomed-Wilson and Spencer Louis Potiker, “The Logistics of Occupation: Israel’s Colonial Suppression of Palestine’s Goods Movement Infrastructure,” Journal of Labor and Society 20, no. 4 (2017): 427–447; Karam Dana, “The West Bank Apartheid/Separation Wall: Space, Punishment and the Disruption of Social Community,” Geopolitics 22, no. 4 (2017): 887–910; Raja Khalidi, “What Is the ‘Palestinian Economy’?” Between State and Non-state: Politics and Society in Kurdistan-Iraq and Palestine, ed. Gülistan Gürbey, Sabine Hoffman, and Ferhad Ibrahim Seyder (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), 123–139. For reports, see United Nations Conference on Trade and Development [UNCTAD], “Trade Facilitation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory: Restrictions and Limitations,” UNCTAD/GDS/APP/2014/1 (Geneva: United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, 2014); World Bank, “Unlocking the Trade Potential.”
State Comptroller’s Office [Comptroller], “Annual Audit Report 70c,” The Tax Authority Supervision on Land Crossings (Jerusalem: State Comptroller’s Office, 2020).
Ariella Azoulay and Adi Ophir, The One-State Coalition: Occupation and Democracy in Israel/Palestine (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2013); Leila Farsakh, “Political Economy of Occupation: What Is Colonial about It?” Electronic Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 8 (2008): 41–58.
Sahar Taghdisi-Rad, “The Economic Strategies of Occupation: Confining Development and Buying-Off Peace,” Decolonizing Palestinian Political Economy: De-development and Beyond, ed. Mandy Turner and Omar Shweiki (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), 13–31.
Tariq Dana, “Dominate and Pacify: Contextualizing the Political Economy of the Occupied Palestinian Territories since 1967,” Political Economy of Palestine, ed. Alaa Tartir, Tariq Dana, and Timothy Seidel (Cham, Switzerland: Springer International, 2021), 25–47.
Farsakh, “Political Economy of Occupation.”
Adel Samara, “Globalization, the Palestinian Economy, and the ‘Peace Process,’” Journal of Palestine Studies 29, no. 2 (2000): 20–34; Taghdisi-Rad, “Economic Strategies of Occupation.”
Sobhi Samour, Review and Assessment of Palestinian Trade Policy Options (Ramallah: Palestine Economic Policy Research Institute, 2016).
“Preliminary Results of Registered Palestinian Exports, Imports of Goods by Month, Quarter and Country for 2021 and 2022” (press release), Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, 3 March 2023, https://www.pcbs.gov.ps/statisticsIndicatorsTables.aspx?lang=en&table_id=1730.
Khalidi, “What Is the ‘Palestinian Economy’?”
Sharif S. Elmusa and Mahmud El-Jaafari, “Power and Trade: The Israeli–Palestinian Economic Protocol,” Journal of Palestine Studies 24, no. 2 (1995): 14–32.
Sari Hanafi, “Explaining Spacio-cide in the Palestinian Territory: Colonization, Separation, and State of Exception,” Current Sociology 61, no. 2 (2013): 190–205; Khaliki, “What Is the ‘Palestinian Economy’?”
K. Dana, “The West Bank/Apartheid Separation Wall.”
World Bank, “Unlocking the Trade Potential.”
Irus Bravenman, “Civilized Borders: A Study of Israel’s New Crossing Administration,” Antipode 43, no. 2 (2011): 264–295.
United States Aid Agency [USAID], “Strengthening the Palestinian Private Sector through Reducing Trade Transaction Costs: A Comprehensive Research and Advocacy Program,” Final Report (Jerusalem: United States Aid Agency, 2015).
Alimohamed-Wilson and Potiker, “The Logistics of Occupation”; World Bank, “Unlocking the Trade Potential.”
UNCTAD, “Trade Facilitation”; K. Dana, “The West Bank Apartheid/Separation Wall”; Khalidi, “What Is the ‘Palestinian Economy’?”; Julie Marie Peteet, Space and Mobility in Palestine, Public Cultures of the Middle East and North Africa (Bloomington: Indiana Press, 2017); World Bank, “Unlocking the Trade Potential.”
Johanes Agbahey, Khalid Siddig, and Harald Grethe, “Consequences of Conflict: The Impact of the Closure Regie on the Economy of the West Bank Economy,” Global Trade Analysis Project, Center for Global Trade Analysis, 2016, https://ideas.repec.org/p/ekd/009007/9197.html; World Bank, “Unlocking the Trade Potential.”
Robert D. Brooks and Rami Nasrallah, eds., The Wall: Fragmenting the Palestinian Fabric in Jerusalem, 1st ed., Jerusalem Strategic Planning Service, vol. 9 (Jerusalem: International Peace and Cooperation Center, 2007).
Comptroller, “Annual Audit Report 70c.”
Jamil Misyef, “Smuggling and Evasion of Customs Duties and Taxes: The Cost to the Palestinian Treasury and Market,” Background Paper, Roundtable (6), 2018, https://mas.ps/en/publications/2822.html; UNCTAD, “The Economic Costs of the Israeli Occupation for the Palestinian People: Cumulative Fiscal Costs,” UNCTAD/GDS/APP/2019/2, 2019, https://unctad.org/en/PublicationsLibrary/gdsapp2019d2_en.pdf.
Brindhauser Bret, “The Good Goods: Smuggling between Israel and the Palestinian Territories,” Stroum Center for Jewish Studies, University of Washington, 20 February 2020, https://jewishstudies.washington.edu/israel-hebrew/smuggling-between-israeli-and-palestinian-economies/.
Statistical report: Ora Coren and JTA, “Police Bust Israeli–Palestinian Meat-Smuggling Operation,” Haaretz, 5 April 2016, https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2016-04-05/ty-article/police-bust-israeli-palestinian-meat-smuggling-operation/0000017f-f764-d47e-a37f-ff7c624b0000; state authority: Comptroller, “Annual Audit Report 70c.”
Jamil Misyef, “Developing and Competitiveness of Palestinian Product and Increasing Its Market Share: Furniture Sector,” 2018, https://library.mas.ps/App_Resources/Stream.ashx?Id=1887&attype=0.
Interview with N. Sh., owner of a furniture manufacturer in Bidya, interviewed by the author in Nablus, 11 December 2020.
Interview with F. A., R. Z., and R. O., three owners of furniture manufacturers in Bidya and Nablus, interviewed by the author in Nablus, 30 November 2020.
UNCTAD, “Economic Costs”; “Fiscal Leakages and Losses Incurred by the Palestinian Authority in the Context of Relations with Israel,” Report, Coalition for Accountability and Integrity—Aman [AMAN], 2020, https://www.aman-palestine.org/cached_uploads/download/2021/01/10/التسرب-المالي-web-1610281512.pdf; Comptroller, “Annual Audit Report 70c.”
Interview with F. A., R. Z., and R. O. in Bidya and Nablus.
Comptroller, “Annual Audit Report 70c.”
Interview with Gh. S., owner of company “S” supplying upholstery fabric and textile to Israeli market, interviewed by the author in Nablus, 3 February 2021.
Interview with Gh. S.
Interview with F. A., R. Z., and R. O. in Bidya and Nablus. Anat Kaufman, project coordinator at the Israeli Economic Cooperation Fund, indicated that the Israeli authorities are fully aware of the different types of Palestinian commercial interests that are channeled via settlements in the West Bank. They turn a blind eye to smuggling through the settlements: While not encouraging it, they do not prevent it. The Economic Cooperation Fund is an Israeli institution established by Yair Hirschfeld, one of the most prominent architects of the Oslo Accords. Among its board of directors are former officers who served at the highest levels of the Civil Administration. Interview with Anat Kauffman, director of economic development and cooperation in the Economic Cooperation Fund, interviewed by the author in Tel Aviv, 19 November 2019.
Yaacov Garb, “Porosity, Fragmentation, and Ignorance: Insights from a Study on Freights Traffic,” Israelis and Palestinians in the Shadows of the Wall: Spaces of Separation and Occupation, ed. Stéphanie Latte Abdallah and Cédric Parizot, Border Regions Series (Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2015), 89–108; Misyef, “Smuggling and Evasion.”
Charmaine Chua, Martin Danyluk, Deborah Cowen, and Laleh Khalili, “Introduction: Turbulent Circulation: Building a Critical Engagement with Logistics,” Society and Space 36, no. 4 (2018), 619–629.
Martin G. Fuller and Martina Löw, “Introduction: An Invitation to Spatial Sociology,” Current Sociology 65, no, 4 (2017): 469–491.
Thomas M. Wilson and Hastings Donnan, A Companion to Border Studies (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley Blackwell, 2012).
Walid Habbas and Yael Berda, “Colonial Management as a Social Field: The Palestinian Remaking of Israel’s System of Spatial Control,” Current Sociology 71, no. 5 (2023): 848–865.
Habbas and Berda, “Colonial Management.”
Walid Habbas, “The West Bank–Israel Economic Integration: Palestinian Interaction with the Israeli Border and Permit Regimes,” Political Economy of Palestine: Critical, Interdisciplinary, and Decolonial Perspectives, ed. Alaa Tartir, Tariq Dana, and Timothy Seidel (Cham, Switzerland: Springer International, 2021), 111–134.
James C. Scott, Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1987).
Rayya El Zein, “Developing a Palestinian Resistance Economy through Agricultural Labor,” Journal of Palestine Studies 46, no. 3 (2017): 7–26; Tariq Dana, “Localising the Economy as a Resistance Response: A Contribution to the ‘Resistance Economy’ Debate in the Occupied Palestinian Territories,” Journal of Peacebuilding and Development 15, no. 2 (2020): 192–204.
Additionally, these newly established relations have led to minor, but noteworthy financial losses for the Israeli treasury. As previously mentioned, the Paris Protocol specifies that taxes—evaded by furniture exporters as they bypass the “back-to-back” system—are to be claimed by the importing country. According to some official reports, such as Comptroller, “Annual Audit Report 70c,” tax losses to Israel from West Bank smuggling were estimated in 2018 at US$330 million.
Ibrahim Fraihat, “The Palestinian Economic Disengagement Plan from Israel: An Opportunity for Progress or an Illusion?” Third World Quarterly 43, no. 7 (2022): 1705–1723.
