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Bollocks

‘Utter ruin’: Gaza economy would take 350 years to return to pre-conflict level, UN says

Didn’t take 350 years to build in the first place.

Construction output was down by 96%, agriculture output by 93%, manufacturing by 92% and services sector output by 76%. Meanwhile, unemployment reached 81.7% in the first quarter of 2024, a rate the UN said was likely to worsen or persist for as long as the military operation continued.

Compare that to Germany in 1945. Would be, I think, comparable even if not exactly the same. Germany was above 1939 levels of output by 1951, 1952. Well, West Germany was and that’s a hell of a clue as to how as well.

The real point being that human capital is a vastly more important part of the capital base than anyone usually realises. The knowledge of how things work. Instead of having to think through how they might, then experiment, there’s the knowledge of “Oh, yes, that’s how you do a bakery”. So, a bakery just needs to be built, not to be designed. And so on through all the other stuff.

Sure, sure, I’m not saying that rebuilding from rubble is easy. What I am saying is that there, in that population, is already the knowledge of both what ought to be there and also how to set it up and make it work. This is vastly, hugely, easier and quicker than having to work through those centuries of experimentation to work out what ought to be there and how those things work.

29 thoughts on “Bollocks”

  1. When they get around to rebuilding ( I think that is where the 350 year wait will be ) perhaps they could make the buildings a bit more… safe.

    I mean they don’t have to be totally bomb proof, but they struck me as pretty jerry built structures.

  2. That population seemed perfectly capable of digging miles of tunnels under every ‘soft building’ (ie: hospital, school, mosque, UNRWA facility) in Gaza so as to cause as many human (not going to use the term ‘innocent civilian’) casualties as possible when targeted by the IDF.

    Gaza had plenty of nice buildings when the Israelis gave back all the properties they had built and Hamas took over. Lots of tall ones too, useful for dealing with those who weren’t fans of Hamas (gayers, Fatah members etc).

  3. Well indeed, who would want to develop a strip of land on the Med?

    350 years is a silly figure. Given the right governance, Gaza could start on rapid development tomorrow. With current governance, nothing will change in 350 years.

  4. In 350 years the population of Gaza, assuming a continuation of the current annual 2% increase despite history’s most inefficient genocide, will exceed two billion.

    That’s going to need a lot of rebuilding.

  5. In prewar pictures, the built environment in Gaza made Benidorm look like the Bath Crescents. Why do these people insist on living in jerrybuilt shitholes?

    Knock it flat, move its population to Jordan, and let the Yids turn it into Santa Monica on the Med. It could be glorious.

  6. This sort of typically wild hyperbole totally undermines the output from and credibility of any branch of the UN.

    Yet their climate change bollox is preached as if it were gospel.

  7. I’d say the last paragraph of Tim’s post is bollocks. Short memory syndrome? When the Israelis moved out Gaza the last time, they left it with factories & agriculture & public services. Which the Palestinians then proceed to destroy. It wasn’t the Palestinians built it. It was the Israelis. Gaza has magically acquired Palestinians who build rather than destroy? That’d be something worth seeing.
    Why do these people insist on living in jerrybuilt shitholes?
    Precisely. It could have looked like at least Benidorm. Benidorm does. Much the same real estate. Much the same potential tourist market

  8. BiS, I agree. The population of Palestine knows jack shit other than how to breed – prewar, the average age of the population was 18 – and how to grow jihadis. These are not the sort of people who know how to build a modern industrial civilisation.

  9. When was the last time anyone anywhere bought a product with “Made In Gaza” written on it? Or even “Grown In Gaza”?

    Ever?

  10. “The real point being that human capital is a vastly more important part of the capital base than anyone usually realises. The knowledge of how things work. Instead of having to think through how they might, then experiment, there’s the knowledge of “Oh, yes, that’s how you do a bakery”. So, a bakery just needs to be built, not to be designed.”

    Most of us wouldn’t know how to effectively rape and butcher kids as a pop festival, though, or burn families alive in their homes. That sort of expertise might take longer to build up now the Israelis have destroyed most of that human capital. The same applies to teaching little toddlers to hate Jews. Without UNRWA, they are back to a standing start.

  11. Gazans, I have a brilliant idea. Take some of the money you spend on rockets and buy food, housing, healthcare especially of the mental kind…

  12. Norman: « When was the last time anyone anywhere bought a product with “Made In Gaza” written on it? Or even “Grown In Gaza”? »

    The sole export is missiles.

  13. Keep bombing it for the next 350 years for all I care*.

    * only joking. I don’t want to go to jail for 21 months.

    In fairness to the UN, maybe they think the Town and Country Planning Act 1947 extended to British mandated Palestine and hasn’t been repealed.

  14. Well it says something about UNRWA, doesn’t it? They’ve signally failed in getting a viable economy economy established in Gaza. Although one suspects their actual aim was to prevent that happening. In which case UNRWA is an impressive success story.

  15. Thinking about it, there is a long tradition poor quality building in Gaza. I mean Samson pulled down and entire temple just by leaning on the pillars.

  16. Most engineers, when they say something’s “not rocket science”, mean they have some idea of how to do it.

    Palestinian engineers, when they say something’s “not rocket science”, mean they have no idea of how to do it.

  17. If it’s going to take that long, they might as well knock the whole lot flat and start from a blank sheet.
    Once the civilians are out it could be bombed level in a few days, and then a new Dubai or similar thrown up inside 20-30 years.

  18. So, UN acknowledding that the Pallies are such immeasurable morons that compared to Japan rebuilding within a decade, the Pallies would take 35 times as long – without even having an atom bomb dropped on them.

  19. I’m just imagining a helpful Israeli and a Palestinian shouting to each other across the border.

    “YOU REALLY ARE YOUR OWN WORST ENEMY! YOU SHOULD DO SOMETHING CONSTRUCTIVE!
    YOU NEED TO STOP CONSTANTLY DIGGING A HOLE FOR YOURSELF!”

    “BUT THAT’s THE ONLY THING I KNOW HOW TO DO!”

  20. “…ship them to Iran…”

    Wouldn’t work. Iran is Shiite, Palestinians are Sunni.

    So when they started killing each other, it would somehow be our fault.

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