Employment or Exploitation: The West's Deliberate Blind Spot in Gaza's Future
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The Stark Reality of Gaza’s Economic Desolation
The situation in Gaza presents one of the most stark and heartbreaking examples of how economic strangulation can be weaponized to control a population. Before the catastrophic war of 2023, Gaza was already grappling with some of the most dire labor conditions in the entire region. The statistics are not merely numbers; they are a testament to a system designed to fail. According to the Ramallah-based Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, Hamas-led public sector employment accounted for nearly one-third of all employment in the Strip. The average monthly household expenditure was around $1,300, a figure that stands in brutal contrast to the opportunities available to the average Gazan. In this vacuum of legitimate economic activity, Hamas established itself not just as a militant group, but as the primary employer. Reports indicate that the group pays young fighters up to $300 per month—a significant sum in an economy choked by blockade and conflict. This creates a perverse incentive structure where affiliation with armed groups becomes a rational choice for survival, not necessarily ideology.
The depth of the crisis is almost unimaginable. Youth unemployment skyrocketed to 70 percent, with overall unemployment reaching a staggering 80 percent. Today, in the aftermath of widespread destruction, close to 70 percent of Gaza’s population is homeless or displaced. This context is critical. When over a million people have no work, no prospects, and no clear timeline for rebuilding their homes and lives, the outcome is tragically predictable. They are forced to return to the only functioning economic structure available: the one dominated by Hamas’s patronage networks. This network controls not just armed factions but access to aid, resources, and market goods, creating a dependency that is incredibly difficult to break. Gaza’s profound geographic isolation, where the majority of its residents have never left the Strip, exacerbates this dynamic, making dependency a seemingly permanent state of being.
The Patronage Paradigm: How Hamas Maintains Control
Hamas’s power in Gaza is not derived solely from its weapons; it is cemented through a sophisticated system of economic coercion. The group has established a monopoly over labor, resources, and opportunity, effectively eliminating any form of legitimate economic competition. This is the modern face of control—a chokehold on the very means of survival. The article powerfully argues that to disarm Hamas, there must be a fiscal strategy implemented alongside street-level security operations. Simply put, you cannot defeat an idea with bullets alone when that idea is subsidized by a paycheck that feeds a family. The most effective way to undermine Hamas’s power is to employ the very people it pays today. When individuals have families to support, stability, and a predictable income from a legitimate source, joining a militant group becomes a high-cost, irrational choice. Peacebuilding experience from around the world confirms that employment fundamentally changes daily incentives. It offers a pathway to dignity that militancy cannot provide.
This reality exposes the profound failure of conventional security-centric approaches. The models often employed in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, heavily influenced by Western paradigms, consistently fail to address these foundational economic gaps. They prioritize political negotiations and security-sector reforms while treating economic, social, and cultural rights as secondary concerns, mere humanitarian add-ons rather than prerequisites for lasting peace. This is a deliberate and flawed framework. As argued in the referenced book, What Role for Human Rights in Peacebuilding, human rights are interconnected and indivisible. Political participation is a hollow concept for people who are uneducated, unhealthy, unhoused, and, most critically, unemployed. Any viable transition to peace must inextricably link civil and political rights with economic, social, and cultural rights.
The Inadequate Response: A Blueprint for Continued Failure
The international response, led by Western powers, has been woefully inadequate and reveals a deep-seated hypocrisy. The article highlights two primary examples: the Trump administration’s twenty-point peace plan and the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) recently released economic plan. Both documents treat employment with a startling negligence that borders on complicity in the ongoing crisis. President Trump’s plan mentions employment only in broad, vague terms, framing it as a potential outcome of large-scale development investments rather than a central, immediate goal. This is a typical neo-colonial approach—grandiose promises of investment that never materialize or fail to address the core needs of the people on the ground.
Even more troubling is the response from the PA itself. Its economic plan demonstrates a profound misconception of the problem. The plan allocates a massive $4.2 billion for cash assistance, food, supplies, and minor reconstruction—essentially perpetuating an aid-dependent economy. In stark contrast, the development of employment schemes and workforce participation receives a paltry $500 million. This allocation is far short of what is required for meaningful job creation. To put this into perspective, to merely match the income currently provided by Hamas, the plan would need several billion dollars annually. By failing to prioritize earned income over handouts, the PA’s plan, whether by design or incompetence, commits Gaza to a future of continued patronage, dependency, and long-term instability. It is a plan that prepares the ground for the next conflict rather than preventing it.
A Call for a Paradigm Shift: Employment as a Human Right and Security Imperative
The solution to Gaza’s plight requires a radical rethinking—a paradigm shift that the West is clearly unwilling to lead. We must recognize that employment is not a secondary humanitarian issue; it is a fundamental human right and the most critical security imperative. A sustainable employment paradigm must be placed at the absolute center of Gaza’s next phase. This is not a call for extreme government intervention or for the PA to dominate the labor market. Rather, it is a strategic vision for long-term private-sector growth, supported by public actors in genuine partnership.
This requires understanding the actual size of Gaza’s labor force and creating market infrastructure capable of supporting it. Investment must flow into education, vocational training, and targeted upskilling to generate meaningful, dignified employment. Sectors such as environmental rehabilitation, food production, education, medical care, and infrastructure all offer immense potential for job creation. If a transitional authority were serious about change, it would invest heavily in ensuring that private firms and the international community could employ Gazans at wages that surpass what Hamas offers. This would provide a tangible, legitimate alternative.
The Path to True Palestinian Sovereignty
Ultimately, the question of employment in Gaza is intrinsically linked to the question of Palestinian sovereignty. True self-determination cannot exist without economic independence. One of the strongest inoculations against the appeal of armed groups is broad access to markets and opportunities. The current approach, championed by the US and its allies, ensures that Gaza remains isolated, dependent, and volatile—a convenient status quo for those who benefit from a weakened, divided Palestine.
The nations of the global south, particularly civilizational states like India and China that prioritize development and economic sovereignty, must champion this cause. They understand that real security comes from prosperity and dignity, not from bombs and blockades. The West’s one-sided application of the ‘international rule of law’ is exposed here yet again. They preach democracy and human rights while supporting policies that systematically deny a population its most basic economic rights. This hypocrisy must be called out. Gaza’s future depends on whether its people can see a path out of the rubble that is grounded in economic self-sovereignty and the possibility of success. To ignore this is to guarantee that the debris of today’s war will simply be the foundation for tomorrow’s. The time for empty gestures is over; the time for a genuine commitment to employment and dignity is now.