Freedom fighters fight for freedom. The people of Gaza have been free for a long time. The Israelis withdrew settlements from West Bank & Gaza in 2005. What have the residents done with their freedom? The population has been growing by 2%, -mostly children, while the economy has been stagnant. The Israeli genocide hasn't been working very well. When Hamas "won" election in 2006 they refused to accept the previous peace settlement terms causing most outside aid to be shut off. Morons make a big deal of the high density of Gaza. The population density is 39th in the world with 42,000/sq mile compared with Mumbai which has almost twice the density @83,000. You might notice that the Indians are not fazed by that and it is the 17th largest city by GDP in the world. The work ethic in India is self-evident. It's self-evident in Gaza, too. A large local population is a large local work force in-waiting.
The 40 km of Mediterranean coastline for all intents and purposes lie fallow. How many jobs could 40 km of coastline support anywhere else in the world? Arab investors could have used up all the low-skilled labor available plus lots more in a vacation industry where cruise ships pass within sight from shore at least daily. The sky was and still is the limit. “…The Mediterranean region’s population is concentrated near the coasts. More than a third lives in coastal administrative entities totaling less than 12% of the surface area of the Mediterranean countries. (Sound like anything familiar?) The population of the coastal regions grew from about 100 million in 1980 to 150 million in 2005. It could reach 200 million by 2030. (Plan Bleu, based on UN World Population)”
Any other ethnic group would have exploited that coastline and reaped great economic benefits. The glass has been half full, and the Gaza leadership has been knocking the glass over for ~17 years. Local people use local assets to their advantage. They don't wish they had mountains in Mumbai for a ski resort site; they mine coal in West Virginia; they have ski resorts in Colorado. You use what ya got. You can’t fix stupid.
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