Of every 100 Palestinian workers, 11 work in Israel and the settlements compared to 10 in 2009, a new survey from the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics found.Which means that since the settlement freeze ended, with Arabs working to build houses in Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria, the Palestinian Arab GDP for the fourth quarter should go even higher.
The increase helped push up the Palestinian GDP per capita, in what was counted as a year of growth across the region.
Palestine's Gross Domestic Product increased by about 9 percent during the first three quarters of 2010 compared with the same period of 2009.
Released on Monday, the survey said growth was concentrated in economic activities with largest share in construction with a growth rate of 36 percent, followed by agriculture and fishing, wholesale and retail trade, transport, storage and communications, services, and public administration.
GDP per capita for Palestinian areas increased by 5 percent during the third quarter of 2010 compared with the same quarter of 2009, spurred mostly by an increase of three percent in the number of workers in construction, industry and the service sector.
So once again the people who say they want "peace" also want to hurt ordinary Palestinian Arabs trying to raise their families in dignity.
It is also interesting to see that the GDP increase is almost directly proportional - 9-10% - to the increase of workers in Israel and the Israeli towns across the green line. Foreign aid might not be so much a factor - jobs and cooperation with Israel is.
By the way, these statistics include Gaza, where no one works for Israelis, so that means that the percentage of West Bank Arabs who work for Israelis is probably closer to 15%. Boycotting Israel would throw the Palestinian Arab economy into a tailspin, and it would raise the West Bank unemployment rate to about the same as Gaza's is now - from around 17% to around 32%.