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ERIC SILVER

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Blind Depot

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T

he Jericho casino, the Holy
Land's only legal gaming house,
closed last week.
Since it opened two years ago,
2,500 gamblers have lost (and occa-
sionally won) hundreds of thousands
of dollars every day at its roulette
wheels and slot machines. Most of
them were Israelis, driving down
through the bare, scarred canyons of
the Judean wilderness across an
unmarked border into the Palestinian
state-in-the-making,
At the end of September, when the
Palestinians launched their second
intifida — an uprising this time with
guns as well as stones and petrol
bombs — the gamblers played safe
and stayed home. The tables were
deserted, the 184 rooms in the luxu-
rious new hotel next door empty.
The Austrian company which
manages the casino is watching now
to see how long the confrontation
lasts. It will not say how much it is
losing. Nor will Yasser Arafat's
Palestinian Authority, which takes 30
percent of the profits in taxes. The
2,000 employees, most of them
Palestinians, are waiting anxiously to
hear whether they will keep their
jobs.
The Austrians can afford to sit out
the mayhem. The Palestinians can-

not. The closure imposed by Ehud
Barak prevents 125,000 day laborers
getting to their jobs at Israeli build-
ing sires, farms, hotels and factories,
It blocks the export and import of
materials and produce. At its most
severe, it prevents movement of
goods and services between
Palestinian communities.
Salam Fayyad, an economist who
represents the International
Monetary Fund in the West Bank
and Gaza, is predicting a recession,
which could set the Palestinian econ-
omy back for years.
"The crisis," he said, "is having a
very dramatic impact on a very small
economy for which an open-trade
system is absolutely essential for sur-
vival. The closure is placing a stran-
glehold on the economy and on its
future prospects."
Israeli analysts believe this is one
reason why Arafat agreed to scale
down the violence and meet U.S.
President Bill Clinton in
Washington.
The Palestinian Economy and
Trade Ministry estimates that the
siege cost them at least $346 million
in its first month. United_ Nations
economists in Gaza put it more con-
servatively at $250 million.
Either way, it blew a huge hole in
an economy that was finally starting
to take off. Unemployment tripled
overnight from 10 to 30 percent,
Farmers and manufacturers are losing

almost $2 million a day in exports,
to Israel and the Arab world.
The Palestinian economy has few
natural resources, apart from its
manpower, brainpower and a frag-
ment of a land which is not exactly
flowing with milk and honey. Most
of its firms are small-scale family
enterprises. Bethlehem and Jericho
make money from hotels and restau-
rants, especially in the run-up to
Christmas, but the tourists are not
coming.
Palestinian banks cut off credit
three weeks ago, to individuals and
to companies, for fear that loans
might never be repaid.
If things don't improve soon, con-
sumers will stop buying more than
staple necessities. Firms will lay off
workers. Shops will have to slash
prices to tempt people back. The
recession will gain speed.
Israeli bureaucracy is not making
things easier. More than 900 truck-
loads and containers, on their way to
the Palestinian territories, are stuck at
the Israeli ports of Haifa and
Ashdod. At the same time, Israel is
delaying the monthly transfer of
about $30 million in tax revenue
paid by Palestinian workers or
importers.
"We are not trying to starve them
out said Israel government
spokesman Nahman Shai, "but we
are using any means to convince the
Palestinians to stop the violence." Li

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from page 15

within Arafat's own Fatah movement.
If the violence continues, there can be no guarantee that
the old generation, personified in Arafat, can continue riding
the tiger without falling off.
Without doubt, however, there are numerous pessimists
out there who do not expect much of anything from the
Washington meetings.
Among them is Samuel Lewis, who was the U.S. ambassa-
dor to Israel in 1979, when the Jewish state forged its first
peace treaty with an Arab neighbor, Egypt.
Participating in a panel discussion this week in Washington
sponsored by the Israel Policy Forum, Lewis said the violence
of the past weeks has broken "too much crockery."
"If there was a chance for a comprehensive deal," said
Lewis, who was the U.S. envoy to Israel from 1977 to 1985,
"it has fled. And we may not see it again anytime soon." ❑

— JTA correspondents Naomi Segal in Jerusalem and Matthew
E. Berger in Washington contributed to this report.

Ross Bowing Out

Los Angeles/JTA
ennis Ross, who has been the U.S. State
Department's point man in Middle East negotiations
for almost a decade, will call it quits when the Clinton
administration leaves office.
Sounding a bit discouraged, Ross told the Los Angeles
World Affairs Council on Monday, "I have done this job
for a long time and I must consider the impact on my fam-
ily. I don't intend to stay on in the next administration."
Recalling the situation before violence broke out in late
September, Ross said, "That was only five weeks ago, but
it seems as if we are now living in a different world."
Ultimately, however, Israel and the Palestinians must
learn to coexist, said the veteran Jewish diplomat.
But for peace to last, it must be accepted by the peo-
ple and not just by leaders and negotiators, he said. "In
the long run, neither a military solution nor one
imposed from the outside will work," said Ross.

D

