To understand the reality of the West Bank industryand several of its main obstacles, it is impossible to neglect the influence of past political events. In fact, the recent changes of the Palestinian geopolitical context have been causing direct impacts on the Palestinian economy in general and on the industrial sector in particular. One of the most relevant recent political events that influenced the evolution of the Palestinian society and economy is related with the Oslo Accords signed in in 1993, which has created the conditions for the establishment of the Palestinian Authority. The main objective of this article is precisely to evaluate how the new political conditions achieved with the creation of the Palestinian Authority have impacted the West Bank industrial development, in a sequence of three distinct phases: the first phase from 1994 to 2000 matched with the beginning of the Palestinian Authority, and goes until the onset of the Al-Aqsa Intifada; the second phase from 2000 to 2004 matched with the Al-Aqsa Intifada (or Second Intifada); and the third phase from 2004 until the present time, started with the stability achieved after the Al-Aqsa Intifada. Methodologically, this study is based onan historical approach crossed with a statistical and cartographic analysis of data from the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics. The results demonstrate how erratic is the evolution of the West Bank industrial sector during this period, and that almost 25 years of the emergence of the Palestinian Authority, the weakness of the West Bank industrial sector still persist, in part as a consequence of external forces, namely all the impositions done by Israel to limit thesovereigntyof the Palestinian Authority to control its territory and economy.

Key-words: Oslo Accords; Palestinian Authority; Economic Geography; Industry; Palestine; West Bank

Title

Al-Istiqlal University Journal Research

Publisher

مجلة جامعة النجاح للابحاث

Publisher Country

Palestine

Indexing

Scopus

Impact Factor

None

Publication Type

Both (Printed and Online)

Volume

9

Year

2

Pages

30