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While it is unknown whether any agreement has been reached politically, US Secretary of State John Kerry has put the focus on economic planning, promising to raise $4 billion in investment for the Palestinian Authority. The investment will be part of a neo-liberal economic plan whose details were delegated to the Quartet to outline. The plan, says Palestinian economist Alaa Tartir, will further entrench Palestinian poverty and the dependency of the fragile Palestinian economy on that of Israel’s, i.e. the occupier’s.

Alaa Tartir

Dr. Alaa Tartir is the Program Director of Al-Shabaka: The Palestinian Policy Network and a Research Associate at the Center on Conflict, Development, and Peacebuilding (CCDP) at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies (IHEID), Geneva, Switzerland. Amongst other positions, Tartir previously served as Visiting Scholar at Utrecht University’s Department of History and Art History, The Netherlands, Post-Doctoral Fellow at The Geneva Centre for Security Policy (GCSP), and Researcher in International Development Studies at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), where he earned his PhD. Follow Alaa Tartir on Twitter @alaatartir and read his publication at www.alaatartir.com.