During my recent trip to Israel, I had suggested that the choices a society makes about its culture play a role in creating prosperity, and that the significant disparity between Israeli and Palestinian living standards was powerfully influenced by it. In some quarters, that comment became the subject of controversy.
But what exactly accounts for prosperity if not culture? In the case of the United States, it is a particular kind of culture that has made us the greatest economic power in the history of the earth.Let me redirect your gaze to the first sentence of paragraph 2 again. But what exactly accounts for prosperity if not culture? Since the question DIRECTLY follows the comparison of Israeli and Palestinian living standards, I suggest the following items - all missing in the Occupied Territories:
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- Territorial Integrity
- (Valid) occupation of a foreign power that follows the rule of their own supreme Court.
- Freedom of Movement
- Land Ownership
- Ability to pass laws governing their own people.
- Freedom to work
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Those are a quick few things might account for prosperity if not culture, you dip-shit.
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The linkage between freedom and economic development has a universal applicability. One only has to look at the contrast between East and West Germany, and between North and South Korea for the starkest demonstrations of the meaning of freedom and the absence of freedom.
And yet, it escapes his notice that Israel and Palestine have a similar contrast!