While one might conclude from Western media that widespread poverty in the Gaza Strip is the result of the blockade imposed by Israel and Egypt to stop Hamas, which rules the area, from smuggling weapons, in fact a massive two-way traffic in goods passes through the Israeli-controlled Kerem Shalom crossing every day. Moreover, Israel allows Qatar to supply Hamas with billions of dollars in cash, not to mention United Nations aid. A far greater contribution to Gaza’s woes comes from the Palestinian Authority (PA), which has imposed a blockade of its own—a result of the feud between Hamas and the PA’s ruling Fatah party. Gidon Ben-Zvi writes, that the PA president Mahmoud Abbas has cut welfare payments in Gaza (which still run through Ramallah) and slashed funding for electricity. And that’s not all:

According to numerous critics, many of whom have positions at prestigious think tanks and publications, the normalization agreements the Jewish state reached with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain constituted an abandonment of the Palestinians. Peter Berkowitz argues that, to the contrary, the Abraham Accords can help to improve the lot of the Palestinians, and to reduce the intensity of their conflict with Israel: