I live a social life that is probably as good as any European country. My wife and I live in a nice flat, we have good jobs, we go out often to pubs and restaurants with friends or alone. We have one or two vacations a year during which we almost always go to Europe.
We are not rich. But our lifestyle is not the way most Palestinians live, we have significantly higher disposable that allows us to live this life style.
As in every country, there are people who are filthy rich, and those living in extreme poverty and those at different points between the two ends of the spectrum.
You can say the we are, generally, no different from the neighbouring countries like Jordan, but much better off than Egypt due to less skewed distribution of wealth.
Future
One of the biggest problems that ALL Palestinians complain about is the lack of a clear future. Over the past 20 years, we have lived through periods of hope, violence, anticipation, concern.... We do not know what the future holds for us. Every single event that happens on the political side can flip all your plans. For example, in early 2000, people were hopeful about the peace process. People went on investing in businesses, then the Intifada came. Palestine's GDP shrunk to a third of its 1999 levels by 2002. Then the Intifada ended, there was hope again. Hamas won the elections, and the entire world stopped supporting the PA. For two years public sector salaries were disrupted, meaning that over 25% of the employed population did not have a steady income. The Economy plunged again.
Fayyad's Government came after the coup in Gaza. People had hopes and were anticipating. They became more cautious about investing. The economy grew a little, in 2011 the per capita GDP was 1.6% higher than it was 12 years earlier in 1999. In 2010, it was lower!
We don't know what will happen tomorrow. We cannot plan for anything. It really is demotivating to live here because of that!
Not only that the economy is unstable, but the level of Israeli control over the economy is just ridiculous. Israel, for example, does not allow telecom operators to provide 3G services. To this day we only have 2G!
A friend of mine tried to establish a farm. for 17 months he was running back and forth trying to get approvals from the military.
You cannot do anything without receiving a slap on the face from the control Israeli's have on Palestinians' everyday life. Israel can, and at various occassions has, cut off electricity, fuel and water of the Palestinians in the West Bank!
Freedoms
The Palestinian Authority is not the most democratic government. It is a slow moving oligarchy that is corrupt and often oppressive of freedoms. This however, is very little to what we face from Israel.
The entire Palestinian economy is captive to the Israeli military. We are subject to Israeli military law. Israel controls what and who is allowed in or out of the country. It controls who you can marry. Everything! so, being jailed for criticising the government, is little compared to having every aspect of your life controlled by a foreign military.
To give a couple of examples. We have a house in our village which is classifies as "Area C", When we requested a waterline to be connected to the house, they could only install the line until the end of "Area B", the remaining 5 meters require an approval of the military commander of the area, which is almost impossible to receive on any "construction" project!
For me to visit my wife's family in Jerusalem, I need a permit from the Israeli Military.
