(Summary) The Political Economy Challenges to Palestinian Development Before and After Genocide

The Palestine Economic Policy Research Institute (MAS) presents this study as the most recent in a series of research papers it produced during 2025 as part of its original research program funded with generous support from the Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development (AFESD). Thanks to this support, MAS was able to conduct four exploratory studies on the prospects of the post-genocidal-war period under the title “The Political Economy of Palestinian Nationhood, Independence and Development in the Wake of War”, in addition to four studies on the policies that need to be pursued to advance productive sectors, published separately.  

MAS continues to conduct policy research amid the severe economic and social conditions created by the war, both at the level of households in the Gaza Strip and at the level of the labour force in the West Bank (to be published in 2026). This diverse range of research outcomes reflects an integrated Palestinian vision from the heart of the events, highlighting the incalculable catastrophic consequences of Israel's genocidal war since 2023. Such consequences have shattered previous assumptions and positions, creating an unprecedented development landscape that is still taking shape.

In this context, this study presents a synthesis of the preliminary lessons that must be drawn regarding Palestinian political economy and the prospects of development amidst the threat of genocide. Drawing on numerous research publications by MAS over recent years, new concepts, knowledge-based approaches, and empirical evidence have emerged in the aftermath of two years of war—issues that Palestinian political economy analysis had not addressed before 2023. These issues have come to shape the trajectory of economic thought and development policies in the critical phase ahead.

The study concludes that even if a ceasefire holds, the Palestinian economy in both parts of the occupied territory will continue to fight a socioeconomic war—one that becomes ever more deeply entrenched with each new piece of Israeli legislation enacted and every colonial administrative measure taken within the reality of the single “apartheid” state. If this represents the impending shape of the conflict in the coming years, it does not imply the elimination of the presence of 7 million Palestinians in their homeland. Rather, such a trajectory, if not averted, will impose an economic, social, and political rights-based agenda that is completely different from that which has been dominant over the past 35 years.

There is still a long way to go towards national liberation and socio-economic emancipation, especially given the inability of the Palestinian political system to make tangible internal change or to bring about a shift in the depth of the Arab and international support for the Palestinian people’s rights as opposed to Israeli policies. Without such transformation, it is difficult to envisage how to overcome this ordeal, or how to address the strategies of an Israeli political economy grounded in a doctrine of genocidal settler colonialism.