The Last Remaining Palestinian Industry

What are we coming to when China is the kaffiyeh capital of the world?

Yasser Herbawi once supplied much of the West Bank and Gaza with black-and-white checkered scarves, the proud emblem of Palestinian identity made famous by the late Yasser Arafat.

But most of his looms now stand idle, his product edged out by cheap imports from the world’s newest kaffiyeh capital: China.

After a decade of being flooded with Chinese goods, from scarves to toys and bags, the West Bank’s largest city is struggling to compete - yet another obstacle to economic independence for Palestinians as they strive for a state of their own.

...Herbawi wants import restrictions, but these seem unlikely: His son, Izzat, noted that even Arafat’s Fatah movement, once a large customer, now buys some kaffiyehs from China.

Apparently, that now leaves Palestinians with only one last industry to brag about:

[The enemies of Allah] do not know that the Palestinian people has developed its [methods] of death and death-seeking. For the Palestinian people, death has become an industry, at which women excel, and so do all the people living on this land. The elderly excel at this, and so do the mujahideen and the children. This is why they have formed human shields of the women, the children, the elderly, and the mujahideen, in order to challenge the Zionist bombing machine. It is as if they were saying to the Zionist enemy: "We desire death like you desire life."

This is from Fathi Hammad, a Hamas member of parliament--that's the same Hamas that was voted into power by a majority and is still giving Fatah a run for their money in the West Bank.

Apparently, Hamas has found it is far easier to motivate by spewing hate than by inspiring pride. Thus the success of the Palestinian Arabs in killing people.
Thus the failure of the Palestinian Arabs in doing anything else.

Technorati Tag: Hamas and Palestinians.