Why hasn't Palestine developed like Israel in the last 70 years? [here]
Long story short: Because the Arabs freely chose to not advance themselves.
Long story short: Because the Arabs freely chose to not advance themselves.
Short story long: The only reason for the vast disparity in development is because the Jews of Palestine chose to build a nation on their half of the land and develop their resources, technological and human. The Arabs of Palestine chose to wage wars instead.
After WWII, the UN partitioned what was then called Palestine into two portions: half for a Jewish homeland, half for an Arab homeland. Jews and Arabs were considered the only two peoples with legitimate, longstanding claims to having lived in Palestine for centuries, so the split was considered logical. The UN was the only body with the legal authority to make that decision, and it did.
The Jews accepted their half and declared the State of Israel. The Arabs bowed to the Arab League’s and surrounding Arab states’ lust to launch a war of Jewish extermination, in hopes of adding the Israeli half to the Arab half to create a Jew-free state from the river to the sea: Palestine. The Arabs lost to Israel in the War of Independence, and Israeli construction began.
The militaries of Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and others tried to exterminate Israel three more times: in 1956 (Suez War), 1967 (Six-Day War) and 1973 (Yom Kippur War). They failed each time. Enter the PLO, Palestinian Authority, and terrorist Yasser Arafat, who launched two intifadas against Israel that featured thousands of suicide bombings, package bombs, mail bombs, knife attacks, and other bloody assaults on civilian targets. The intifadas took many Jewish lives, but they eventually faded as Israel fought back and eventually erected concrete separation walls to keep the murderers on their side of the border.
Fast-forward to today. One part of the UN Mandate land, Gaza, is populated entirely by Palestinians, with every Jew pulled out by the Israeli government. How did Palestinians react? By electing the terrorist organization Hamas to govern them—and to launch rocket and arson attacks against Israel. The Palestinian Authority governs most of the Palestinians living in Judea/West Bank, the other part of the UN Mandate. PA territory, while tense, is largely free of terror and murder.
Neither Hamas nor the PA have made one move toward statehood, despite two Israeli prime ministers offering them virtually all the land the Arabs lost in four wars in exchange for a peace treaty, permanent borders, and a peaceful Palestine. Israel wants out of the occupation business, but Arabs have no wish to cooperate.
The State of Palestine will not exist until Palestinians want a state more than they want to murder Jews. The ball has been in Palestine’s court for 70 years, but they refuse to pick it up. Israel is there and thriving. Palestinians are destitute and screwed over every day by their own leaders.
What’s it going to take for them to wake up? 
