Thread by @gladstein

1/ My essay "Can Bitcoin be Palestine's Currency of Freedom?" is now live.

I spoke to Palestinians to learn how they are using Bitcoin as a peaceful protest to overcome staggering financial barriers 🇵🇸 ⚡

My chat with a user in Gaza blew my mind 🧵:

bitcoinmagazine.com/culture/can-bi…

2/ Uqab spoke to me from Rafah, the scene of yet another wave of IDF bombings in May. Gaza faces civilizational collapse. 1 out of 2 live in poverty. Half are unemployed. 80% depend on handouts. Investment is gone. Capital stock is destroyed. There is very little hope left.

3/ Gazans may be physically trapped + economically cut off from the world, but Uqab said Bitcoin gave him freedom, calling it “a checkpoint that’s always open.”

“With Bitcoin, we’re getting on with our lives,” he said. “Inshallah, more Palestinians will discover this technology"

4/ Palestinian political suffering — trapped by Israeli military occupation, Hamas’s terror tactics, the corrupt PA, and a largely uncaring world — is well-known.

But their monetary and economic situation goes untold, even though money is at the very root of their struggles.

5/ To learn more, I spoke to @alaatartir, a Palestinian political economist who walked me through his country's financial history.

Over the past 50 years, Palestinians have become deeply dependent on the outside world, yet isolated at the same time.

6/ Israeli policy was designed to make Palestinians dependent on Israeli imports, unable to build their own capital stock, sinking deeper into a consumerist society. Meanwhile the PA siphoned off aid and other revenue to enrich itself, leaving the average Palestinian in the cold.

7/ In April 1994 PLO and Israeli delegates met in France to sign a rarely-discussed document called the “Protocol On Economic Relations,” also known as the “Paris Protocol.”

This document, meant to be temporary, still controls the economic fate of Palestinians today.

8/ What was pitched as a step towards Palestinian independence was really a set of rules which increased Palestinian dependence on foreign aid and the Israeli economy.

Individual freedom and economic sovereignty were sacrificed by Arafat and his cronies for personal gain.

9/ Israel would control Palestinian monetary policy and its banking system. The INS would be mandatory legal tender.

The impact of the Paris Protocol can be seen in one simple yet shocking statistic: Palestine’s manufacturing sector declined from 19% to 10% from 1994 to 2011.

10/ According to Tartir, “Palestinians have been forced to live in an aid-development paradox: large amounts of aid associated with a downward decline in socioeconomic and human development indicators. In cases like Gaza, those declines have been dystopian.”

11/ The legacy of corruption at the PA makes it worse. Arafat was worth billions when he died. Fadi @Elsalameen argues that Abbas-in power since 2006-has carried on the tradition. Ongoing protests in the West Bank are centered on Abbas's looting of funds and crushing of dissent.

12/ I spoke to a former Palestinian banker living in Ramallah named Abuwedad who told me banking reforms since 2007 have "prioritized consumerism over independence" and have funneled easy money to Palestinians to buy things but not invest in their future.

13/ He said what's worse is that they have no PayPal or Venmo. Receiving money from abroad is time-consuming, expensive, and sometimes impossible.

So he quit the banking industry and became a Bitcoiner.

He told me that more Palestinians opt into Bitcoin every day.

14/ They do it through Telegram or FB groups, or through first buying Tether on Binance. In the West Bank he said you can't buy BTC directly through the banking system, only Tether.

He knows this isn't ideal. But Lightning and stabilized Lightning accounts could change things.

15/ At the end of our call I sent him $5 from Boston to Ramallah via @MuunWallet via Lightning. The payment went through instantly, with no fees.

There were no checkpoints, no red flags, no delays. Neither the Israelis nor the PA took a cut. He thought it was magical.

16/ I spoke to Kefah Abukhdeir, an educator based in West Jerusalem who wants to help Palestinians create a "resistance economy" through Bitcoin.

“Independence is financial,” she told me. “If we don’t have financial freedom, nothing is going to change.”

17/ Tech is important, she said, "because we need a plan that does not require raw resources. We can’t own land, we can’t manufacture — so what can we do?”

"If we don’t opt out of the Israeli currency," she said, "we just strengthen the system."

18/ I also spoke to several people in the Israeli Bitcoin community, who seemed positive about the idea of helping Palestinians through Bitcoin.

“It’s not fake freedom,” one said, “like the kind we have tried to give before.”

19/ I even spoke to a settler. When the Oslo process began in 1993, there were a little more than 100,000 Israeli settlers in the West Bank, not counting East Jerusalem.

Today, there are more than 475,000. Jonathan Caras is one of them.

20/ Even though his actions are seemingly at odds with Palestinian freedom, Caras understands the power dynamic in paying people in shekels. Which is why he offers to pay in Bitcoin, which he believes will outlast the Central Bank of Israel. He believes fiat currency is immoral.

21/ I also spoke to Adam Albarghouthi, who is fundraising to help grow Palestinian agricultural self-sufficiency. He says Palestinians are import dependent and that they need to produce their own food. He thinks Bitcoin could help his team raise funds in a restrictive environment

22/ In sum, it seems clear that the Israeli government will demonize Bitcoin. They have tried to centralize control over all money flowing into/out of the West Bank and Gaza. Bitcoin disrupts this monopoly. So they will likely attack it -- but it could be a huge empowerment tool.

23/ More than 2/3rds of Palestinians are under the age of 30, and more than 70% have internet access. It could be just a matter of time.

As fate would have it, the first world leader to adopt Bitcoin @nayibbukele is Palestinian, with family coming from Jerusalem and Bethlehem.

24/ The economic reforms on the table today will only increase Israeli and PA control over the people.

A Palestinian CBDC could destroy the informal economy and the small freedoms Palestinians do have with cash.

Bitcoin adoption will have to come from a people power movement.

25/ What's certain is that Palestinians will continue to adopt Bitcoin.

But it remains unclear if their supporters around the world will help them in this regard.

It is depressing to see silence on Bitcoin from the major human rights groups.

26/ What does posting #FreePalestine really achieve? It might just be virtue signaling.

But by helping someone understand how to use Bitcoin, one can help them achieve a degree of real freedom: the ability to protect value from confiscation + to connect with anyone in the world.

27/ In my essay I quoted the work of Sarah Roy. One thing she said stuck with me: "knowledge production is itself a form of resistance"

So if you really want to extend a hand to help people in need, not just in Palestine but anywhere, consider helping them understand Bitcoin.

28/ Back in Gaza, Uqab is seeing people sell their homes for BTC. Real estate is going to 0, he said, so worst case, it's status quo. But best case? "A door to freedom"

“I’m saving up for my kids,” he said, right before we hung up. “Bitcoin is going to be my ticket out of here"

29/ Writing this article really changed my perspective on a lot of things.

The big lesson: regardless of our debates on Twitter, Bitcoin is out there kicking ass and helping so many people right now.

To learn more, read the full story:

bitcoinmagazine.com/culture/can-bi…