"meeting their lawyer and a Palestinian businessman from Ramallah to discuss the joint establishment of a company on both sides of the Rafah-Kerem Shalom border." So how do you get those people to run the Palestinian government? Then everything would be fine, or at least workable. I know in theory how you do nation-building. It's working in Iraq (slowly) because we are occupying it while it's getting done and slowly handing over the reins. But the Iraqis want to be a modern country, they don't want to be suicide bombers. That is not their identity. But it seems to be the identity of enough Palestinians that the people like your friend's partner are not setting the tone. How do you shift that without occupation? (This has nothing to do with money. Millions of dollars have been sunk into the Territories from the UN, EU, Arab bloc, the US... it just goes for weapons and into thugs' pockets.)