Re: Economic effects on Israel of the 2nd intifada (was: Re: terror)

[Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1@xxxxxxx>]

Lou Paulsen wrote:

> > The Israeli Right can afford to pursue the course that they have,
> > because the impacts of the intifada and solidarity activism on the
> > Israeli economy have been slight .
>
> I will grant the point about the effects of solidarity activism, so
> far, but as to the intifada, see this for example:
>
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/2697883.stm

Well, I suppose that debating the second intifada's impact on the
Israeli economy may come down to whether you see the glass as half
full or half empty, but let me pose a couple of questions:

(1) To what extent is the Israeli economic downturn attributable to
the intifada, and to what extent, to global downturns?

(2) Has the Israeli economic downturn translated into:
(2a) any Israeli concession to Palestinians;
or at least (2b) stiff Israeli opposition to the occupation and
settlement construction?

The answer to (2a) -- the most crucial question -- is clear: NO.
None.  Zero.  Nada.

As for (1), in Israel as well as the rest of the world, the
neoliberal regime of globalized capital accumulation -- which was in
the final instance the politico-economic meaning of Oslo (as well as
of the end to South African Apartheid, transition from military
dictatorship to civilian political authority in Latin America and the
Philippines, etc) -- was already entering into the crisis of its own
making before the second intifada:

*****   When Sharon came to power, the neoliberal high-tech order was
already on its last leg. The first signs of trouble appeared several
years earlier in the global periphery, with excess production
triggering a series of crises which spread from Asia in 1997, to
Russia, South Africa, Brazil, Argentina and the rest of the
developing world. Then, the price of oil shot up, soaring from $10 in
1999 to $30 in 2000, and throwing a monkey wrench into the longest
post-war economic expansion. The Nasdaq and other high-tech markets,
having already reached valuation extremes, were punctured, going into
a nose-dive, and in early 2001, a hawkish administration with deep
ties to oil and armament interests literally took over the White
House. In short, everything seemed ready for a reversal of fortunes.
Fittingly, as the new century took off, high-tech profits dropped
like a stone, while the earnings of oil and armament companies soared
(Figure 1).

Seen from this broader perspective, the escalating conflict in the
Middle East - much like 'September 11' and the attack on Afghanistan
- may well be part of yet another global shift in accumulation.

(Shimshon Bichler and Jonathan Nitzan, "Global Accumulation and the
New Middle-East Wars," June 2002,
<http://www.arts.yorku.ca/politics/nitzan/bnarchives/mimeographs/pdf/global_accumulation_the_new_middle_east_wars_jul2002.pdf>
*****

The second intifada was not only an expression of Palestinian
repudiation of the so-called Peace Process, which only served to give
a political cover to accelerated settlement construction under the
Labor government, and Palestinian protest against Arafat and the PA
who let Israel take advantage of relative peace.  It is also part and
parcel of a wave of global protests against the neoliberal regime of
accumulation which offered only promises of highly insecure low-wage
employment in informal sectors in return for dispossession of land
and other natural resources in the periphery of capitalism.
Solidarity activists should, in analysis and practice, make a clear
link between what's going on in historic Palestine and what's
happening in the rest of the world, with a view to coalition building
between the Palestinian solidarity movement and the global justice
movement.

(2b) may materialize sometime later, but so far Palestinians, Israeli
leftists _to the left of the Labor Party_, and international
solidarity activists have not been able to transform potential fault
lines -- along class, ethnic, religious, and other divides -- in
Israeli politics into actual ones.  Continuing indiscriminate attacks
on civilians inside the Green Line probably make the growth of an
Israeli political faction to the left of labor Zionism -- united in
opposition to the occupation and in support of the right of return --
unlikely, if not impossible.
--
Yoshie

* Bring Them Home Now! <http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/>
* Calendars of Events in Columbus:
<http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html>,
<http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php>, & <http://www.cpanews.org/>
* Student International Forum: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/>
* Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/>
* Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio>
* Solidarity: <http://www.solidarity-us.org/>


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