Harry Targ
Global
Economic Context
Looking at the last third of the
twentieth century, Canadian economist James Davies, in a study prepared by the World
Institute for Development Economics Research, wrote “income inequality has been
rising for the past 20 to 25 years and we think that is true for inequality in
the distribution of wealth.” In 2,000 the study showed, the top 1 percent of
the world’s population accounted for 40 percent of its total net worth, with
the bottom half owning 1.1 percent. Edward Wolff, another economist
participating in the study, wrote “With the notable exception of China and
India, the third world has drifted behind.” (New York Times, December 6, 2006).
The starkest interpretation of this
kind of data was reflected in a 2003 article by Egyptian economist Samir Amin,
who asserted that the global economy is creating what he called “the precarious
classes,” both in agriculture and manufacturing, who cannot count on day-to-day
remunerative activity to survive. He estimated that 2/3 to 3/4 of humankind is
among the “precarious classes.”
Relevance
to the Middle East in the 21st Century
A financial publication entitled
“Arab Banker” printed a summary of a World Bank study, “Two Years After London:
Restarting Palestinian Economic Recovery” in 2007. The World Bank, the Arab Banker, and other
sources presented the following alarming data:
-The percentage of Gazans living in
poverty steadily increased from 1998 (21.6%) to 2006 (35%).
-Israeli policies barring imports
and exports isolated Gaza from the Israeli and global economy made matters
worse; a 90 % decline in Gaza’s industrial operations occurred between the 2006
parliamentary election victory of Hamas and 2007
-Industrial employment in Gaza
declined from 35,000 in 2005 to 4,200 in 2007.
During the first decade of the new
century, comparative economic data on Israel and the occupied territories
indicated that West Bank and Gaza gross national product per capita was about
10 percent of that of Israel.
More recently, the United Nations
issued a report entitled “Socio-Economic and Food Security Survey 2012: West
Bank and Gaza Strip, Palestine.” This report was produced under the auspices of
the Food and Agriculture Organization, the United Nations Relief and Works
Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East, and the World Food program.
It documented a connection between food insecurity in Palestine and external
constraints on the economies of the West Bank and Gaza imposed by occupation
and blockades. Among their findings were the following:
-34 percent of Palestinian
households, comprising over 1.5 million people live in situations of food
insecurity (19 percent in the West Bank and 57 percent in Gaza).
-Food insecurity, increasing since
2009, derived from growing unemployment, declining purchasing power, and slowed
or abandoned aid thus decreasing jobs, income, and consumption.
-Food insecure households (often
with larger families) are more likely to experience disabilities and chronic
illnesses.
The report made three general
recommendations: lift the embargo on Gaza, increase West Bank access to the
Israeli economy, and support efforts to increase economic productivity in the
West Bank and Gaza.
The
Middle East Wars
The contested land of Palestine had
been largely populated by Muslim peoples from the 7th century until
the mid-twentieth century. In 1947, the
year that the United Nations recommended the partition of Palestine into two
states, only 1/3 of the land’s inhabitants were of Jewish background. On May
14, 1948, David Ben-Gurion, the Executive Head of the World Zionist
Organization and the chairman of the Jewish Agency in Palestine, declared the
establishment of a new state of Israel, and the first Middle East war between
the new Israeli army and Arab states ensued. Palestinians and Arab neighbors
regarded the creation of the new state as an occupation of the historic
residents of the land. Over the course of this first Middle East war and those
that followed hundreds of thousands of Palestinians became a displaced
population.
Subsequently wars occurred in 1956,
1967, 1973, 1982, and intermittently from the 1980s until today. Wars were
fought among Israelis, her neighbors, and Palestinians who lived in what became
the occupied territories. Disputes have involved the legitimacy of the state of
Israeli; Israeli expansion particularly its continuing construction of
settlements in the West Bank and the displacement of Palestinian people; the
rights of Palestinian peoples inside Israel, control of water and land
throughout the region; and other issues. Various organizations challenging the
Israeli state and land expansion emerged over the last fifty years including
the Palestine Liberation Organization, Hamas, and Hezbollah. Outside nations,
the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War; former European
colonial powers such as Great Britain and France; and neighboring Arab and
other Muslim states; have provided support for contending Israeli and
Palestinian parties to the continuing conflict.
The United States became Israel’s
main ally during all these years. Since 1979 Israel has been the largest
recipient on a per capita basis of foreign assistance from the United States of
any of the latter’s clients. In addition, Israel has become the best equipped
and most powerful military force in the region, largely due to the billions of
dollars of U. S. military assistance. Israel is the only state with nuclear
capabilities in the region.
Finally, pro-Israel lobby groups in
the United States support continued military and economic aid to Israel,
Israel’s opposition to serious negotiations with what is now the Palestinian
Authority in the West Bank and Hamas ruled Gaza, and oppose initiatives from peace groups in the U.S. and
the international community. Currently, militant pro-Israel lobby groups are
pressuring Congress to pass legislation threatening expansion of Iranian sanctions
in the midst of a major Obama administration effort to reach accords with Iran
on nuclear weapons. These domestic groups and the Israeli government regard
Iran as the number one enemy in the region.
Violence and instability in the
region, the tragedy of 9/11, worldwide terrorism directed against U.S. targets,
and insurmountable and spreading conflicts have been directly related to
Israel’s economic isolation of and military policies toward the Palestinian
people and the continuing US support
of Israel’s behavior. Within the United States, critics of U.S. support of
Israel are excoriated and politicians are intimidated such that policy debate
on Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians inside Israel as well as economic
embargoes and military attacks on interim Palestinian institutions and people
in Gaza and the West Bank are largely censored from public discourse.
What Does This Mean?
First, violence and political
instability in the world is intimately connected to the absence of economic
well-being. The economic crises faced in
recent years in the industrial capitalist world are small compared to the
punishing crises of survival that some countries of the Global South still
experience in the 21st century; countries and territories of the
Middle East are prime examples.
Second, data suggests clearly that
in the occupied territories (the West Bank, Gaza, and the Golan Heights, all
conquered in the 1967 Middle East war) the notion of “precariousness”
(joblessness, land theft, food insecurity, grotesque economic and political
inequalities in the region) is an apt way to describe the condition of the
Palestinian people.
Third, shifting currents in
Palestinian politics have been connected to patterns of economic growth and
decay. In the 1950s and 1960s, secular leaders in the Arab world, including
Palestinians, offered a vision of economic change and political autonomy for
their people that was processed in Washington, and European capitals as
threatening to dominant economic interests. Paradoxically, the U.S. began to
support political actors in the region with a religious agenda, such as the
followers of Osama Bin Laden in Afghanistan and Hamas in Palestine.
Subsequently, these groups responded to the sense of economic injustice that
peoples like the Palestinians experience.
There is no easy solution but the
United States and other wealthy countries have an obligation to participate in
a disinterested economic reconstruction of the occupied territories and support
for complete political autonomy of the Palestinian people. Only that will break
the back of anger, mutual hatred, and political instability. The United States
should stop fueling the violence in the region by ending military aid to
Israel. Economic reconstruction requires negotiation toward the creation of a
viable Palestinian state, land repatriation, and guarantees of security from
Israeli military attack. For example, Israeli settlements in the West Bank need
to be dismantled. Economic development must be coupled with economic justice.
In the United States, the political
climate needs to change so that a resumption of frank dialogue can proceed on
United States foreign policy toward Israel, ending the violence in the region,
and supporting economic justice and political rights for the Palestinian
people.
