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The Political Economy of Israeli Apartheid and the Specter of Genocide
[Excerpt]
Then
from 2001 and on, and especially in the wake of the 2000 dot-com bust
and worldwide recession, followed by the events of September 11, 2001,
and the rapid militarization of global politics, Israel saw a further
shift towards a "global military-security-
Israel's
exports in counter-terrorism related products and services increased by
15 percent in 2006 and were projected to grow by 20 percent in 2007,
totaling $1.2 billion annually...the country's defense exports in 2006
reached a record $3.4 billion (compared to $1.6 billion in 1992), making
Israel the fourth largest arms dealer in the world, larger than the UK.
Israel has more technology stocks listed on the Nasdaq exchange - many
of them security related - than any other foreign country, and it has
more tech patents registered in the US than China and India combined.
Its technology sector, much of it linked to security, now makes up 60
percent of all exports."
Militarized accumulation to control and contain the downtrodden and marginalized and to sustain accumulation in the face of crisis lend themselves to fascist political tendencies or what some of us have referred to as "21st century fascism."
In
other words, the Israeli economy had come to feed off of local,
regional and global violence, conflict and inequalities. Its largest
corporations have become dependent on war and conflict in Palestine, in
the Middle East and worldwide, and push for such conflict through their
influence in the Israeli political system and state. This militarized
accumulation is characteristic as well of the United States and the
entire global economy. We are increasingly living in a global war economy,
and certain states, such as the United States and Israel, are key gears
in this machinery. Militarized accumulation to control and contain the
downtrodden and marginalized and to sustain accumulation in the face of
crisis lend themselves to fascist political tendencies or what some of
us have referred to as "21st century fascism."
The
Palestinian population of the occupied territories constituted up until
the 1990s a cheap labor force for Israel. But with Israeli incentives
to the in-migration of Jews from around the world and the collapse of
the former Soviet bloc, a major influx of Jewish settlement has occurred
in recent years, including 1 million Soviet Jews, themselves often
displaced by post-Soviet neoliberal restructuring. As well, the Israeli
economy began to draw on transnational immigrant labor from Africa, Asia
and elsewhere as neoliberalism and crisis displaced millions in former
Third World regions...[continues]
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