The Arab Economy in Israel: Dependency or Development?

The Professional Geographer, 1991

Israel's development of industrial zones in the peripheral Galilee region is a major element of its national planning policy. The paper examines the economic impact of three of these industrial zones-Carmiel, Tefen, and Ma'aloton Arabs and fews in the region. Data on key employment and input and output indicators were collected through a survey of all firms in the three estates. In 1989 economic benefits generated by the three industrial zones were disproportionately enjoyed by the Jewish sector, thereby reinforcing patterns of interethnic economic gaps and minority dependence.

Journal of Palestine Studies, 2008

Despite the expectations of economic theory, a century of Arab-Jewish economic interaction in Palestine has not led to the convergence that is supposed to result from exchange between a capital-rich economy and a labor-intensive one. After 60 years of failed integration, the Arab population in Israel has fallen to the bottom of the socio-economic ladder. With the Palestinian “regional economies” in Israel and the occupied territories operating as part of the same Israeli economic regime, the challenge for Palestinian economic policy makers is to build on the new paradigm in shaping a national development strategy aimed at reconstructing Arab-Jewish economic relations on the principles of balanced cooperation embodied in the Economic Annex of the 1947 UN partition resolution.

IMF Staff Country Reports, 1995

Recent economic developments in Israel need to be seen against the background of the massive wave of immigration from the former Soviet Union that began in 1990. Although this wave ebbed to an annual flow of around 80,000 immigrants in 1993 and 1994, it has totaled over 600,000 immigrants since 1990, thereby increasing Israel's population by 13 percent. In contrast to earlier immigration waves, the main emphasis of policy has been on providing the immigrants with initial settling*in and housing allowances, rather than absorbing them in public sector employment. This approach has contributed to a markedly greater degree of labor market flexibility, while at the same time allowing further substantial progress in consolidating the budget deficit and in adopting more market oriented supply-side reforms. The overall success of this strategy is reflected in an annual average rate of GDP growth of 6 percent since 1990, or around double the average rate recorded in the second half of the 1980s.

Israel Studies, 2010

During the s a set of novel economic ideas made its way into the Jewish economic discourse. ese ideas, imported from Western industrial countries, brought about the abandonment of the agrarian ethos and the reception of what I term the ethos of rapid development. e article provides a new perspective on the change in attitude of the Labor Movement toward the entrepreneurial sector, industrial development, and urbanization underlying the role of economic ideas in the articulation of Zionism. Reception of the Developmental Approach • • , ,

Israel and its Palestinian Citizens

Journal of Economic Integration, 2004

The West Bank and Gaza have been occupied by Israel since 1967. As a result, it experienced a deep integration of its factor and goods markets with the richer economy of Israel. However, such an integration did not bring significant "dynamic" gains. Time series analysis indeed suggest that productivity growth hardly contributed to Palestinian GDP. Besides, the decomposition of income convergence patterns with Israel implies a rather unusual phenomenon of divergence in productivity. Economies of adaptation and scale that could have been encouraged by greater integration with Israel remained scarce, or were offset by opposite forces.

2011

Israel, established in 1948 and presently (2011) with a population of 7.75 million, has been known at least since 1967 as a strong military power. In the last decade it gained renown for strong economic performance as well and especially for leadership in hi tech research and development. Israel recently joined the prestigious "rich countries club," the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). With a GDP per capita of $29,500 (PPP) in 2009, it ranked 24 out of 34 OECD members. But it ranked higher 15 out of 169 countries (in 2010) on the United Nations Human Development Index, which takes into account not only economic performance but also performance in the fields of health, education and gender equality. It commands advanced technologies – it has several civilian and military satellites circling Earth. Internationally, it enjoys a strong alliance with the United States and preferential treatment by several EU countries.

Global civil society: …, 1999

Jonathan Nitzan & Shimshon Bichler, 2002

FROM THE BACK COVER: Over the past century, Israel has been transformed from an agricultural colony, to a welfare-warfare state, to a globally integrated “market economy” characterised by great income disparities. What lies behind this transformation? Why the shift in emphasis from “war profits” to “peace dividends” – and back to conflict? How did egalitarianism give rise to inequality? Who are the big winners here, and how have they shaped their world? Never before have these questions been answered as they are in this highly original book. In order to understand capitalist development, argue Bichler and Nitzan, we need to break the artificial separation between “economics” and “politics”, and think of accumulation itself as “capitalisation of power”. Applying this concept to Israel, and drawing on seemingly unrelated phenomena, the authors reveal the big picture that never makes it to the news. Diverse processes – such as global accumulation cycles, regional conflicts and energy crises, ruling class formation and dominant ideology, militarism and dependency, inflation and recession, the politics of high-technology and the transnationalisation of ownership – are all woven into a single story. The result is a fascinating account of one of the world”s most volatile regions, and a new way of understanding the global political economy.