Democratic Palestine : 17 (ص 23)
غرض
- عنوان
- Democratic Palestine : 17 (ص 23)
- المحتوى
-
ment a more gradual method in a new wage-price package deal
with labor and management. Yet by June, the US administra-
tion was beginning to show impatience.
The US-Israeli Joint Economic Development Group held
serious deliberations. The group was headed by Undersecretary
of State Allan Wallis and included Professor H. Stein and
Stanley Fischer. Statistics showed the failure of Peres’ gradua-
list approach: Inflation targets had been set at 12% for April,
5% for May, and 5% for June, but figures released by the Israeli
Central Bureau of Statistics showed inflation at 19.4% in April,
10% in May and 25% in June, which projects an annual rate of
about 400%. On this backdrop, the US pressed harder for a
10-15% devalution of the shekel, and the removal of import
restrictions and export subsidies.
The US administration was ‘‘determined to create maximum
pressure in Israel for economic reforms,’’ according to the
Washington Post, June 9, 1985. Such pressure is viewed as
necessary because of Israeli incapability and at times abdurance
to implementing the needed measures. ‘‘The US... is far from
assured that Israel... will take the strong measures the American
and Israeli experts believe are needed to deal with Israel’s
underlying economic problems,’’ according to Secretary of
State Schultz.
REAGANOMICS IN ‘ISRAEL’
For the US and ‘Israel’, vital strategic interests are at stake in
the Middle East. ‘‘That stake rests to a decisive extent on
Israel,’’ wrote the Chicago Tribune on May 13, 1986. ‘‘ A
strong Israel, in defending its own existence, plays a key role’ in
striking nationalist and progressive forces ‘‘that seek to
undermine US and Western presence in the Middle East.’’ In
short, the overall economic and industrial structure must be
changed qualitatively to enable this imperialist base to better
serve US interests in the region. Steering industry towards this
new course can only be to the benefit of the multinational cor-
porations and the Zionist bourgeoisie.
Those Jews who have been painstakingly collected from the
four corners of the earth are now being hard hit by austerity
measures. Lower income strata are hardest hit by unemploy-
ment and de-indexation. Studies reveal that income distribution
is even more unequal than in 1979-80, when unemployment last
triggered an emigration wave. A study made by the Center for
Social Policy Studies states: ‘36% of all reported income (net,
after taxes) are accrued to the top-earning 10% of all families...
The 30% at the bottom of the income scale has less that 4% of
all net income.”’
On the other hand, a new breed of highly skilled labor is
emerging. Probably most significant is that high-tech employees
are hired on a contract basis. There are therefore no unions or
workers committees. Science-based, non-unionized company
employees ‘‘form a class of their own’’ according to Midstream,
January 1985. The companies where they work are basically
unaffected by economic turmoil. Their products are manufac-
tured for foreign markets and paid for in dollars, insulating
them from inflation and other problems. These companies are
either joint Israeli-US ventures or subsidiaries of US companies.
“This is how American companies can make money despite
the government policy,”’ said the chairman of Ampal-American
Israeli Corporation. Though these high-tech workers and
employees are generally highly skilled, and receive benefits and
enviable paychecks, they are not indispensable, or wholly pro-
tected from being replaced in the course of advances in techno-
logical development. The high-tech drive ‘‘... in short disrupts
the social system which at present gives workers and salaried
people some security in the fact of the economic crisis,’’ in the
words of Matti Peled.
‘‘This is the shape of things to come,’’ wrote one economic
commentator. The high-tech era, projected simplistically as the
‘silicon saviour’ of the Israeli economy, has far-reaching eco-
nomic and political implications. Obviously, it means further
militarization of the Israeli economy, as the bulk of high-tech
industries have military, espionage or security applications. The
imposition of Reaganomics in the Zionist state means not only
its closer integration into the world imperialist market, but its
becoming a subsidiary of the US military-industrial complex.
Politically speaking, the margin of freedom enjoyed by ‘Israel’
vis-a-vis the US will be narrowed. Economic integration could
provide the base for the emergence of a new type of Israeli lea-
dership, less concerned about ‘special’ Zionist interests that
have caused friction with US administrations in the past. We
will see an even higher degree of cooperation on specific policy.
Concretely, this means a more obvious Israeli role in the
Reagan Administration’s anti-Soviet campaign, as already seen
in Star Wars cooperation. There will be even more Israeli arms
exports to reactionary forces around the world - from the apar-
theid regime of South Africa to Latin American military dicta-
torships and contra-type rebels. ‘Israel’ will be equiped with
even more sophisticated means for infiltrating Africa and the
Arab world. Besides aiming to further consolidate the Zionist
occupation of Palestine, this new trend posits ‘Israel’ as an even
more obvious danger to progressive forces and liberation
movements around the world.
1 International Zionism: Its History and Politics, Academy of
Sciences in the Soviet Union, Arabic edition published by Dar
Ibn Rushd and Farabi, 1979, Page 11.
2 Ibid, page 11.
3 Wall Street Journal, March 22, 1985.
4 Mideast Observer Legislative Update, January 1, 1985.
5 Wall Street Journal, April 10, 1985.
6 Midstream, January 1985.
7 Statement before the Subcommittee on Europe and the Middle
East of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, January 30,
1985.
8 Washington Post, June 9, 1985.
9 «Israel’s Deadly Bargain,» Guardian, April 19, 1985. ©
23 - هو جزء من
- Democratic Palestine : 17
- تاريخ
- يونيو ١٩٨٦
- المنشئ
- الجبهة الشعبية لتحرير فلسطين
Contribute
Not viewed