singular_me
1st June 2014, 09:09 AM
when pro-zionists are beginning to wonder... and do the maths
66th year.... um-um. I see an omen here.
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Renowned Israeli Economist Predicts Economic Catastrophe for Israel
May 22, 2014
As with everything concerning this subject, there is a propaganda “line” that Israel-advocates sell the world. First, there was the pioneer nation that made the desert bloom, turning it into a modern society. Lately, it’s become the “start-up nation.” This myth sells an Israel full of technical geniuses coding their hearts out to bring innovation to the world. It suggests an Israel in tune with the democratic and entrepreneurial spirit of the rest of the world. Even a nation on the cutting edge of technological discovery. After all, if Warren Buffett invested $4-billion in one of Israel’s most profitable companies, doesn’t that prove the case?
While there is an element of truth to this story, as there are with all myths, it conceals far more than it reveals. A recent interview with renowned Israeli economist Dan Ben-David, exposes the rest of the sordid picture of an economy rent in two, divided between haves and have-nots, between a secular Jewish elite and all the rest. It’s worth quoting extensively from this piece since Ben-David offers a probing, even revelatory portrait of a nation, and economy in dire straits. It’s a picture you’ll almost never see in the mainstream media:
Professor Dan Ben-David, a noted economist, has been observing Israel’s socioeconomic policies and studying their long-term implications with consternation for more than two decades. Over the last six years, serving as the executive director of the Taub Center for Social Policy Studies in Israel, his insight by which the Zionist project could ”end in tears” has been deepening. He feels that ”the window of opportunity enabling us to save the state from collapse is getting smaller, as we reach the point of no return.”
In an interview with Al-Monitor, Ben-David explains why the path that the State of Israel is following in its 66th year will eventually lead to the system’s collapse.
Keep in mind, this isn’t Norman Finkelstein or Noam Chomsky speaking. This is a respected Israeli economist who buys into the Zionist dream, albeit with a critical perspective. When he declares Israel is on the road to ruin, someone ought to sit up and take notice.
Here’s more of his analysis:
When I deal with the socioeconomic aspect of Israel, I have the feeling that we’re letting the country slip through our fingers. It’s ironic. On the one hand, this really is the “startup nation.” We are on the forefront of developments in high-tech and medicine. At the same time, however, there is another country here. What we have, in effect, is two countries. We track productivity rates in Israel, and based on the data, productivity here is among the lowest in the developed world. Obviously, that has implications on growth and quality of life. All the OECD [Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development] states beat us in that.
It is important to understand that this is a trend. It is a process that began in the 1970s, so it is possible to say that we have been in decline for the past 40 years. If, in the 1950s and 1960s, we were able to reduce the gaps between us and the world’s leading countries, the trend has reversed itself since then.
That means that even when there are people who live here and who want to live here, there will also be people who leave because they can get more somewhere else. We are passing the threshold in which more and more people will not want to live here, and that could end in tears. We have to ask ourselves where our children and grandchildren will be. It is true that we are not talking about major calamities in the next year or two. We still have time to make changes and fix the problems, but that time is running out.
Shir Hever, one of Israel’s foremost economists studying the costs of Occupation and maintenance of the national security state, and a former student of Ben David’s, adds his own analysis:
… doesn’t ask himself why Israel has such a faulty education system…Massive and decade-long cuts in Israel’s education system have been the direct result of unsustainable security costs…Deep discrimination within Israel’s education system has channeled resources to the illegal colonies, drying up the center. Israel’s national education system is geared towards preparing the pupils for the army, a highly militaristic system, in which Arabic, if learnt at all, is mainly seen as a tool to enter into service in a military intelligence unit. In fact, [b]there are entire schools which are sponsored by weapons manufacturing companies.
MORE/LONG
http://www.richardsilverstein.com/2014/05/22/renowned-israeli-economist-predicts-economic-catastrophe-for-israel/
Ben-David expounds upon his ideas in greater detail in this report published by his Taub Center at Tel Aviv University. MAY 24, 2014
http://taubcenter.org.il/tauborgilwp/wp-content/uploads/A-Picture-of-the-Nation-2014-Eng.pdf
Though Shir alludes here to the enormous costs of maintaining Occupation and the national security state, this article elaborates on the issue.
06.09.07
Cost of occupation – over $50 billion
Since Israel occupied Gaza and West Bank in 1967, its control over the territories has cost country more than $50 billion, and curtailed development of other sectors
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3410537,00.html
66th year.... um-um. I see an omen here.
=======================
Renowned Israeli Economist Predicts Economic Catastrophe for Israel
May 22, 2014
As with everything concerning this subject, there is a propaganda “line” that Israel-advocates sell the world. First, there was the pioneer nation that made the desert bloom, turning it into a modern society. Lately, it’s become the “start-up nation.” This myth sells an Israel full of technical geniuses coding their hearts out to bring innovation to the world. It suggests an Israel in tune with the democratic and entrepreneurial spirit of the rest of the world. Even a nation on the cutting edge of technological discovery. After all, if Warren Buffett invested $4-billion in one of Israel’s most profitable companies, doesn’t that prove the case?
While there is an element of truth to this story, as there are with all myths, it conceals far more than it reveals. A recent interview with renowned Israeli economist Dan Ben-David, exposes the rest of the sordid picture of an economy rent in two, divided between haves and have-nots, between a secular Jewish elite and all the rest. It’s worth quoting extensively from this piece since Ben-David offers a probing, even revelatory portrait of a nation, and economy in dire straits. It’s a picture you’ll almost never see in the mainstream media:
Professor Dan Ben-David, a noted economist, has been observing Israel’s socioeconomic policies and studying their long-term implications with consternation for more than two decades. Over the last six years, serving as the executive director of the Taub Center for Social Policy Studies in Israel, his insight by which the Zionist project could ”end in tears” has been deepening. He feels that ”the window of opportunity enabling us to save the state from collapse is getting smaller, as we reach the point of no return.”
In an interview with Al-Monitor, Ben-David explains why the path that the State of Israel is following in its 66th year will eventually lead to the system’s collapse.
Keep in mind, this isn’t Norman Finkelstein or Noam Chomsky speaking. This is a respected Israeli economist who buys into the Zionist dream, albeit with a critical perspective. When he declares Israel is on the road to ruin, someone ought to sit up and take notice.
Here’s more of his analysis:
When I deal with the socioeconomic aspect of Israel, I have the feeling that we’re letting the country slip through our fingers. It’s ironic. On the one hand, this really is the “startup nation.” We are on the forefront of developments in high-tech and medicine. At the same time, however, there is another country here. What we have, in effect, is two countries. We track productivity rates in Israel, and based on the data, productivity here is among the lowest in the developed world. Obviously, that has implications on growth and quality of life. All the OECD [Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development] states beat us in that.
It is important to understand that this is a trend. It is a process that began in the 1970s, so it is possible to say that we have been in decline for the past 40 years. If, in the 1950s and 1960s, we were able to reduce the gaps between us and the world’s leading countries, the trend has reversed itself since then.
That means that even when there are people who live here and who want to live here, there will also be people who leave because they can get more somewhere else. We are passing the threshold in which more and more people will not want to live here, and that could end in tears. We have to ask ourselves where our children and grandchildren will be. It is true that we are not talking about major calamities in the next year or two. We still have time to make changes and fix the problems, but that time is running out.
Shir Hever, one of Israel’s foremost economists studying the costs of Occupation and maintenance of the national security state, and a former student of Ben David’s, adds his own analysis:
… doesn’t ask himself why Israel has such a faulty education system…Massive and decade-long cuts in Israel’s education system have been the direct result of unsustainable security costs…Deep discrimination within Israel’s education system has channeled resources to the illegal colonies, drying up the center. Israel’s national education system is geared towards preparing the pupils for the army, a highly militaristic system, in which Arabic, if learnt at all, is mainly seen as a tool to enter into service in a military intelligence unit. In fact, [b]there are entire schools which are sponsored by weapons manufacturing companies.
MORE/LONG
http://www.richardsilverstein.com/2014/05/22/renowned-israeli-economist-predicts-economic-catastrophe-for-israel/
Ben-David expounds upon his ideas in greater detail in this report published by his Taub Center at Tel Aviv University. MAY 24, 2014
http://taubcenter.org.il/tauborgilwp/wp-content/uploads/A-Picture-of-the-Nation-2014-Eng.pdf
Though Shir alludes here to the enormous costs of maintaining Occupation and the national security state, this article elaborates on the issue.
06.09.07
Cost of occupation – over $50 billion
Since Israel occupied Gaza and West Bank in 1967, its control over the territories has cost country more than $50 billion, and curtailed development of other sectors
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3410537,00.html