What explains the stability of Israeli occupation?

Pratik Bhamare | We are certainly witnessing in our time, one of the most hazardous and brutal destruction of human life in the form of the Israeli occupation of Palestine. The imagery of the aftermath of these events has spread widely everywhere and has helped create an awareness and formation of a public discourse against such an occupation in a world which is at least connected virtually to a large extent. However this has not translated into people being able to support the Palestinian cause from outside Palestine. What are the factors that lead to this is an important question. But the question that can be asked before this is what makes it extremely difficult for the people of Palestine themselves to overthrow such a system and claim autonomy.

It is key to ask this question not because the Palestinians have the rationale to end the occupation, but because, historically, it has been universally observed that where there is domination, there is resistance to it. Whether it is the Civil Rights Movement in America or the Anti-Apartheid Movement in South Africa, it is the force from the internal struggle which has led down to the breakdown of these systems. Hence it becomes important to understand the historical conditions which have disabled the people of Palestine from doing this. Such an inability of the people can be understood by the particular nature of Political-Economic relationship in which the social life of these two societies is embedded. This does not mean that other important aspects of international relations, interests of various nations including US and authoritarian islamic regimes such as Saudi Arabia, the domestic politics of Israel as well as Palestine and religious dynamics etc, do not matter but the internal dynamics of the political economy are the most determining aspects when it comes to the particular question of the stability of the occupation. Apart from this, these themes about the issue have been significantly discussed and argued by many people in public discourse.

_{Palestine Potash Ltd.}

There seems to be now a broader consensus on the role that the Britishers played in establishing a Jewish state after the second world war. But the British mandate not only gave tremendous political power to the Jewish state over the Arabs, but also impacted the economic trajectories of both the societies in significant ways. Since it gave a significant amount of land to the various Jewish organisations, it removed the Arabs from any connections to that. This initiated the process of Palestinians losing the basic source of livelihood (Already during the decline of the Ottoman empire, due to heavy taxations on land, the Arab population had already started naming their land to one person in the village). The second thing that the mandate did was to give big, heavy and productive industries such as the Palestinian electricity industry and Palestinian salt industry to the Jewish state. The third thing was the protection that the Israeli capitalist class got by not competing with the global capitalists because of the Britishers imposing high tariffs on the goods that they produce. Hence, in this way, it actually reserved the local market for the local capitalists. In contrast, the goods that the Palestinians produced, such as soap or oil, had low tariffs, hence were always competing with the global players. Economist Ha-Joon Chang has shown that protecting the infant capitalist class from global competition has been a strategy of all the so-called liberal developed capitalist countries. These specific historical factors have acted as a significant structural blow on the political economy of Palestine.

All these things mean that there was some form of industrialisation taking place, by which we mean the society is shifting from agriculture based production to industry based production. A few things become clear then. The first is that, since the Arabs were already dispossessed of land, they became the workers in the industrial economy, from being the workers in the agricultural economy. The second thing that happened is that natural resources from Palestine were used as a raw material for Israeli industry and the produced goods were sold back into Palestine. About 70 percent of Israeli exports went to Palestine at that time. The third thing that happened as a consequence of these two things is that, it locked them into a relationship of economic exploitation and hence dependence as well. What we have now is a strong Israeli capitalist class created by the British mandate and the labouring classes were composed of Arab as well as Jewish society (This does not mean that the Palestinians did not have a capitalist class, but it was not of that significant size and strength. What we are talking about is not an absolute lack of it but a comparative one).

_{First Intifada in 1987}

But this situation was present only from 1967 till 1993 when the Israeli rulers thought that the Palestinian labour should be brought into Israel and exploited. Otherwise, the normative idea of Zionism is based not on the exploitation of the Palestinians, but its complete displacement. And this is how South African apartheid is different from the Zionist project. Whereas in the case of apartheid, the native population was part of the economic structure through wage labour and hence had some leverage to build their struggle and fight against the oppressive system, Palestinians are completely excluded from the economic structure and hence with no economic power. 1967 to 1987 was the time when you see the Palestinian labour becoming part of the Israeli economy and hence getting the strength to fight for their cause which is manifested through Intifada in 1988. It is precisely because of their economic participation in the structure, their political resistance expressed strongly.

But even their inclusion in the economy during this time was shaped by many unjust conditions. The Isreali labour would get more pay than the Palestinian (The wages were more for the Palestinian in Israel than in Palestine). This created a kind of dependency for the Palestinians on Israel for upward mobility. It also reduced the bargaining power of Israeli as well as Jewish labour. This not only reduced the possibility of class solidarity between them but also fueled the already existing tensions. Since 70 percent of Israeli exports were to Palestine, the money went back to Israel by selling these commodities. And probably the most brutal condition for the Palestinian working class was the one which stated that even if the Palestinians can work in Israel, they cannot sleep in Israel, hence making them go back to their home after work.

_{Humanitarian aid in Gaza}

Apart from these internal factors, the external factor of Humanitarian aid has also not been that successful in creating the socio-economic power for the Palestinians to defend their cause. First of all, whatever financial aid came, it was mostly used in creating some infrastructure which created little and temporary jobs. This came at the expense of the overall improvement in the developing capacity of the economy. No strong economic resources which will sustain the social and political life of Palestinian society and resistance were created. After 1990, Israel gave the political resources to the Palestinian Authority (P. A.) to take decisions for the Palestinian land, but not the economic resources, i.e. control over monetary policy tools, borders and resources. Till the 2000, the aid was directed towards development but later most of it went to compensate for the destruction caused by Israel. Financial aid was always engaged in reconstructing what Israel has destroyed or is going to destroy again.

No doubt that the palestinian poor working class has been in the most vulnerable position in this whole structure. The capitalist class and the rich from Palestine were able to leave Palestine after the 2000s to Egypt by paying money and affording the escape from this system. This is not to say that they are not or have not been facing the broader implications of Israel’s systemic injustice but to point out who is really bearing the burden of this occupation right now and what are the reasons for it. Whatever turn the political moment is going to take from now, one has to get the basics of the problem right in order to tackle it. We should try to understand the foundations on which the Israeli occupation stands and then find the sources which can really shake it. Reducing the magnitude of the power imbalance between these societies is  probably not the only step, but surely the first and most important step that can be considered.

Pratik Bhamare is a teacher of Sociology in Bangalore.