TORONTO, October 8, 2002 -- Authors of a new book on the global economy of Israel say the spectre of another Middle East war is a throwback to the oil and weapons dependence of the past that will severely damage the country and the region’s global integration, and could lead to a world crisis of rising inflation and unemployment.
The Global Political Economy of Israel (Pluto Press, London, 2002) by Jonathan Nitzan, professor of political economy at York University, and Shimshon Bichler, a political economist in Israel, presents the big picture of politics and economics in the region, providing a window of insight into the latest unraveling of the Middle East peace process.
The book documents the shift in Israel from a ‘welfare-warfare’ state financed by military spending in the 1980s, to a transnational economy in the 1990s where 80 per cent of capital accumulation has become dependent on the global high-tech market. The authors say the world’s high-tech elite now risk losing primacy to an oil and weapons business coalition reinvigorated by the collapse of the high-tech market and the U.S. war on terrorism.
"The dividends of globalization require political stability, and the Oslo Accord was the political front window of this economic shift," says Nitzan, who holds a PhD in economics from McGill University in Montreal and has been a private sector analyst of global financial markets. "The real issue now is neither Yasser Arafat nor Ariel Sharon but whether the new elite can exert sufficient pressure to keep the peace." Nitzan says an attack on Iraq could trigger a global chain reaction of higher oil prices, rising inflation and soaring unemployment, similar to the stagflation crisis of the 1970s and early 1980s, as well as a massive social dislocation.
Reviews of the book say Nitzan and Bichler are "two of the more innovative political economists in the world right now," whose analysis "lays bare the innermost structures of power of Israeli society." The book has been called "the most authoritative study of the Israeli state to date," and "a significant contribution to state theory and globalization."
A book launch will take place at the York University bookstore on Tuesday, Oct. 22, 4:30-6:00 p.m. A companion volume by the authors is published in Hebrew by Carmel Publishing House entitled, From War Profits to Peace Dividends: the Global Political Economy of Israel.
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For further information, please contact:
| Prof. Jonathan Nitzan | Susan Bigelow |
| Dept. of Political Science | Media Relations |
| York University | York University |
| 416-736-2100, ext. 88822 | 416-736-2100, ext. 22091 |
| nitzan@yorku.ca | sbigelow@yorku.ca |
YU/087/02
