Economic peace through the Israeli lens

Abstract

The economic factors in the Arab'Israeli Conflict are often overshadowed by its more powerful political features, but economics plays a significant, if not equal, role in the conflict's protracted nature. Like politics, however, economics cannot singlehandedly harbor a solution. From Israel's perspective alone, a solution based on economic peace faces serious obstacles: Israeli nationalism, the State-reliant structure of Israel's economy, and the imbalance of power between Israel and Palestine mean the preconditions for economic peace are currently unattainable. This thesis outlines the obstacles to economic peace but does not hasten to reject an economic approach to an ultimate agreement. Rather, this examination of why, under existing conditions, economic peace will fail exposes the political economy of the conflict in Israel. Until the obstacles to economic peace, as defined by scholars rather than politicians are addressed and surmounted, peace, whether it be called a primarily economic or political peace, will remain elusive. Economic peace, therefore, warrants serious consideration as a gauge of both the economic and political conditions necessary for any lasting compromise and as a means to mediate the polarizing effects of identity politics, ideology, and isolation.