War on Terror Boom

Have you ever noticed that whenever we want to deal with an annoying social problem we declare war on it? War seems to be a cultural and political compulsion. It’s world wide. But we make it into a slogan, e.g. war on poverty, war on drugs and in the last decade war on terror has become notorious. One observer has said that “America is addicted to wars of distraction.” Not one of these so-called “wars” has accomplished much except the war on terror and only in Israel. However, Israel has not been able to vanquish terror but rather instead has used terror to create an endless war economy. Very clever! In fact the growth of surveillance technology saved Israel’s economy.

A significant contribution, however, was made by the huge Russian migration to Israel starting in 1993 with the approval of the Russian government. Approximately a million Russian Jews most of whom were non-religious but some of whom had scientific skills that fit extremely well in Israel’s growing telecommunication and surveillance industries. In fact Israeli representatives traveled to Russia for the express purpose of persuading Jews to move to Israel. They offered them low cost loans and cheap rent. Many were encouraged to settle in Gaza in a town called Ariel which provided them with many comforts unknown to the Russians in their homeland. These settlements of course forced the Palestinians to leave creating sever hardship for them. Also the unskilled Russians were encouraged to take over the unskilled work of the Palestinians creating even more havoc.

The significance of this migration is the effect that it had on the communication industry in Israel. In 2000 the dot.com bubble caused a severe recession in Israel. Prior to that Israel had become known as the Silicon Valley of the Middle East. In order to deal with the economic downturn the government decided to switch from communication to security and surveillance. As the War on Terror spread throughout the world by 2004 Israel became the center for “homeland security” technology and this industry exploded in Israel and saved its economy. Israel’s sales pitch to the rest of the world was, we have been fighting terrorism since our inception and we are the experts. To people in the security business Israel every year offers conferences which are really trade shows. They demonstrate high tech security systems at these shows. And it has paid off. The Israelis believe that the war on terror is endless and the technology sector of their economy will continue to grow exponentially. It already is 60% of its exports. When an economy is benefiting from this kind of program, there really isn’t much incentive to find better solutions to deal with conflict. In fact, a cynical wit once said, “life is like licking honey off a thorn.” Do you think he had a point?

References:

Ehrenreich, Barbara. The Progressive
Klein, Naomi. The Shock Doctrine.