43 thoughts on “18 Israeli Families Control 60% of Nation’s Corporate Equity – Tikun Olam תיקון עולם إصلاح العالم
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  1. Ah yes, that wonderful Zionist social democratic state that everyone brags about. This just goes to prove conclusively that Israel is a US clone, even to the state of its oligarchy. The apple does not fall far from the tree.

    1. Actually its more complex.
      Zionism emerged from the same academic pseudo-science genetic rationalisations of 19th century Europe that generated the Teutonic white supremacist Aryan super-racism the Anglo-Saxon British had been practising for centuries under their imperial expansionism.
      And it was Britannia, via Balfour, that green-lighted the plantation of Palestine in 1917, which America inherited after 1945, using the Nazi Holocaust to justify occupying Palestine with the refugees they refused asylum to.
      It would be more accurate to state that both the US and Israel are clones of the City of £ondon financial racketeering in conjunction whith the global cartels of mafiosi, including the (often Russian) Jewish mafia, which will dispense with the unfortunate majority of Jews and the rest of the dispossed ‘wretched of the Earth’ when I$ra€£ has served their megalomanic ends.

  2. As to a more just distribution of the assets in Israel: Shouldn’t there have been a Yovel Yaar about 10 years ago, in which all land was returned to its original owners?

        1. I wasn’t serious obviously. I was making fun of all those people who base their ideas on what size Israel should be on biblical claims (while ignoring so many other things written in the bible).

  3. Isn’t it ironical that leftist blame that capitalist own the people’s wealth, when you go to Venezuela, China, Cuba and other communist countries that the top elite political figures own most of the national wealth and the people get scraps. These countries all go by name Peoples Republic and so on. These leftist countries were founded on the notion that capitalist “stole” peoples wealth.

    At least in capitalist countries you have an opportunity to collect wealth how ever slim chance that might be. I personally don’t want to live in a Soviet society where everybody gets the same which is nothing.

    And now to the notion that top israeli families control large portion of the corporate equity. It’s common all over the world that wealthy people own larger portion of the pie. 🙂 Come on! Just check the statistics in US.

    “In the United States
    See also: Wealth inequality in the United States and Wealth in the United States
    In the United States at the end of 2001, 10% of the population owned 71% of the wealth and the top 1% owned 38%. On the other hand, the bottom 40% owned less than 1% of the nation’s wealth.[14]

    According to this 2006 study by the Federal Reserve System, from 1989 to 2004, the distribution in the United States had been changing with indications there was a greater concentration of wealth held by the top 10% and top 1% of the population, at the expense of the bottom 50% of the population.[1]”

    are u ashamed of your own country’s unequality?

  4. “In 1965, it was rated one of the most equal nations in the world in terms of distribution of wealth” – Do you have a source for that? I think its’ a case of creative accounting. Think about the Israel of 1965. The population was a mix of new immigrants and locals. Some had apartments in Tel aviv, which they (or their parents) built, others lived in temporary housing or poor towns like Ofaqim and Dimona. Largely, they had no education and less jobs. Their property values were (and are now) lower than other, richer places. Hardly an equal distribution of wealth.

    There’s another myth about 1965. The myth of Israel’s math education being the best in the West. It was later proven that the exams were only taken in the best schools of the time which, let me assure you, were not attended by the immigrants of that time.

    As for the 18 families, In Sweden, nearly half of corporate equity is controlled by one family – the Wallenberg family. There’s even a name for that – the Wallenberg sphere.

    My point is that each mode of possession isn’t right or wrong on it’s own. For Israel, it is a large improvement over Mapai’s One Party Has All method in which you couldn’t even get a license for import if you weren’t a Mapai member. Much of the deficiencies of Israel’s economy today are relics of that time.

    As for poverty, much of it is artificial in the sense that some of the poor choose to be that way. Take the Haredi people. They are poor mostly because the husband usually doesn’t work but devotes himself to religion and because they have a lot of kids, easily 10 and more. Both of these are rational decisions they make.

    As for Arab poverty, it’s partially the state’s fault and partially their own. It is true that Arab education is usually worse than Jewish, that transportation is worse and that there’s an employment prejudice. However, many Arabs live in a traditional society where women stay at home. Many don’t try to move to mixed or Jewish cities where it’s easier to find a better job but instead choose to stay in their towns and villages.

    “There is hardly a safety net to speak of. The poor are basically on their own.” Where do you get this from ?

    I wish some of the poor were really on their own, rather than on welfare. They could start looking for job, for a change.

    1. извини яков , но ты живешь в израиле , но о израиле не имеешь никакого понятия .. твои источники информации тиви да газетенки местного разлива…ты обыватель, мещанин и тебя кроме пуза родимого, ничто не интересует.. вы обыватели знать ничего не знаете и познавать не желаете, главное – моя хата с краю , ничего не знаю! у вас мерило всего на свете – власть! вы – добровольные холопы этой власти и доказывать вам бесполезно, так как уровень вашего интеллекта – ниже плинтуса.. пиво, случка, беседы с друганами о мебелях и квартирах, о доходах, вот и все , чем вы живете.. на мой взгляд , вы не живете, вы существуете!

    2. Wow, Yakov lives in some kind of bubble that has no basis in reality. He really thinks that Palestinian/Israelis don’t try to move to mixed neighborhoods? Is he not watching TV? Does he not see what Israel is doing to Palestinian neighborhoods? Is he so naive as to think that Palestinians have any rights to move anywhere? Has he been to the Galilee and seen what kind of social services Palestinian/Israelis get?

      The man is a moron

  5. “As for Arab poverty, it’s partially the state’s fault and partially their own. It is true that Arab education is usually worse than Jewish, that transportation is worse and that there’s an employment prejudice. However, many Arabs live in a traditional society where women stay at home. Many don’t try to move to mixed or Jewish cities where it’s easier to find a better job but instead choose to stay in their towns and villages. ”

    Yaacov, this has to be just too ridiculous…were you serious when you wrote it?

      1. One of the questions that comes to my mind is, CAN they move to mixed or Jewish cities where it’s easier to find a better job?

        1. Yes, they can. In fact, there are those who do so. There are many Arabs in mixed cities like Haifa, Jaffa, Nazareth, Lod, and Acre (Akko). There are Arabs who live in Tel Aviv, a mostly Jewish city. There’s no question of renting or buying from Jews. I’m sure it’s harder, but it’s not *much* harder.

          Than there’s the question of having the money to rent or buy in a better town. It’s a good question, but it’s not specific to Arabs.

          Unfortunately, they’re not being rational about their way out of poverty and they’re not doing the best they can to improve their quality of life.

          1. Yeah, sort of like when the African-Americans moved north to find jobs. Racism held them back, just as racism holds back second class Israeli Arabs.

            When I was living and working in the Middle East, I always found it was the Palestinians who were the hardest working and most intelligent and sophisticated of all the guest workers in those countries (outside of Israel). Given equal opportunities, Palestinians are an asset to any community in which they live.

          2. The only reason there are Palestinians in mixed cities such as Haifa, Nazareth, Lod and Acre, is because THEY WERE ALREADY THERE. It’s the Jews who have moved in, pushing out the Palestinians when they can.

            You are utterly clueless Yakov. But then, most Israelis are… sort of like we Americans who believed at one time that the only good Indian was a dead Indian. We had to wake up and relearn our history. You’re going to have to do the same.

        2. No, they usually can’t. Most Jews wouldn’t rent or sell to Arabs.

          There is a smallpopulation in Tel Aviv which is more liberal, but it’s still very limited.

          1. a Palestinian Israeli friend of mine spent several months on friends’ couches until she found someone willing to rent her a flat in Tel Aviv. That was before she was fired from her waitressing job for speaking Arabic in the kitchen with the cook. Eventually she gave up and moved to Haifa.

  6. Richard said:
    ——————————————————–
    When you think about the once proud history of Israel as an egalitarian society which valued the work and skills of every individual (even if it didn’t do that for the Palestinian Israelis) and created a social safety net that was the envy of the Scandinavian countries
    ———————————————————

    This is one of those examples of people outside Israel supposedly admiring it for having a system they would never want to live under themselves. MOST ISRAELIS DESPISE SOCIALISM because they remember it as a corrupt, suffocating system that strangled the Israeli economy for decades. Richard, you certainly heard of the word “proteksia”. This means “connections” with important people in the MAPAI-party socialist system who could give you things that the average person could only dream about.
    It is not in spite of “socialism” that there is such a concentration of wealth in such few hands IT IS BECAUSE OF IT. The government tightly controlled the economy and it gave certain priviledged people special rights to run monopolies and to prevent competition. One way was, because the Israeli currency was non-convertible, was to give these chosen people the right to buy and sell dollars, which was illegal for the average, unconnected person.
    It would be a mistake to think that all these tycoons are “rapacious, reactionary right-wingers”. Many have political views you would view as “progressive” because these people are still tightly connected to the Labor Party and MERETZ.
    The standard of living in Israel was quite low during this period you have such nostalgia for. When I came to Israel in 1986, one still had to wait years in order to have a telephone installed by the government-owned BEZEQ company. Privitization of the company put an end to this medieval situation.
    Israel never had a welfare system that “Scandinavians could only envy.” The Histradrut-run sick fund was a disaster. As I understand, northern European welfare states allow someone to live a comfortable middle-class lifestyle by not working and living off government welfare payments. Israel never had that. Israel had a third-world economy that kept unemployment down by giving undereducated workers meaningless, do-nothing jobs in government offices or bloated, money-losing government-owned companies at pathetically low wages.

    Look at the very vanguard of Israeli socialism-the Kibbutzim. They have pretty much chucked out all the socialist ideology Leftist outsiders thought was so-great. During the era you have such nostalgia for, they had a higher standard of living than most Israelis because they received lavish governemntal subsidies because half of the Cabinet members of the pre-1977 Labor Party goverments were from the Kibbutzim. While it is true that there were Kibbutz industrialists that created profitable industries, these people also led the way for privitizing Kibbutz life feeling, rightly, that those who did most of the work should get most of the reward.

    I have also never understood what the problem of an “unequal distribution of income is”. Who cares how much the rich have as long as the people at the bottom are adequately taken care of? What inherent right does the government have to stick its hand in our pocket and to take our hard-earned money in taxes in order to ensure “equality” if those who receive our money don’t work for it? Obviously, people need unemployment insurance, old-age pensions, medical care and the such but there is no divinely-mandated requirement for “equality”.

    1. MOST ISRAELIS DESPISE SOCIALISM

      Don’t be dense. Israel’s social system from 1948-1977 was essentially socialism. Don’t go telling me Israelis despise socialism. You don’t know what you’re talking about. Israelis today do not choose socialist parties mainly because there aren’t any except for Hadash. But they certainly don’t despise socialism. You’re a far right settler supporter & of course you despise socialism & of course you mistake yr own views for those of all of Israel.

      they remember it as a corrupt, suffocating system that strangled the Israeli economy

      Oh, forgive me…for a second I thought you were talking about Israel’s current economic policies which correspond precisely to your critique.

      you certainly heard of the word “proteksia”

      Oh, & there’s no proteksia today? C’mon. Of course there is. Only today proteksia exists on a macro level. It’s not just finding a job for someone or fixing a parking tkt. It’s deals like the Holyland project & the millions solicited by the Sharon brothers. And even that’s small potatoes compared to the really big corporate deals that enrich the elite.

      The government tightly controlled the economy and it gave certain priviledged people special rights to run monopolies

      And what do you think those 18 families have if not a monopoly in their sphere of economic interest???

      Who cares how much the rich have as long as the people at the bottom are adequately taken care of?

      Ah, but there’s the rub. Do you maintain that the 25-30% of Israelis living below the poverty line are adequately taken care of? Not to mention the even larger percentage of children living in poverty? What do you know about Israeli poverty anyway? It’s always easy for the economically comfortable to make callous judgements about the underclass, which is what you do in spades.

      1. I am certainly not saying that the system has corrected all the ills from the past, but that’s the point. The economy suffered from such a terrible distortion due to the socialist system that it will require more time and effort to get over these problems. Yes, there is still corruption. There is corruption in the privitization program….well connected people have been allowed to get ahold of state enterprises for far less than they are really worth. But the fact is that the standard of living of EVERYONE, including those at the bottom, has risen as the controls have been loosened, as competition has increased. No one, except for a tiny group of Marxist extremists like Adi Ophir wants to go back to the old system. Even MERETZ, whose MAPAM component was THE biggest backer of the old system and the Histradrut monopoly have given up trying to bring it back.

        Your statement that the poor “are on their own” is incorrect, there is a social safety net. I know people who are forced to use it.
        By the way….there is no correlation between beind a “far-right wing settler” and either supporting or opposing socialism. Don’t forget that it was the socialist Labor Party that first started the Judea/Samaria settlement project. Many settlers have large families and want a stronger social safety net. The “right-wing” National Religious Party and the Haredi parties also think like this.
        The fact is it that the Labor Party supported the economic reforms and the dismantling of the socialist system because they saw it wasn’t working and that many of their supporters made a killing from privitization, as I indicated above. Haim Ramon was the most outspoken supporter of getting the Histradrut out of the business of running industries and making it a true labor union. The reforms would have happened even if the Likud never came to power.

        1. The economy suffered from such a terrible distortion due to the socialist system that it will require more time and effort to get over these problems.

          You’re blaming contemporary Israeli poverty on a “socialist” system last in power in 1977? That’s 35 years. When will this brave new Israeli capitalist world solve the problem of Israeli hunger & poverty? 2211? Later? Before the messiah comes?

          the standard of living of EVERYONE, including those at the bottom, has risen as the controls have been loosened

          This is simply blatantly false. There was very little abject poverty before Bibi tore apart Israel’s safety net. Now almost 30% live below the poverty line. That’s a massive increase in poverty, not a rise in standard of living.

          there is a social safety net.

          Israel’s safety net is so moth eaten you’d die if you had to rely on it to save you from a fall.

          You keep touting what Labor did or what Labor agreed to as if that should silence my argument. I could care less what Labor did or didn’t do. They are no longer the arbiter of anything valid in the Israeli political system. In fact, the Party barely exists & will die off imminently.

          1. “You’re blaming contemporary Israeli poverty on a “socialist” system last in power in 1977? That’s 35 years.”

            So what? That “lovely” socialist system created such corrupt giants as the Israel Electric Company, Mekorot, the Ports and others. A system has a certain inertia to it.

            The IEC has an immensely powerful union (yes, a socialist idea) which successfully resisted all attempts of reform in a state-owned company which has a huge debt that it can’t repay and is still the largest employer with the largest average salary, 3.5 times the country average and offers such outrageous benefits as free electricity for it’s employees. Now, here’s a funny thing. When push comes to shove, the company gets bailed out by rising the price of electricity, essentially to finance it’s mismanagement.
            Guess who’s hurt the most by rising electricity prices?

            Or take the teacher’s union as another example. It was established in 1950, when no one wanted to fire teachers anyway, since the system was socialist anyway.

            Since than, an organization whose purpose was to protect teachers from injustice at work became a teacher’s sugar daddy. It’s nearly impossible to fire a teacher, no matter how bad that teacher is unless he or she does something criminal. The result is a steep decline in the quality of education, a decline in the quality of the average teacher (since it’s non-competitive), a decline in the social status of teaching as a job and stubborn resistance to reform.

            The rich families can afford a private tutor for their kids. Again, it’s the poor who are the hardest hit by yet another socialist relic.

            Same thing happens in many socialist-era relics which have acquired so much power it’s going to take a very strong PM to dismantle.

            You’re right that 35 years has passed since the “mahapah” in 1977 when Labor was first dethroned. However, the systems they’ve set up, during their one-party reign of nearly 30 years, have power of their own and they wish to continue to have it. Merely electing a more capitalist party (which actually has been in power only half the time) doesn’t magically erase this system.

            and bar_kochba above me is right. Israelis come in two flavors: the lazy and corrupt few who are too well paid for doing too little and those who hate socialism.

          2. The IEC has an immensely powerful union (yes, a socialist idea)

            I had no idea. So all those American unions are the product of the Socialist States of America??? Gee, thanks for enlightening me.

            The result is a steep decline in the quality of education, a decline in the quality of the average teacher (since it’s non-competitive), a decline in the social status of teaching as a job and stubborn resistance to reform.

            I see. And it has nothing to do with the fact that the national budget has essentially cut education loose & radically cut funding?? This in fact is the reason Israel’s educational system has gone fr. being the envy of many to a laughingstock. That is why so many bright Israeli students leave for opportunities abroad in the UK or U.S.

            Israelis come in two flavors: the lazy and corrupt few who are too well paid for doing too little and those who hate socialism.

            Hey, we’ve got the Israeli version of Dick Cheney here. Thanks for all that racism against your own people. What utter stupidity! No wonder Israel is in such deep doo-doo with hateful foolishness like yours passing for accepted wisdom on the far right.

      2. Do the 25%-30% of Israelis living below the poverty line have an equal say in how government is run as do the members of the 18 families who control 60% of corporate equity? Is the system ‘one man one vote’ or ‘one shekel one vote’ ? Is money a form of protected speech in Israel? Can the 25% in poverty be heard on an equal playing field as the 60%?

  7. Yakov is right that Israel in 1965 was a far cry from an egalitarian society. The relative equality in income, as measured by the Gini coefficient, tells a very partial story of the deep discrimination in society. In the sixties, factory managers may have earned only four times what their workers earned (as opposed to 100-200 times today), but inequality is more than numbers. Don’t forget that Palestinian citizens of Israel lived under a military regime, and needed a permit from the army just to move from one town to the next within Israel.

    The source for the relative equality in 1965 is a research by the Van Leer Institute from 2000, here is the full reference (the report is in Hebrew):

    Shye, Shmuel, Dahan, Momi, Dvir, Eyal, Mironichev, Natalia, 2000, Does Inequality Hamper Growth?, On the Relationship Between Equality in Income and Economic Growth, The Van Leer Social Justice Project – Position Paper No. 1, Jerusalem.

    As for poverty of Palestinian citizens of Israel, I strongly recommend the book “Blocked Development” by Amtanes Sehade from 2006:

    Sehade, Amtanes, 2006, Blocked Development, Mada Center, December 2006.

    I think it will clarify that the Palestinians of Israel are not perfect, but blaming them for their poverty is to distract from the main reasons for poverty embedded in government policy.

    Whenever there is poverty, its always possible to find plenty of reasons to blame the poor for their own situation. If its not religion, its lifestyle or wrong priorities, or a culture of welfare. I believe that a simple comparison of the poverty levels among Palestinian Israelis with the poverty levels of Jewish groups with similar lifestyles and just as much “tradition” and religion shows that if anything, a traditional lifestyle has been one of the coping mechanisms of the Palestinian Israeli population with being excluded from the Israeli economic sphere.

    1. “Whenever there is poverty, its always possible to find plenty of reasons to blame the poor for their own situation”.

      Perhaps because they deserve it? I’m not saying that only the poor should take the blame, but it’s much easier to do nothing about it and to remain poor than actively seek a way out.

      1. Wow, it’s easier to remain poor? I’m without work right now, and I’ll remember those words of wisdom. Like the Arabs, I’ll just sit on my ass and remain poor, because “it’s much easier to do nothing about it and to remain poor than actively seek a way out.”

        Any other pearls of wisdom, Yakov?

  8. Don’t fool yourself that israel is the only country where discrimination exist. I can assure that almost everywhere in the world you will find racial discrimination in some form. Unless you tackle all of them then you are being an hypocrite.

    In europe racial discrimination is not a new phenomenon. I’m not saying that as a on israel’s defence but I am saing that if you want to erase discrimination you shouldn’t just focus on israel and it’s society.

  9. Speaking about poverty and inequality:
    “Despite its burgeoning economy, the gap between rich and poor in India is vast.
    Top 1%: 16% of wealth
    Top 5%: 38% of wealth
    Top 10%: 53% of wealth
    About 35% of people live on less than US $1 a day. Poverty is at its worst in rural areas and is often accompanied by high levels of illiteracy and poor health.
    Nationally, almost half of children suffer from malnourishment, although infant mortality rates have declined. Almost 60% of people in towns and 20% in rural areas do not have access to proper sanitation.
    Despite such problems, India has seen overall poverty decline – a shift which has been accompanied by more general improvements to living standards.
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6257057.stm

  10. an excellent post. rarely do critics of israel mention the fact that explains all other excesses, and is the root of all evil here.

    regretfully, the elimination of the wefare state has been a project of american jewry, as an operative arm of american foreign policy, and a successful one, for them.

  11. According to the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS) among developed countries inequality of income is greatest in the USA and after that in Israel and Italy. Inequality is, in spite of Yakov’s assertion about Sweden, lowest in the Scandinavian countries, Belgium and the Netherlands (Smeeding, 2004). According to the most recent Gini index Namibia is at the top, with highest inequality, and Sweden at the very bottom.

    The growing inequality of income is a global trend but in Israel, where it is among developed nations particularly high, it shows up more starkly against the background of a past in which the country was more than most others marked by an ideology of egalitarianism.

    The post war boom ended around 1970. Since then income inequality has increased in many developed countries. In the USA the share of the national income that goes to labour has decreased while that going to capital has grown (Quiggin, 1999). Wage differentials have, however, also increased. Skilled labour has attracted higher wages at the expense of unskilled labour.

    In general one can state that the growth in international trade, technological change and neoliberal reforms have stimulated the growth of wage inequality.

    The outsourcing of production work could lead to higher wages for low-skilled labour in developing countries and lower wages for workers with the same skill level in developed countries. So growing wage inequality in the developed countries would tend to go hand in hand with increasing global equality.

    This trend doesn’t seem to show up very clearly yet.

    Technological change that has increased the productivity of skilled labour at the expense of unskilled labour might be another explanatory factor.

    And finally, neoliberal reforms involving among other things taxation policies that favour the rich and measures designed to decrease the power of unions (for instance in the United Kingdom and Australia) should also be looked at.

    Yakov’s assertions about unemployment and poverty as largely due to the laziness and lack of enterprise of the people concerned seem to be, as is the case everywhere, inspired by the ‘brutopia’ ideology on which these neoliberal reforms are based. In this particular case ‘ethnic’ prejudice might also play a role.

    1. “Inequality is, in spite of Yakov’s assertion about Sweden, lowest in the Scandinavian countries”. My assertion was about the Wallenberg Sphere. My point is that the mode of possession of corporate equity – be it one family, 20 families or none at all – has no direct relevance to income inequality.

      ‘Yakov’s assertions about unemployment and poverty as largely due to the laziness and lack of enterprise of the people concerned seem to be, as is the case everywhere, inspired by the ‘brutopia’ ideology on which these neoliberal reforms are based”

      You have this interesting idea that the average guy will do what’s right instead of what’s easy to do. I agree that inequality is not only the poor man’s fault.

      However, in the current socialist system that pays for sitting at home and doing nothing, which pays child support when the payment *increases* with each child, this provides an incentive for families to stay at home and make as much kids as they possibly can. After all, the state pays them to do so.

      Now, I don’t suggest that poor people shouldn’t be supported by the state. I suggest that in addition to welfare payments, the state should encourage people to look for a job. Right now, many families can get almost as much money for staying home (if they have many kids) as they would get if the parents were working.

    2. Thanks Arie, for this very informative post. I learned a lot from it. As usual, you know what you are talking about.

      Ik lees je berichten altijd met genoegen!

  12. 1/ Is it 18 or 19 (or 17 or 20) families? The article is imprecise.

    2/ How many people in these ’18 families’. Its one thing to say 18 families control ‘x’ and another to say 1800 people control ‘x’.

    3/ The interviewer, not contradicted by the interviewee, indicates that from what he’s heard and seen in Israel, that no one seems to care about these wealthy families. Is this true?

    4/ The Ynet article seems to indicate that there is movement into and out of the wealthiest families. Doesn’t this indicate social mobility?

    5/ Why no mention about the complete and utter failure of Matzpen (that is what the ‘Alternative Information Center’ is under a different name, isn’t it?)

    1. No, Shir Hever is precise & notes 18 families. Ynet, writing in 2007 noted 19 families. The imprecision is in your hazy mind.

      no one seems to care about these wealthy families.

      If you mean that there is virtually no oversight of their monopolistic practices & no political will to rein them in–that’s correct.

      Doesn’t this indicate social mobility?

      With the most unequal distribution of wealth in the world outside the U.S. how much social mobility do you think there is? And why do you think so many of Israel’s brightest & most entrepreneurial leave for greener pastures abroad?

      utter failure of Matzpen (that is what the ‘Alternative Information Center’ is under a different name, isn’t it?)

      I have no idea what you’re talking about. Matzpen hasn’t existed for a few decades. Why don’t you actually try to rebut Hever’s claims rather than engage in stupid smears like this?

      1. most entreprenuerial leave?

        See ‘Startup Nation’ for proof otherwise.

        But hey if you don’t believe me try and find some successful businesses started up by any ex-Israeli anti-zionist mentioned on any anti-zionist website.

        As to Matzpen

        Orr+Warschawski=Matzpen
        Orr+Warschawski=Alternative Information Center

        Therefore…

  13. Anyn and Tompe – it’s not easy to rent an apartment in tel-aviv because there are few available and they’re being rented really quickly.

    As for that story about being fired for speaking Arabic with the cook in the kitchen, i doubt it’s representative.

    When I was in high school, I’ve worked at McDonalds. There were many Arabs there, in all positions. I’ve worked at 3 different McDonald’s places, and they all hired many Arabs who talked among themselves freely in Arabic.

    Many other places I’ve dined at hired Arabs as cooks and waiters and I’ve heard them talk with each other in Arabic.

  14. I am not surprised thet McDonalds employs so many Arabs in Israel. In the Netherlands a McDonalds job counts as one of the worst types of jobs available: They are usually temporary and McDonalds wants only young people anyway, because as you work there longer you get more expensive. Apart from the manager, only students and immigrants work there.

  15. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-06-22/israeli-economy-one-of-world-s-happy-stories-nobel-winner-krugman-says.html

    if unemployment is going to be at 7 percent, according to the above article…how can 30 percent live below the poverty level?

    and richard, i know a few of the haredi families…bar kochba is correct, they choose to live in this fashion…and are pretty content with their lifestyle, which is very modest

    all of their children’s education is paid for as are their medical expenses…the kids arent going hungry.

    im sure that israel has the same issues as any other capitalist society….but i remember what it was like in the 70s…inflation was insane and everyday the shekel would be devalued

    and they are starting to break up monopolies…they have started with the car import biz

    im sure they will get around to the rest

    its a very young country…we in america had our robber barons too

    the only thing is…we didnt learn…and now 1 percent of the wealthiest in america control most of the wealth

    what are you gonna do?

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