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February 27, 2004
Ideology trumps logic
Economic truths eclipsed by hatred of Israel: Olmert.
PAT JOHNSON SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH BULLETIN
European and North American assumptions that the Arab world will
behave in ways that are economically logical ignore the facts, says
a top Israeli commentator who visited Vancouver last week.
Arab states, with a few exceptions, have resolutely refused to deal
with Israel on diplomatic or economic levels, ignoring indicators
that suggest the regional economy would boom with open borders,
said Yossi Olmert, a columnist for the Jerusalem Post and
Yediot Aharanot, as well as a former senior political and
communications advisor to Likud governments. Economic incentives
do not resonate with political systems whose paramount ideology
is anti-Zionist.
"[Economic logic] may work elsewhere, but not in the Middle
East," Olmert said.
Citing the example of Egypt, which signed a peace treaty with Israel
in 1977, Olmert said Arab countries could see massive material advantages
to bilateral relations with the Jewish state. Annually, Olmert said,
Israel receives $2.7 billion from Egypt and Egypt receives $2.1
billion from Israel in bilateral trade.
"This is what really keeps Egypt going," said Olmert,
whose brother is Ehud Olmert, Israel's deputy prime minister and
former mayor of Jerusalem. Other Arab states, he added, have so
far not learned the economic lesson from the Egyptians and insist
that the Jewish state must remain an enemy, regardless of the costs.
"There are forces at play here that perpetuate the political
situation that in turn perpetuates the economic stagnation,"
Olmert said. "All the Arab regimes simply refused to participate
with Israel on economic terms."
Among the other economic miscalculations Olmert pins on most Arab
states is a huge proportion of their budgets dedicated to military
spending.
"The Arabs are still wasting too much resources on arms, on
the military," he said. Israel, which once spent one-quarter
to one-third of gross domestic product on military expenditures,
now spends about one-eighth, Olmert said. Arab states' military
spending remains significantly higher which, added to institutional
corruption and a distribution of wealth that benefits a small elite,
leaves Arab economies in disastrous shape, he said.
One of the ways Israel was able to reduce its military spending,
Olmert said, was to create a burgeoning civilian industry with coincidental
military applications.
"That was the incentive for the Israeli high-tech industry,"
he said.
Meanwhile, Arab governments tend not to provide substantial social
services for their citizens, leaving a gap that has been filled
by fundamentalist religious sects, creating fertile soil for both
political and religious extremism.
Olmert outlined the economic implications of the Middle East conflict
at a lunch meeting Feb. 18 at the Four Seasons Hotel in Vancouver.
His presentation was sponsored by the Jewish National Fund's local
chapter.
While the Arabs suffer from the continued conflict, he said, so
does Israel, which has seen the average Israeli's income decline
to $17,000 this year from about $20,000 before the latest intifada
began in 2000.
"We are suffering," he said. "The price of terrorism
is enormous."
Moving from the strict economic impacts, Olmert offered a passionate
and seemingly frustrated perspective on the continued violence in
his country. The construction of a fence to separate Israel proper
from the disputed territories is a manifestation of a nation's frustration
with the Palestinian leadership's duplicity, he said.
"We simply do not believe that we can negotiate with people
like this, people who sanctify the killing of their children or
the children of their neighbors," he said. "There's no
way that I can beautify a situation that is as it is."
The fence represents a reconfiguring of the political dynamic, Olmert
said, based on the conclusion that no lasting, long-term peace is
viable with the Palestinians.
While Olmert insisted, in an interview after his presentation, that
the fence does not mean Israel is giving up on the West Bank, nor
that Israel will permit a rogue state to flourish there, he steadfastly
insists that Israel must abandon the Gaza Strip, a place that is
strategically indefensible.
"Eight thousand Jews in the Gaza Strip.... It's futile. It's
useless," he said. "It's 8,000 [Jewish] people out of
two million [Arabs].
"I don't say the same about the settlements in Judea and Samaria,"
he said, referring to the area generally called the West Bank by
its biblical names. Jews have an historic right to live there, according
to Olmert, and their numbers present a tangible bulwark against
a full-fledged Palestinian state, which he calls a "mortal
danger" to Israel.
The former aide to prime minister Yitzhak Shamir had bitter words
for Israeli leftists, including Yossi Beilin, one of the architects
of an extra-governmental peace treaty signed in Geneva recently.
"I'm not like Yossi Beilin," said Olmert. "I don't
wake up every morning and ask what we can do today to please Yasser
Arafat." As he said during his presentation: "Every day
that Yasser Arafat is alive is an affront to me."
Pat Johnson is a native Vancouverite, a journalist and
commentator.
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