...In essence, I argue that Israeli capitalism was brought into being by the Labor Zionist movement (today represented by the Labor Party) and that the Oslo process was a key step in its formation.1 Israel's war against the Palestinian people today is the logical extension of this process, aimed at creating a Palestinian canton-state. Because of the central role of the Labor Zionist movement in building Israeli capitalism, the terms "left" and "right" are often confused in the Israeli case.
Moreover, over the last ten years, Israel has progressively delinked itself from reliance on cheap Palestinian labor while strengthening the dependence of the Occupied Territories on the Israeli economy. The result is a Palestinian society with a highly distorted class structure -- a capitalist class dependent on its privileged relationship with Israeli capital and a working class that has little strategic weight in the national struggle....
[The full article is available at <http://www.monthlyreview.org/1002hanieh.htm>.]