>I may have sent a different version of this bulletin a couple of months
>ago (a shortened version was used as an article in News from Within),
>but this is the latest, unexpurgated version of the economic bulletin of
>the AIC. You can download the PDF version with additional info boxes
>and charts and such:
>
>http://alternativenews.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=538&Itemid=70
>
>In July 2005, Israel started the implementation of the Welfare to Work
>program, a two-year pilot with an option for a year-long extension. The
>plan is the first step in a radical shift in the Israeli labor market,
>and in the privatization of employment services.
Quite interesting, though I think the hypothesis that the connection between the separation wall and welfare reform indicates that the main motivation for this welfare reform is the same as the motivation for the wall (and discrimination against Palestinians in general) is quite unconvincing. Identical welfare "reforms" are going on all over the world, the aim is simply a more disciplined workforce.
In fact the Israeli policies of discrimination against Palestinians are at cross-purposes to the world wide push for greater labour "flexibility" by the employing class. This kind of obsession with national ethnic purity always is.
The only connection I can see is that the restrictions on the availability of cheap migrant labour created by the isolation of the Occupied Territory Palestinian population within walled ghettos probably spurred the Israeli employing class to demand some compensatory measures. But of course the idea that this indicates a convergence between the two different policies is illogical. One policy restricts the availability of cheap labour with no rights. The other policy perhaps tries to compensate. But they are policies at cross purposes.
Bill Bartlett Bracknell Tas