society has enjoyed the sweet illusion that there is no connection at all between our policy towards the Arabs and our economic situation. This is a cornerstone of our national consciousness.
During my ten years in the Knesset, I made at least a hundred speeches on this one point. In economic debates I pointed to the security policy and the occupation. In debates about security policy, I raised questions about the economic price.
Each one of these speeches aroused a furious and impatient reaction from all parts of the House. In security debates they shouted at me: "What has that to do with the economy? We are now speaking about terrorism!" In economic debates they shouted: "We are discussing the economy, so what are you dragging your Palestinians into this for!" (Just once in all those years, a deputy minister of the Treasury took me aside in the corridor and said: "You are the only one who made sense." Not being an economist, I was flattered.)
This ignoring of the price of the war and the occupation has had curious results: the poorest people, the unemployed, and the inhabitants of the run-down so-called "development towns" have always voted Likud. In the last elections, they voted solidly for Sharon. They had only two demands: to screw the Arabs and to put an end to the economic crisis. They saw no contradiction between the two.
But for some months now, there has been a change in public
consciousness. In order to counter the accusation that the government's economic policy has caused the depression, the Sharon people have had to admit that the intifada is the main cause, even if the worldwide crisis added to it. The intifada dealt a terrible blow to tourism, one of the most important sectors of our economy. Foreign investments, which are essential to economic growth, have all but stopped. The giant army necessary for the fight against the intifada, together with the settlers, devours a huge proportion of our GNP (many times more, per capita, than in the United States).
Some people believe that if the depression deepens, the "weak strata" (as the poor are called in Israel) will one day rise against the Sharon government, the masses will pour onto the streets and topple it. That may be too optimistic. But at least one can dream about the night when, at midnight, the people knock on the door of the government and hand it a notice of dismissal.