Again, Ben Efrat’s main focus is Israel’s internal economic indicators, his main point is that these nineteen families hold inordinate sway in the political process: “The leadership that sold itself to the 19 families—always the same leadership, whether it goes by the name of Likud or Labor or Kadima”, to the detriment of both Israelis and Palestinians. It is true that he does not further develop the argument in this short piece but that may simply be outside the scope of his inquiry here. It would be interesting to see a more in-depth engagement that deals with the convergence between neoliberal and neoconservative policies.

For my own views, the rising concentration of wealth does not bode well for any country that claims to be a democracy, and by way of secondary effects an impoverished populace is not a good civic climate for just negotiations with and (what are seen as) concessions to Palestinians, either. This is akin to the incidence of higher resentment against immigrants in times of economic hardship in any country. Poverty, inequality and wealth concentration do have an impact upon the peace process, with or without a deeper examination of the links between the handful of wealthy families and their political role which Ben Efrat precludes from consideration in this particular piece.

In this light, I find the following figures of concern:

The percentage of poor families in the working population increased from 40.6 percent to 43.1 percent. Nearly 60 percent of the ‘working-poor’ were working fulltime (Sinai 2006a, Shaoul 2006).

42 percent of Israeli Arab families are living below the poverty line. The average wages are less than half the wages of Ashkenazi Jews. Every second Israeli Arab child lives in poverty. When in 1996 to 2001 the unemployment rate of the Jewish Israelis increased by about 53 percent, the unemployment rate of the Arab Israelis increased by 126 percent (cf. Shaoul 2006).

80 percent of Israelis regard themselves as poor. 23 percent of the pensioners are living below the poverty line. Poverty among children increased in 1988 to 2005 by about 50 percent. Approximately one fifth of all under-age children (714.000) in Israel are suffering from hunger (cf. Shaoul 2006). 75 percent of the poor families cannot afford medicine and 70 percent are dependant on food donations (cf. Sinai 2005b).

Nearly one third of the Holocaust survivors are living in poverty. Some of the Holocaust survivors get $ 600,- per month from the German government, whilst other Holocaust survivors receive only $ 350,- per month from the Israeli Ministry of Finance and the Holocaust survivors that immigrated to Israel after 1953 (who amount to 70 percent of the Holocaust survivors in Israel) only receive the general national pension. Nearly 20 percent of the Holocaust survivors are at the present time 86 years and older, 70 percent are older than 76 years. (cf. Medina 2007, p. 1) They are not entitled to a supplementary payment or to compensation. But the problematic economic situation of the Holocaust survivors is neither new information nor an unknown fact. As a result of the precarious situation several are in need of the help of welfare organizations, because they cannot afford to some degree their necessary medicine. (Dirk Michel and Claudia Schertges, ‘Poverty in Israel’, Social Work and Society, v. 5 (2007): 2).