Steven Den Beste is back to his in-depth long format posting, this time on Israel's project to build a wall between itself and the palestinians. What a relief, after his uncharacteristically brief posts on the M2nd and the 3rd, I was worried something had happened to him.
SDB nailed the topic dead on. Palestinians will be forced to new directions and new tactics by the wall but he missed one set of players in Israel today, and they too are winners, foreign workers. With the restrictions made possible by the wall, Israel will lose access to its most convenient cheap labor force. Israel will become an even more attractive destination for Romanians, Bulgarians, filipino, and other poor nation's migrant workers from unskilled labor to highly skilled trade work, palestinians will be replaced, largely with poor country labor.
But what will that shift in incomes effect on the politics of the nations where Israel is getting their labor? As more and more remittences start coming in from Israel, how does that play out in bilateral relations with these countries?
Israel has something of an opportunity here, if it chooses to take it. If it will create legislation that accommodates the needs of these workers and conditions such legislation on upgraded bilateral relations, Israel might find that it has growing influence on the world stage.
In contrast, with palestinian organizations spending more of their munitions on each other, their support in the oil rich arab world, what there is of it, will likely decline. Muslims killing muslims is fitna, a real no no for muslims. The mosques will not ring with sermons in favor of the palestinian cause when they are more known for fitna than jihad.
Posted by TMLutas at February 7, 2004 10:55 AM