The Long Road to Catastrophe: Colonial Neoliberalism and the Making of Israel
Guy Laron
Jun 2027 · Verso Books
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The untold story of Israel's class war: how neoliberalism devoured the welfare state and created Netanyahu's Israel
Israel's neoliberal transformation since 1977 created the conditions for Netanyahu's authoritarian rule and the catastrophe of the Gaza War. This is the untold story of how it happened.Drawing on Hebrew-language sources – memoirs of finance ministers, central bankers, and economic architects – Guy Laron reveals how Israel became one of the most unequal societies in the developed world. He traces the destruction of the labor federation, the privatization of the welfare state, and the creation of a dependent settler and ultra-Orthodox coalition that keeps the Likud in power.
Laron shows how the Israeli Labor Party, rather than resisting neoliberalism, championed it – empowering technocrats over elected officials and abandoning the working class for the professional managerial class. The result was a society where cheap West Bank housing became the only compensation for workers squeezed by austerity, locking in electoral support for the occupation.
From Begin's 1977 revolution through the Oslo years to Netanyahu's authoritarian populism, this is the first comprehensive political economy history of modern Israel, explaining how neoliberalism created technocracy, then devoured it, and, finally, led to the carnage in Gaza. The result was an Israel weaker than ever.
Israel's neoliberal transformation since 1977 created the conditions for Netanyahu's authoritarian rule and the catastrophe of the Gaza War. This is the untold story of how it happened.Drawing on Hebrew-language sources – memoirs of finance ministers, central bankers, and economic architects – Guy Laron reveals how Israel became one of the most unequal societies in the developed world. He traces the destruction of the labor federation, the privatization of the welfare state, and the creation of a dependent settler and ultra-Orthodox coalition that keeps the Likud in power.
Laron shows how the Israeli Labor Party, rather than resisting neoliberalism, championed it – empowering technocrats over elected officials and abandoning the working class for the professional managerial class. The result was a society where cheap West Bank housing became the only compensation for workers squeezed by austerity, locking in electoral support for the occupation.
From Begin's 1977 revolution through the Oslo years to Netanyahu's authoritarian populism, this is the first comprehensive political economy history of modern Israel, explaining how neoliberalism created technocracy, then devoured it, and, finally, led to the carnage in Gaza. The result was an Israel weaker than ever.
The untold story of Israel's class war: how neoliberalism devoured the welfare state and created Netanyahu's Israel
Israel's neoliberal transformation since 1977 created the conditions for Netanyahu's authoritarian rule and the catastrophe of the Gaza War. This is the untold story of how it happ...
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About the author
Guy Laron is a senior lecturer in international relations at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and is based in Tel Aviv. He is the author of The Six-Day War (Yale University Press, 2017) and Origins of the Suez Crisis (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013). His writing has appeared in The Nation, The Guardian, Haaretz, Le Monde Diplomatique, Jacobin, and Catalyst. He was previously a visiting scholar at Oxford University, Northwestern University, and the Woodrow Wilson Center.
Guy Laron is a senior lecturer in international relations at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and is based in Tel Aviv. He is the author of The Six-Day War (Yale University Press, 2017) and Origins of the Suez Crisis (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013). His writing has appeared in The Nation...
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