The inclusion of the Palestinian citizens in BONPO- and GONGO-led projects of social economy is striking considering the centrality of Zionist money and Zionist discourses in these projects. As presented in the background section of this chapter, in the early decades of Israeli statehood the large Zionist foundations were used precisely to bypass the state’s nominal commitment to universal redistribution and to actively oust the Palestinian citizens from the sphere of economic development and social integration. This does not mean that the mechanisms of ethnonational exclusion have been reversed or annulled. Arguably, as I pointed out earlier, marginalization of the Palestinian citizens remains solid and in some important respects has even worsened: poverty among them has deepened, their relative deprivation has increased parallel to the relative rise in their living standards, and judging by the recent series of racist laws and vocal expressions of anti-Arab feeling, their alienation seems to have even become more blatant. That said, it is noteworthy that their inclusion in the recent initiatives of social economy is not limited to the radical margins of grassroots activism. The Palestinians are in fact taken into account by the full range of partners operating in the field. Among them is the Prime Minister’s Office, where a special authority was created in 2008 to “maximize the economic potential of the Arab, Druze and Circassian populations by encouraging their integration into the national economy.”14 Similarly, economic development projects fostered by the Jewish Agency now explicitly place the advancement of Arab citizens on their agenda, including projects specifically designed to develop the Negev and Galilee, two regions that have been the emblems of state Judaization.15
This development, whereby the Arab minority is declaratively and actively brought under the wings of the Zionist apparatus, does not necessarily indicate a weakening of the hegemonic perception of Israel as the state of the Jewish people, or a shift towards the state-of-all-its-citizens position upheld by the non-Zionist left. Rather, it signifies a sense of urgency in the mainstream, secular Ashkenazi-Jewish elites to reduce social inequalities as a means of strengthening the democratic component of the state, which they perceive as complementary to its Jewish component.
Several forces concurrently are responsible for this twist in the historical course of ethnonational exclusion. One, as just mentioned, is the old elites reacting to the rising tide of religious fundamentalism by clinging to the liberal component of democracy and cultivating an image of civil society as a space for apolitical pluralism. The connection between “diversity,” social strength, and economic strength is traceable back to the early 1990s, with the Rabin-led peace process that culminated in the 1993 Oslo Accords. Guy Ben-Porat (2004) documents the sweeping support among the leaders of the business community of the idea of a New Middle East as an engine of economic prosperity, and their commitment to invest billions of dollars in regional economic initiatives out of the conviction that “the war industry has run its course and peace is a better investment” (cited in Ben-Porat 2004: 190). The heads of the business organizations remained vocal in their support for the peace process even after the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin in 1995, publicly expressing their concern that stopping the peace process would have terrible implications for Israel’s economic future. This optimistic vision of peace and economic prosperity notwithstanding, Israeli public support for the peace process was and remains bound by ethnic and class lines. Ben-Porat notes that besides the traditional identification of the religious and the Mizrahi populations with the political right, their estrangement from the idea of a New Middle East was rooted in their realization that the anticipated fruits of economic growth would not trickle down to the lower classes and the social peripheries. Thus the collaboration between the business elite and the Labor Party, which is traditionally identified as Ashkenazi, marked the peace process as an interest of the elites, not the rank-and-file. Instead of winning hearts for peace, the business investments in regional economic enterprises served mostly to solidify the overlap of ethnic, class, and political divisions. Be that as it may, by the end of the 2000s no one was talking any longer about regional economic enterprises. Still, in the circles of the leading business elite, the link had been forged between minimizing political conflict and enhancing economic sustainability.
Another major force behind the new motivation to include Palestinian citizens in social economy initiatives is economic liberalization, which has made global connections and discourses an important part of the local business culture. In 2010 Israel finally joined the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The negotiations leading to its admission, as well as its eventual membership, have created pressures to abide by the organization’s standards of economic governance. Among other things, these dictate that the government must take direct action to reduce poverty, foster the periphery, and protect minority rights. A particularly conspicuous example of such influences is the surging preoccupation with the low labor force participation of Arab women, which as I document elsewhere (Sa’ar forthcoming) has rapidly become a consensual concern of government officials, grassroots activists, and experts of all sorts.
Indicative of the deeply paradoxical nature of the social-economy field, this sudden openness on the part of the bureaucratic and business elites to Palestinian citizens, and their consequent immersion into economic empowerment projects, have brought them into close contact with social change activists, who therefore constitute a third important source of influence. As shown throughout the book, and particularly in my discussion of civic entitlement and economic citizenship in Chapter 5, the collaborations in the projects of actors with very different subject positions make for strange bedfellows. Admittedly, the impact of the neoliberal logic on all participants in these encounters is enormous; but nor does the critical counterdiscourse of the grassroots activists go unnoticed by their more mainstream partners.
Going back to Noa’s narrative, another interesting motif, which reflects the mood in the field more generally, is the spirit of dynamism, creativity, and ambitiousness as essential elements of economic success. When Noa talks about the organization that she represents, which she was recruited to establish, she points to its anticipated dissolution (ideally within seven years) as the ultimate measurement of its success. In a similar vein, in my field diary I recorded several times the term “exit” (in English) spoken by NPO directors and representatives of foundations to whom I listened as they envisioned their involvement in particular projects. The idea of “exit” resonates strongly with the high-tech logic of success. Israeli popular culture is full of legendary stories of bright young men who started up a company with merely an idea and some seed money; then a few years later they managed to sell it to a global conglomerate, which brought about the demise of their original company and made them multimillionaires. This, of course, is not the experience of most high-tech workers, nor is the pick-up-and-go a feasible option for the average woman in the business world. Yet the possibility is believed to be there, and deemed to be reserved for those who have the additional spark, and the courage to listen to their innermost voice and follow it even before they know where it is leading them. These elements, reflected in Noa’s narrative of her personal career path, are central in Israeli neoliberal discourses of success. To varying degrees they are also popular throughout the field of social economy—among those who conceive, finance, and operate the projects, as well as among some of the low-income women who enroll in them.
A Bottom-Up, Radical Approach to Social Economy
The next excerpt is taken from an interview I conducted in 2003 with Ofra Gonen, a woman in her mid-fifties who worked as a coordinator and group moderator in an economic empowerment project. Ofra’s background was very different from Rivka’s and Noa’s. In important respects her life history actually resembled that of many of the projects’ clients. Her brief biography, as she told me on that occasion, reflects vividly the sense of growth that some women have experienced through their involvement in the field.
I grew up in a poor neighborhood, but I didn’t know that until I was accepted at a good high school in a different area,