Israel Erupts in Looting Last Week

by Charles Lenchner

category: Middle East

Published March 22, 2009 @ 09:15AM PT

Desperation is growing in Israel. After years of economic growth - despite the ongoing security issues - the recession is hitting the Holy Land.

HATZOR HAGLILIT, Israel — - First came the employees, shortchanged two months' pay and laid off by the supermarket called God's Blessing. They plundered their shuttered workplace, helping themselves to crates full of groceries.

As word spread through the small town, the store's jilted creditors joined in. They dismantled the light fixtures, ripped out wiring and absconded with the cash registers, even as television cameras rolled.

Within hours the parking lot was jammed with ordinary shoppers. They left car engines running and brought their children to help pick the shelves clean. Finally even the shelves were hauled away, leaving latecomers to scrounge for leftover fruit.

The two-day spree shocked and puzzled Israelis, who assume that the rule of law prevails in their society. Yet this and other recent cases of looting have coincided with news that the economy, flattened last year after half a decade of enviable growth, had slid into recession.

I'm not surprised. While Israel is in many ways a modern western nation state, the layers underneath aren't so far removed as they are in the US. From time to time, mobs rampage, mass outbreaks of lawlessness occur. Mostly among the ultra orthodox and settler communities, who don't feel the same level of attachment to Israel 'the state' as opposed to Israel 'the land.'

The economy is expected to shrink 1.5% this year, according to the Bank of Israel, compared with growth rates of 4% or more in the previous five years. The global downturn is taking its toll; the bank forecasts an 11% decline in Israeli exports, which account for half the value of everything the country produces.

But as the crisis moves from one workplace to another, Israelis are blaming other Israelis: the tycoons who gambled in overseas real estate and lost, bringing down Israel's financial markets; the bankers who tightened credit; the entrepreneurs who faltered under impossible debt burdens and started bouncing checks.

The anarchy at the supermarket is one of three well-publicized cases of looting that erupted after beleaguered owners or managers defaulted on debts to suppliers, stopped paying workers and went into hiding.

Read more here.

Looking at Israel through the prism of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can distort the reality of Israel. It's a real country, with the same conflicts between rich and poor, haves and have-nots that every other country has. Unfortunately, the conflict is often an excuse to avoid dealing with those problems, as there is always something 'more important' on the national agenda.