Mada al-Carmel has published a position paper titled “The War on Gaza and Israel’s Technology Sector”. The paper addresses the current attempts to organize the business community in general, and the high-tech sector in particular, to enable it to play an effective role in Israeli politics, in contrast to the role that the sector has played in recent years.
The paper examines the change in the tactics used by the business and financial sectors in an attempt to politically influence events. This change represents a shift in focus away from narrowly economic interests and policies, as has been the case since the 2000s, toward the broader political landscape and politically pressing issues, and potentially attempts to directly influence political decision-making by founding a political party and entering elections.
The paper therefore discusses a serious shift in the interests and goals of the business sector, and in the methods of organization and political action within it. It argues that this shift may lead to it playing a role similar to that it played in the early 1990s during the peace negotiations with the PLO, when the sector supported the Oslo Accords and called for renewed economic policies and changes to the structure of the economy and industry in Israel.
The entry of these sectors into the political and party-political scene will not necessarily lead to a resolution of the political conflict in Israel, though such a possibility cannot be discounted. The organizing of these sectors will certainly contribute to mounting pressures on the current government to end the war and strengthen the protest movements.
Significantly, however, in case efforts to organize the high-tech sector succeed and it does enter the political arena, it is not expected to offer a political vision that differs from that of the current Israeli consensus.
To read the Position Paper, click here
To read the Position Paper in Arabic, click here
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