Latest Podcast: Naomi Klein's "The Shock Doctrine" in the Israeli Context

On Thursday, the 26th of June, 2008, Shir Hever, economist with the Alternative Information Center (AIC) spoke with Canadian journalist, author and activist, Naomi Klein. Naomi is the author of No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies and Fences and Windows: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Globalization Debate and a frequent contributor to The Nation, In These Times, The Globe and Mail, and The Guardian.

Her most recent work is, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism (September 2007). In this book, she undertakes to show how "disaster capitalism," which she defines as "orchestrated raids on the public sphere in the wake of catastrophic events, combined with the treatment of disasters as exciting market opportunities," did not begin in the wake of September 11, 2001. Instead, its origins can be traced back fifty years, to the University of Chicago under Milton Friedman, which produced many of the leading neoconservative and neoliberal thinkers, whose influence is still profound in Washington today.

Shir spoke with Naomi about Israel's role in the disaster capitalism phenomenon, the contradictions in Israeli society, which both profits and suffers from the burdens of being a fortress state in constant conflict, and on the discourse among Israeli economists about the role of peace vs. war in the Israeli economy. 

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Numerous Palestinian residents of Jerusalem do not believe the past two incidents involving tractors in Jerusalem were in fact attacks. The common wisdom is that the first incident involved a person with deep personal problems who ran amuck, while the second involved a traffic accident in which the driver panicked following the intervention of armed Israelis. While there is substantial evidence to support this theory, Israeli officials stubbornly cling to the terrorist attack explanation and propose to strengthen repressive measures against the Palestinian population in the city.