When tracing the origins of today's war and devastation in Gaza, it may be easy to overlook economic inequality in favor of political or ideological explanations. In this episode, political analyst and public opinion expert Dahlia Scheindlin says a chief cause of the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict was the severe poverty of Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza, where unemployment was sky high even before the Hamas attacks of Oct. 7, 2023. There was a time when Israelis believed peace was necessary for Israel’s economy to thrive, and that Palestinian growth could substitute for a Palestinian state. A generation later, Gaza is rubble.

Further reading:

The Economic Foundation for Peace in Israel and Palestine by Dahlia Scheindlin for The Century Foundation.

Dr. Dahlia Scheindlin is a political analyst and a public opinion researcher who has advised on nine electoral campaigns in Israel and worked in 15 other countries over 25 years. She is a Haaretz (English) columnist and a Century International policy fellow. She is the author of The Crooked Timber of Democracy in Israel: Promise Unfulfilled, listed on Foreign Affairs’ Best Books of 2024.