A POLITICAL ECONOMY ESSAY ON ISRAEL IN THE SHADOW OF THE GAZA OCCUPATION

Following the Covid-19 pandemic, Israel launched its war economy by occupying Gaza for a long time starting in October 2023. It is now in the governance of a fragile ceasefire conjuncture with Palestine and the guarantor states. The sources of Israel's effective and sustainable war economy are its high economic wealth and military power. Israel is often referred to as the couch grass of the Middle East region. This metaphor has been reinforced by the imperialist role given to Israel with the US-made Greater Middle East Project. Israel's Zionist goal and the sustainable intifada of Palestine, which is treated as a refugee in its own land, are in constant conflict, and this has turned the Middle East into an unfortunate and development-impaired geography. In terms of political economy, one side of Israel is industrialized according to Western norms, while the other side is Third World. This contradiction has become clear once again with the Palestinian issue and the occupation of Gaza, which Israel has securitized. The key to peace and stability in the Middle East is to end the occupation of Gaza and the Palestinian issue, and to establish a peace economy for this purpose. The peace economy swings in a pendulum with one side being realpolitik and the other side being political economy. The subject and purpose of this study is to reveal the strong (W), weak (Z), opportunistic (F) and threat (T) characteristics of Israel, which occupies Gaza, for its goal of peace with Palestine according to the SWOT technique and to open a political economy discussion.