Impacted slumping before october 7th, however, and the situation just got worse with the operation also flood, the value dropping from 17 billion to 7 and a half of billion dollars when it comes to investments. Political instability also is something that uh plagued israels economy before october 7th. Then the israel reservists uh what happened they uh had 300,00 that went to the battlefield, therefore they were taken out of the work. Forest, many were recalled back to contribute to the society, economically and in other respects, but has it helped israels economy . Israels economy is in crisis mode, israels genocidal war on palestinians in the gaza. Trip has proven more expensive than expected, between october and december, israels economy shrank by fifth at annualized rate compared with the previous three months, was more than twice the contraction predicted by the bank of israel. In the same period, over 750,00 people or six of the labor force were away from work, many of them evacuees or reservists. Moodies, Rating Agency downgraded the regimes Credit Rating for the first time ever. The tech sector has been hit hard. Many have moved operations abroad. In 2023, the value of israeli tech exits, including mnas and ipos slumped 56 to 7. 5 billion from 16. 9 billion a year earlier. 2022 was already a tough year for israels Tech Industry as the uncertain specter of rising interest rates, global stock market fall and tech layoffs led to a. Sharp slowdown in investments. Israel attracts most of his tech investments from abroad. About 80 of Venture Capital investments in local hightech startups were generated from foreign funds. Time now to take a look at some of the social media posts on this uh first stop we took a look atuh the topic of boycott. This entry said boycott and makes a change. Israels economy is falling to its knees. Then we uh looked at this entry where we thought its important. War may cost them a lot of money that will be paid back from the usa, uk and the eu, because they will support israel unconditionally, but the major hit is boycotting that will hurt them, if not now, later, and the hit will be so hard. Okay, so a couple topics there on boycott. Next, the us could literally do that, the majority of their economy is funded by the usa. The usa, cutting support would be catastrophic for israels. The us has the power, its just. To incompetents to wield it the right way. Then how the war in gaza has hurt israels economy, the fight against hamas will cost 46 billion pounds by the end of next year while leaving farming, tech and hospitality short of thousands of workers. And finally, israels economy plumets off a cliff the gaza, were what we call the onslot, the bureau attributed the drop in part to the fact that some 3000 reservists were called up to man the war effort, leaving their day jobs vacant and the civilian economy. Losing out a big chunk of both producer activity and Consumer Spending. Our guess for our first q a, let me introduce some joe catron, joins us, palestine solidarity activist, and its important to know that he lived in gaza from the years 2011 through 2014. Joe control, welcome to economic divide. So, were looking at obviously key sectors of israels economy to have suffered as a result of this onslot and at the top of the list, construction tourism and agriculture. Uh, do you think the. Sectors can see any signs of improvements given the fact that this on stod is continuing, well i think that the resistance of course led by the palace. Resistance, but also including forces within the exact axis of resistance fighting from lebanon, yemen and iraq, have done a really masterful job in isolating israel economically as well as militarily. At this point, its hard to see how its economy could hope to function in any normal way, as long as this onslot continues. Between the ongoing bombardment in its north, which is preventing the return of settlers and the complete closure of its shipping lane in the red sea as well of course as the ongoing fight resistance it faces from palestinians in gaza. Israel is a war that it cant hope to continue while maintaining any sort of normal economy. All right, that was joke atron there. Thank you joke tron. Uh, let me introduce our next guest here, john phoenix, joins us now. John phoenix is the founder and editor and chief at showa. Org. Uk. John phoenix, welcome to economic divide. Um, you know, uh, the different sectors thats been affected by uh this onslot, the tech sector is the one that stands out the most, and uh, its something thats been repeated. It was not doing. Before the onslot, however, and of course weve seen how uh theyre now doing much worse, Investor Confidence is lost in that industry. How can this sector hope for any recuperation . How can they uh begin even think that they can uh attract investments uh when this onslot has not even not only ended but that it may continue on the political side to impactuh the sector. The the record show show us that the main product and technology was was actually promoted in the europe and part of middle east is their markava, the the their tank which is proven failing on the front in gaza, this without going through the Technical Details of the tank was actually supposed to be an advanced best tank on the world, turke ordered 400 of those, which is if that deal with. Through they will have obviously revenue of millions of dollars year, but failing on on the ground shows that is not worse to invest in such technology. The reason im giving that example because this was one of their best obviously marketing for the technology. Other factor is due to the crimes and the genocide of gaza, some companies actually its dealing with the Israeli Technology due to the obviously claim to be ethical issues, such technology been used to slaughter palestinians in gaza, so thats two factors together affect their ability to advance any growth on the last obviously clearly from the till about now. And time now for the inf news section of the program. First off were going to take a look at the us oil sales to china, something thats not going to happen. And its interesting that uh this is actually something that uh the us may have done, but the us uh basically has come out and said it could underline could band state oil sales to china from, and this is an interesting part from the sbr. Whats the sbr . Well thats an emergency stock file that was created following the west asia. Oil embargo of 1973 uh, this sounds like theres a security related issue regarding uh trade where the us has come out making this type of a statement, so its a story that we need to look a little bit further. Onto the eu, our next entry and the food prices there, the prices of major food staples have spiked um by lot, 50 , i think thats a lot, for example, all of oil costs across the block have been on the rise since mid2023, and thats according to eurostate. The eu is still grappling with the food crisis in terms of the inflation uh and food and to add that to that, the former protest, you can see that that situation is somewhat volatile. Now we go to very contentious topic and this is the green energy and in particular in the us that has promoted this, the transition aspect of it. Uh, what slowing down americas Clean Energy Transition is what caught our attention, and this headline. Read, its not the cost, it said new report has found Renewable Energy is facing organized opposition, thats right, and grid connectivity issues, so the transformation obviously is not going to be that. Uh simple nor easy uh now our take on this is the only issue is the speed of the transition in the last two years high inflation and supply chain issues led to temporary price increases um and the reason why we mentioned that is because green transition is supposed to somewhat lower prices also but thats not going to be the case based on uh the way that we view it now uh this piece of news is important its may not sound uh economic and flavor but uh the israeli ambassador uh to italy has been rejected by italy, italy has rejected this uh um person who was a former settlement mayor uh for the ambassadorial position. Now rome did not want an ambassador who was mayor of a west Bank Settlement and that also headed the yesha council, thats the main political arm the settlement movement. Why do we think thats important and related to the economy, because this may be a trend if you have a country thats rejecting an appointment by israel uh of their ambassador, this may spill over into uh the trade aspect of it where it may impact trade overall, so we have to wait and see whether this is going to have a contagion effect or not. Those were the news items we picked for new section, of course your choice is more important, if you have any do send them to us, Contact Information is coming up. This week on expose we touch upon the western narrative of the parliamentary elections in the Islamic Republic of iran as it centered around made up tales about iranians abstaining from roating in protest against the government. In the meantime, most Opinion Pieces published by wellknown Mainstream Media rejected the idea that iran is democratic country essentially recycling tired stories and narratives with no fresh person. Perspective, also this week we cover social media reacts to the famin brought on by the ongoing zinus israeli genocide in gaza as well as the air drop sharade of aid and expired food on gaza residents. Right here on expos a, the truth is just a revelation away. Of the program, israels over5 months of aggression is taking a toll its economy. Now weve established that. In this indepth section we will look at some of the key areas which has drained israels budget from its funds. First of all, lets take a look at uh how israel actually got a reality check when it realized that it had suffered what uh was very steep drop in his gdp uh for the last quarter of 2023 minus 19. 4 , and that is lot by any standards. Uh, it highlights the fallout of the ongoing onslot against the aza strip, gaza strip and the impact that it had on different sectors. Now based on the chart we see over here, you can see Consumer Spending, productivity, you have investments and also trade, theyre all down uh, so uh, a result of those negative factors has contributed to the negative 19. 4 . Next, the large gdp drop was due to the fact that and weve mentioned this before i know, but it needs to be. Highlighted again, you have some uh 300 thousand reservers that left their jobs uh that contributed uh to about 8 of the workforce as you see over here that was taken out of the economic uh cycle and now the kock on effects is how you see this chart how its panned out so 8 of the workforce out of the Economic Cycle producer activity also obviously is being affected Consumer Spending has been affected and then when you branch those you have consumption and israel spending, the two that we picked where consumption has dropped by 27 , and then you have the spending by israel itself, which has gone up 88 , so you can see obviously how israels economy is going to suffer is suffering as a result of this aggression, now were going to take a look at the labor force disruption in terms of the evacuees, and i know again this is something weve mentioned, but 12000 is the latest figures that we have, again these are. Contributing to the large gdp drop taken out of the workforce and then the palestinian workers uh we have 170,00 of them uh taken out of the workforce thats a drop obviously in also the palestinian uh economy that gets impac impacted uh Construction Projects is mainly what were looking at uh being one of the top uh sectors uh that has been impacted by this next up uh this concerns trade uh obviously in. And exports is at the top of the list, you have imports to have been negatively affected and thats a big drop of minus 42 and exports at this point minus 18 . Again youre seeing a big chunk of the uh israeli economy to be impacted and then you have the yemini army thats uh targeting us, uk and israely bound ships in the red sea and the arabian sea and that disruption has also led to drop in israels gdp and its economy as a whole and then finally this is very important uh the downgrade that happened and it happened few weeks back uh where it affected israels Credit Rating uh from a1 to uh two and uh the organization responsible for that is a big Ratings Agency by the name of moodies. Now when this happens, the ability to repay debt is what is put under the spotlight in terms of israel, and obviously the sovereign debt outlook has now been uh downgraded to negative, so when you have this happening, it makes it very hard for israel to borrow money, in short, money that is needed for them if they want to continue with their onslot, the. Minister has said this did not include serious economic claims, but many economists actually disagree with the stance that he has had, somewhat similar to what the the stance of the israel Prime Minister has been. All right, lets bring back our guest for this segment of the program, we have joe katron whos rejoining us, hes the from the palestine, hes a palestine solidarity activist and he lived in gaza from 2011 through 2014, welcome back to economic divide you this position to bring back the reservis from uh the um, guess the battle lines, it was seen as a positive move uh by israel because they say that theyre going to contribute to israels economy, but since most of them are in the tech sector, which is doing that badly, how much can this move actually help israels economy do you think . Well, i think a lack of tech workers is the least of israels problems right now, the far bigger problem. Faces is first of all its military challenge from the resistance on every front from gaza and the west bank to lebanon, yemen and syria, as well as the increasing political, economic and diplomatic isolation that faces a global scale as the direct result of its ongoing atrocities in gaza, none of its problems will be fixed by shuffling people around, that is no longer an option for it, and in fact im not sure they can be fixed at all, because so much of what israel had built up, the appearance it had tried to maintain of power, and was based upon a myth that was shattered on october 7th, we all saw how easily it could be challenged and defeated, theyre still complaining, theyre still. Wining about this five months later, the scale of their defeat, theyre no closer to overcoming, nothing that theyve attempted in the meantime has reversed any of the gains the resistance made, so i dont see any possible solution for them even to regain some level of modest prosperity which they had built up, short of ending their genocide, first of all, but beyond that, i dont think theyll return to the status they held prior to october 7th, regardless, because the resistance fundamentally changed the equation, it showed how easily they could be fought and defeated. All right, thank you very much for that. Lets bring back uh john phoenix, now founder and editor and chief of shaw. Org. Uk. John phoenix, welcome back, the way that the israels economy is suffering, one of the solutions that israel has thought of. Is to bring back some of these reservists uh which uh comprises of 8 of its uh economy, the contribution that they make and their presence in the workforce, do you think thats going to help its economy at all, especially when it comes to the the fact that they work in the tech sector mainly . Well, mean if you if you look at the the picture in general, you know the 300 thousand of reserved force being recruit to fight the war, obviously. That keep lot of the vacuum within the economy, such running the airport, security, hospitals, industry, agriculture, so they trying to release some of this reserved in order to do the civil obviously duty, teachers been recruited obviously, doctors, technicians, so the only way to try to recover the economy is to try to reserve, to try to sorry to release some of the reserve in order to go for civil duty, and its doing that is not even improving yet, now they are calling on the religious sector to join in, if you if you heard of the last report about the haradi, you know, they wanted to give them uh some military work which is could be not as such as fighting, maybe running brisens, running security centers, so they are desperate in order to run the same time running a war and running the society. And as i said early, the only way this people to recover and survive is to stop the war, otherwise they will be in receipt of american aid till the american give up and then uh we will have no recovery in the economy, so this is cash 22 to be honest with you. The rest of the economy in israel is in trouble, construction is a stand still, forms have lost more than half the workforce. In addition, Companies Involved in tourism are suffering. In january, 77 fewer tourists visited, butts than year ago. Israels labor market is already tight. Bringing in Foreign Workers is slow and expensive, farms, factories and Building Sites lack workers. After october 7th, the regime spent 30 billion in foreign reserves propping up the. And has another 170 billion if the currency needs more cushioning. Analysts believe financial crisis is unlikely, but that does not mean pain will be avoided. Will just come in different forms. There are talks of further spending cuts that are required to guarantee stability. Israels welfare apparatus will take the hit. The welfare ministry, which is also responsible for caring for evacues and returned captives, will have to take an 8 cut, value added taxes will rise by 1 entage point to 18 . The health tax and incomes will go up by 0. 15 percentage points. Policy makers worried that raising corporate taxes would cause the tex sector, which is highly morbile and already struggling to find workers to flee the regime. Hello and welcome to the quicktake section. Im mattia posan. When it comes to israels debt, news has surfaced that the occupation entity is gearing towards raising money to keep pace with the required onslot spending. The Israeli Regime is seeking to raise 60 billion dollars in debt this year alone. Obviously, its running short on funds and in order to save as much money as possible, it will also freeze hiring and raise taxes because it has almost doubled its aggression spending. We have already mentioned this before, but the need to go out and raise money is a result of the economic and labor force disruptions due to the reservists, settlers and palestinian laborers. But what is not covered or discussed much is how many reservists have been pulled from the battlefield . Israel has announced that there are around 60,000 reservists who were still carrying out acts of genocide in gaza, that means 240,000 reservists were back into the Economic Cycle, so why is that not improving the economy . On borrowing, this is not the first time the Israeli Regime had to go out and borrow, and as long as the aggression continues, it wont be its last time either. In the beginning of the Israeli Regimes onaslot on gaza, tel aviv borrowed 22 billion dollars, which sort the debt to gdp ratio up to 62 , the highest for the entity eight years. Its also worth looking at how israel plans to increase military spending overall, and what that figure was before the onnesslot began. Israel is planning increasing military spending by 15 billion dollars, marking an 85 increase in military spending from percent of the military budget before their own slaughter against gaza to 20 in 2024. Okay, that brings us to the end of this quicktake segment. Dont forget to send us your comments or questions. We do really appreciate that. Im and ill see you next. The economy of the west bank and the gaza strip are unable to recover at the time being due to the continued aggression. Israels need for loans indicates that it is unable to meet the cost of only the aggression, but also of its own needs. Theres no surprise there since the aggression was not supposed to last this long, and since theres no end insight at this time, the speculations that israels major eyelight like the us will come to its rescue. That does for this edition of the program. Thanks for being with us, it was great to have you, but we would appreciate it more if you send us some comments, suggestions, critiques. Contact information is behind me. From the entire team here at economic devy, say goodbye until the next program. Information about palestine abounds on social networks, many times without context. They do not allow us to go deeper and understand all the dimensions of a catastrophe that is dragging on for centuries. Daniel hadway, chilean mayor of palestinian origin, opens a window to palestine to understand in depth the present cause of the palestinian people, exploring its history and future prospects. Do not miss a window to palestine. First of the headlines this hour, dozens of palestinis seven killed and fresh israeli airstrikes on gaza, bringing the overall death toll from the aggression to more than 31,340. An eight bonus sail from cyprus and is heading toward the gaza strep and made growing calls for further humanitarian assistance to the beseach territory. Also in the headlines two stabbing operations have been carried out against this release in two days with the latest occurring at baitkama junction north of the negev desert