Liberating Gaza is an important new book written by Shraga F. Biran, the founder of the Institute for Structural Reforms, and his colleague Tal Saar. Established in 2010, the institute’s original aim was to study social problems in Israel, especially those related to poverty and inequality, and to promote structural reforms aimed at reducing socioeconomic disparities within the population.
For example in 2013, in an interview published in The Jerusalem Post, Biran urged the government – which had different ideas – to dedicate the public revenues generated by Israel’s natural gas finds to tackling inequality, battling poverty, expanding education, decreasing unemployment, and furthering research and development.
A few years ago, the institute broadened its interests from Israel-based problems to consider how poverty, fundamentalism, and terrorism interrelated in the Gaza Strip. In December 2018, it published an analysis of the political economy of the Gaza Strip, and followed this a year later with a study that analyzed the relationship between Israel’s efforts to combat Hamas’s exploitation of the Gaza Strip and Palestinian support for radical factions which advocate violent resistance against Israel and reject the two-state solution.
“We find,” the authors concluded, “that not only has Israel’s policy failed to turn the inhabitants of Gaza against Hamas, but it might have yielded an opposite reaction. A solution to the conflict and a reconstruction of the Gaza Strip must include a policy change and the removal of restrictions on the movement of people and goods, as well as a reconstruction of public and political institutions in Gaza.”
Since 2019, the authors of Liberating Gaza tell us, whenever the conflict with Gaza reached a turning point, the institute has updated its research and taken account of changed circumstances. “After the black October of 2023,” they say, “it was clear that this book had to be written.”
Poverty: A key factor behind Gazan fundamentalism
Biran and Saar identify poverty as an indisputably key factor in fostering the fundamentalism which harbors terrorism at its heart. They conclude that the liberation of Gaza from its poverty is essential if a successful outcome of the current conflict is to be achieved.
The authors describe the socioeconomic state of the Gaza Strip just before the war as “a demographic disaster,” with over 2.2 million inhabitants squeezed into 365 square kilometers, and an annual population growth of 2.7% (the average for the region is 1.5%). UN statistics show that in 2022, some 65% of Gazans were living below the poverty line.
“In stark contrast with the poverty of the population,” the authors write, ”Hamas is one of the richest terrorist organizations in the world, with annual government revenues estimated at between $2.5 billion and $3.5 billion.” For years the world’s governments, global charities, Iran, and the UN have stood in line to pour resources into the pockets of Hamas, which expended the vast bulk of its income on preparing for its bloodthirsty attack on Israel of October 7, 2023.
Biran and Saar refute the commonly held belief that terrorism is mostly associated with ideology or fundamentalist religious beliefs. Unlike Shi’ite Iran and its hangers-on, Hezbollah and the Houthis, Sunni Hamas has little religion in its philosophy. Its basic raison d’être is to oust Israel from the Middle East and acquire all the land “from the river to the sea.” What the authors are at pains to point out is the direct connection between poverty in a population and the support, consolidation, and growth of terrorist organizations.
Their analysis and in-depth scrutiny of the socioeconomic realities underlying the Israel-Gaza war led the authors to several firmly held conclusions. They are quite clear that defeating Hamas is a prime necessity, and that to achieve a meaningful victory over that organization, the support and cooperation of the Gazan population, even if only partial, is essential. But the people of Gaza, they point out, are “steeped in poverty, fundamentalism, and deceit.” Their support becomes practical politics only if they are promised that their future and livelihood are guaranteed – that, in short, there is a way out of their poverty.
Later chapters discuss how this might be achieved. The authors set out ideas on establishing an international task force and an emergency government, and proceed to describe how a program of reconstruction, rehabilitation, and investment, especially in the education and energy sectors, could be introduced and implemented.
Liberating Gaza is essentially a presentation to the public of the conclusions reached by researchers who have been engaged for years studying how fundamentalism, and the terrorism associated with it, are provided with the oxygen needed to take root, survive, grow, and flourish. Backed by solid evidence, Biran and Saar see the root cause as the negative impact of poverty on the development of a healthy society.
At a time of uncertainty about how the Gaza conflict can be brought to a satisfactory conclusion, Liberating Gaza offers a clear path forward. This is indeed a book for the times. ■
- Liberating Gaza: Breaking the Cycle of Poverty, Fundamentalism and Terror
- Shraga F. Biran with Tal Saar
- Yediot Books, 2024
- 234 pages; $25.62 (hardcover)