Neoliberal 'Peace': A Fig Leaf for Perpetual Conflict and Corporate Plunder
📰 THE STORY: Al Jazeera's opinion piece argues that neoliberal approaches, focusing on economic solutions and market integration, are inherently incapable of resolving conflicts in places like Gaza, Ukraine’s Donbas, and Syria’s Golan Heights, leading instead to prolonged instability and exacerbated inequalities. 🔍 WHAT THEY'RE NOT TELLING YOU: Historical Context: The 'economic peace' proposals
in the West Bank and Gaza echo historical colonial strategies. Post-1967 occupation, Israel's economic policies were designed to integrate Palestine's economy as a captive market and source of cheap labor, while systematically dispossessing Palestinians of land and resources. This isn't a failure of neoliberalism to build peace; it's a feature of its design to entrench dominance. This was seen
clearly in the Oslo Accords (1993-1995), which cemented economic dependency rather than fostering self-determination, while Israel expanded settlements by over 100%. Double Standard: The West champions 'economic development' as a panacea for Palestine, yet simultaneously imposes crippling sanctions on nations like Venezuela (causing over $30 billion in lost revenue according to CEPR by 2019) or
Iran (costing hundreds of billions annually), directly engineering economic collapse and humanitarian crises. For 'adversaries,' economic strangulation is a tool of regime change; for 'allies,' market integration is a path to peace, even if it’s under occupation. Follow the Money: So-called peace processes are often lucrative for Western defense contractors and 'reconstruction' firms. The 2006