Why Does Israel Still Occupy the Palestinians? by Shir Hever

1. The Cost of the Occupation to Israeli Society

The majority of Israel's anti-occupation movement, unfortunately, does not focus on the rights of Palestinians to live free, but on the damage that the occupation causes to Israeli society (Sternhell, 2009).

The arguments that the occupation is a major investment of resources that could be useful in alleviating Israel's many social problems and that the settlements, or colonies, enjoy exorbitant government subsidies (Swirski, 2008) are well known in Israeli society and seldom challenged on a factual basis.

Within Israel, the arguments used to support the occupation on the basis of its purported economic benefits to Israel have gone silent. Even Marxist economists who effectively demonstrated the profits derived by Israel from the occupation in its first two decades largely abandoned the notion that Israel occupies the Palestinian territories for economic profit after the First Intifada of 1987, since when Palestinian resistance to the occupation has exacted a heavy economic toll on Israel -- although clearly Palestinians paid a much heavier price for daring to challenge Israel's occupation (Swirski, 2005).