Israel’s stock market thrives on the war
JVL Introduction
Israel’s stock exchange had more than doubled since October 7th – in less than three years.
Everyone was predicting its collapse and indeed, in the early days of the war, the economy plummeted.
Catastrophe appeared to loom, but it has weathered the storm and come out triumphant.
What saved it was its weapons and cyber industries.
As Joshua Leifer points out in this analysis in Haaretz, Israel’s secular, educated, high-tech elite – at loggerheads with Netanyahu over so much – is doing very well thank you.
And liberal Europe, for all its condemnation of Israel’s actions in Gaza and the West Bank, is actually more dependent than ever in Israeli military technologies.
Over a third of Israeli defence and weapons record sales last year were to Europe.
This article was originally published by Haaretz on Thu 27 Aug 2026. Read the original here.
Why Israel's high-tech elite won't save Its democracy
The post–October 7 wars were supposed to be an economic catastrophe. Instead, they became a windfall that binds Israel’s liberal economic elite to the occupation. It will stay that way until the high-tech class feels less comfortable profiting from the defense and cyber industries
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Reading this economist’s article in Dec 2025 (https://www.972mag.com/israel-genocide-economy-gaza-war/ ) “Is Israel’s genocide economy on the brink?” alongside would provide a “compare and contrast” to the more up to date “Haaretz” article, I feel.
Sher said the much boosted pay of thousands of IDF reservists might be providing an artificial boost to the stock market by over-valuing shares.
He pointed to the 40% Israeli households whose monthly income was lagging behind their expenditure.
He also said the government hadn’t formally included in its own budgets the costs of the ongoing wars on an expanding number of fronts. He suggested (I think) there is no published government detailed information about these costs nor proposals on how to cover them.
Sher has been closely involved with the BDS project so speaks from that perspective. However, the points he made seemed to me illuminating.
“Israel’s stock market thrives on the war”………………US & UK take a bow!
All the thriving stock markets are a consequence of a global economy that relies on denial, delusion, and hypocrisy to maintain trust in our ecocidal socio-economic model. Our prestigious universities play a key role in maintaining the illusion but supplying economists that are unable to think outside the box of perpetual wealth inequality and GDP growth. Economists like Prof Steve Keen, Richard Murphy, Gary Stevenson, and Yannis Varoufakis are amongst those who have navigated beyond the limbic response and are aware that global financial collapse is unfolding. Financial collapse arises from ecological collapse as money becomes increasingly powerless to save us. Learn more from this draft research paper about the cultural causes of climate change – https://poemsforparliament.uk/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/Cultural_Causes_04.pdf
There us no doubt that Western and my other countries around the world feel so allied to Israel as to refuse to countenance BDS. Jeff Halper in his book ‘War Against the People’ shows how Israel’s and the US’ and UK’sbwar and security industries are intertwined, and its suppression of dissent is learned and fuelled by Israel’s training and security techniques. Anthony Lowenstein’ ‘The Pakestine Laboratory’ details how weapons are tested and used in Gaza and West Bank and then sold as ‘battle tested’. The Pegasus phone spying system has been bought by all repressive regimesclike Suadi Arabia as used un the Kashoggi murder and of course the exploding pagers used against Hizbollah etc etc.
This all feeds Israel’s impunity and also the West’s reluctancevto apply sanctions as the whole world’s arms industries reaping enormous profits also fed by increasing defence spending and cutting welfare. Israel is at the heart of the ongoing running apocalypse the world is facing which also feeds the carbon and pollution footprint of climate change that we are seeing every day in fire and flood disasters and mrlting glaciers. The world is ending not with a wimper but an ongoing rumble and bangs.