Oligarchy in the Holy Land — Tiny Number of Families Dominates Israel's Economy

http://www.alternet.org/world/israeli-inequality-and-oligarchy



The vast gulf between the American elite and the rest of the nation has increasingly been a hot topic of conversation since the 2008 economic crash. The 400 richest Americans have the same amount of wealth as the bottom 50% of the American population.
But most Americans probably don't know that the 2nd most unequal "rich" country is the close ally and client state of Israel, whose own oligarchs own a significant slice of the Israeli economy.

Many Israeli citizens--like their American counterparts--are withering under the weight of the high cost of living. For other, more marginalized citizens, unemployment and poverty are the most pressing concerns. About 21 percent of Israelis live in poverty, the highest among developed countries that are part of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
And the Israeli people’s anger is increasingly being directed at the Israeli tycoons that hold an immense amount of wealth. Ordinary Israelis see the oligarchs as a testament to the vast gulf between the very rich and the rest of Israel. For many, inequality is the main economic issue in the country. But the Israeli economy didn’t always have such striking inequality. The country was a lot more equal when it was operating on a more social democratic model—at least for Jews—in the decades after 1948.

Today, about 20 Israeli families control a disproportionate amount of the Israeli economy. The families, whose holdings span the gamut of the Israeli economy, lay claim to about half the Israeli stock market and own one in four Israeli firms, according to the Financial Times. In 2010, a parliamentary report found that 10 business groups, most of them owned by wealthy families, control 30 percent of the market value of public companies. The families have holdings in real estate, financial services, supermarkets, the airline industry, telecommunications and more.

Tycoons like Yitzhak Tshuva and Shari Arison are cases in point. Tshuva owns Delek Group, one of Israel’s biggest companies. It has investments in energy, infrastructure, insurance and financial companies. Tshuva is also a chairman at the El-Ad Group, a major real estate company. Arison is the owner of Bank Hapoalim, but also is involved in real estate and water.


***the problem of the 'oligarchs' is global.