A biannual poverty report from Israel’s National Insurance Institute says that 45 thousand Israelis slipped below the poverty line in 2007, including 30 thousand children. Also in 2007, the percentage of children living in poverty in Israel rose to 35.8 percent. The report also points out that poverty has risen among both Jews and Arabs.
Like so often happens in the United States, the average income in Israel has risen while poverty has increased. This happens because richest people make more money than the working class loses.
Regardless, I see war as the main problem. The people in Israel and the other nations of the world have to stop allowing their governments to waste so much money and resources on war. The United States needs to stop providing military funding for other nations.
We need to put the money and resources towards creating peace and alleviating poverty. This includes international initiatives for education and economic development. That means get children and uneducated people in school and ensure that educated adults can find jobs or start their own businesses.
We cannot afford the devastation, nationalism and corruption that war causes–let alone the financial costs of literally trillions of dollars per year.
We need to stop the vicious cycle of poverty and violence. And we cannot stop it by putting money into violence instead of into alleviating poverty. More war and more poverty will beget more nationalism, more war and more poverty, which in turn will beget hopelessness, anger, and terrorism. We, the people of the world, can stop that vicious cycle by ending poverty with the resources that we currently let our governments use for war.
I have often mentioned the inherent link between war and poverty. When I think of poverty in Israel, Gaza, and the Middle East in general, it always reminds me of the relationship.
Earlier in this post, I mentioned that poverty has risen among both Jews and Arabs. Poverty and militarism will cause nationalism that will likely continue to lead to those peoples fighting each other. But we can stop the violent, nationalist conflicts by coming together to alleviate poverty for all and build a better world for all–which we can only do by funding global poverty alleviation instead of nationalistic wars.
What do you think? You can post comments on this post and on the relationship between war and poverty in this thread at the World Hunger and Poverty Forums.