JAWLAN/GOLAN

With the fall of the Assadist regime, the IDF has expanded its operations past the demilitarized border between the illegally occupied Golan Heights and Syria. 95 percent of the Golan’s Syrian Arab population were ethnically cleansed from the area when Israel established control in 1967, and the remaining Jawlani community lives under settler-colonial rule.

In a 2018 essay, MICHAEL MASON and MUNA DAJANI examine the impacts of, and responses to, the misrecognition of Arab residents enacted by the Israeli state in the occupied Golan Heights:

“With their decision in 1981 to annex the Golan Heights, including its Syrian Arab communities, Israeli policymakers envisioned citizenship as a tool to normalise the status of the territory and its inhabitants. As the indigenous population was predominantly Druze, Israel systematically pushed for the recognition of this ethnogeographic community as non-Arab, adopting the same policy of “Druzeness” employed for the Druze who lived in Palestine until 1948, who then became Israeli citizens. From its declaration of independence, Israel promulgated a distinctive Druze identity as a non-Jewish minority separate from any pan-Arab imagining; for example, designing tailored educational curricula and enforcing army conscription for the Israeli Druze. These moves mirrored, albeit more successfully, the political efforts employed by the French in their Syrian mandate (1923–1943) to separate the Druze from the wider Arab population; though Druze historiography, even in Israel, has challenged the notion that the Druze are non-Arab. Furthermore, the Druze citizens of Israel retain socio-ethnic ties with fellow Druze in Lebanon and Syria: all face citizenship duties and other domestic obligations which sometimes clash with their ethno-communal loyalties and practices, for example, restrictions on cross-border travel and the customary usage of natural resources. Ongoing regional insecurity—notably a contested Israel–Lebanon border and the Syrian war—intensifies the political consequences of identity claims for Druze national minorities, none more so than the Druze in the occupied Golan Heights subject to pressures from the Israeli government to relinquish their Syrian identity.”

+  “After the events of the Syrian revolution intensified, the colonial state invested heavily in the societal rupture and the identity crises forcing the local population into integrating in the ‘Israeli community’ and colonial projects.” By Ali Aweidat. Link. And see an online open curriculum to learn and teach about the Jawlan prepared under the BZU-LSE collaboration project, Mapping Memories of Resistance, available in English and Arabic. Link.

+  “Israel’s occupation of the Golan Heights is also important for the country’s water security. Rainwater draining from the Golan is a crucial water source for Israel’s largest freshwater reservoir, the Sea of Galilee.” Link. And see Elaine C. Hagopian for more on how the Golan Heights serves as a crucial water resource for Israel. Link.

+  See Majdal Shams-born writer Aram Abu Saleh recount her own experiences as well as those of fellow Syrians during the resistance movement waged by Syrian inmates in the Israeli occupation’s prisons. Link. And from Chatham House, listen to Haid Haid, Gideon Rachman, and Rana Rahimpour on the collapse of Bashar-al Assad’s regime in Syria and what it means for the wider region. Link.

NEW RESEARCHERS

Employer-Sponsored Health Insurance

JESSICA MIN is a PhD candidate in Economics at Princeton University. In her job market paper, she examines the effect of insurance mergers on the overall cost increase to employer-sponsored health insurance.

From the paper:

“Employer-sponsored health insurance (ESHI) costs in the U.S. have increased fourfold since the 1980s, accounting for 10 percent of the average firm’s labor costs in 2019.1 Given that these costs are workplace-financed, a natural question arises: how has the striking increase in ESHI costs impacted U.S. firms and workers? By raising labor costs, an increase in ESHI costs might depress wages and employment. And because firms pay a fixed cost toward each worker’s health plan regardless of income—incurring the same cost for a low-paid janitor as for a highly-paid executive—lower-income workers may be disproportionately affected. One potential contributor to rising ESHI costs is consolidation in the private health insurance industry. At the same time as ESHI costs have steadily increased, insurer mergers have likely led to less competitive and more concentrated markets. These trends may be causally linked, as reduced competition could drive up health insurance premiums by strengthening the bargaining leverage of insurers during negotiations with firms”

+ + + 

+  “The agreements with Israel are deeply unpopular. They are only made possible because popular representation is absent. Normalization could not have happened except through repression, and this has only continued post October 7.” New on PW’s Gaza series, Dylan Saba and Jack Gross interview Elham Fakhro on the Abraham Accords. Link.

+  “We see that the wealth effect that resulted from the Fed’s quantitative easing policies, especially after 2020, had a major political implication. The enormous boom in financial and housing wealth accrues principally to the top income brackets.” Also new on PW, Tim Barker and Andrew Elrod interview Thomas Ferguson on campaign financing and the 2024 US election outcome. Link.

+  See ASA Monitor Editor-in-Chief Steve Shafer’s response to a recent Vox article’s defense of the insurance industry’s cost control policies. Link. And see Eric Levitz’s Vox article in question. Link. 

+  “I have steered clear of talking about crypto as a ‘systemic risk’ in the past because it has been so relatively small, and so disconnected from the rest of the financial system. But that is changing.” By Jemima Kelly. Link.

+  A ProPublica investigation reveals United Healthcare and Optum’s practices in denying coverage for behavioral health care, dropping providers, and limiting children’s access to ABA treatment. Link. And see another ProPublica report on billionaire financiers’ avoidance of paying Medicare taxes. Link.

+  “The use of computer code to set prices on such staples as rent and groceries is adding a new and intricate layer to the larger battle inside the federal government to rein in high costs.” By Justin Wise. Link. And see a working paper by Martin Spann et al. on the economic and social consequences of algorithmic pricing. Link.

+  “For fiscal year 2023, Pakistan’s total external liabilities swelled to $131 billion. Debt payment consumes as much as 75 percent of federal taxes, with predictions that it could reach 100 percent by 2025.” By Zohra Ahmed. Link.

+  “Fashion professionals created the Chambre as a trade and employer association to maintain and promote the emerging French couture business’ activities. By 1911, the reformed Chambre began to represent specifically the Parisian cluster’s interests, becoming the only agency regulating and preserving the high fashion field. As such, it also played a key role in establishing and legitimizing Paris’ international fashion leadership. In the 1930s, public authorities’ official recognition of the Chambre allowed it to expand its role and address effectively the impact of the financial crisis. After World War II, the Chambre lobbied the public authorities for financial and legislative aid to support haute couture’s declining business. In keeping with its corporatist logic, it operated in its members’ common interests until the 1960s. This logic provided the Chambre’s organizational actors with collective sense-making by balancing their creativity and exclusivity with market and business concerns.” By Elisabetta Merlo and Valeria Pinchera. Link.

Each week we highlight research from a graduate student, postdoc, or early-career professor. Send us recommendations: editorial@jainfamilyinstitute.org