In 2007, 24.4 percent of Israelis were living below the poverty line, with 35.2 percent of all children in poverty—compared with 8 percent of children twenty years earlier.42 Yet even though the benefits of the boom have not been widely shared, they have been so lucrative for a small sector of Israelis, particularly the powerful segment that is seamlessly integrated into both the military and government (with all the familiar corporatist corruption scandals), that a crucial incentive for peace has been obliterated.
