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Israel is a unique case in the Middle East; it is financed by imperialism without being economically exploited by it… It is obvious that the readiness of the US government to forward these sums [of money] depends on what it gets in return. In the particular case of Israel this return is not economic profit. —The Class Nature of the Israeli Society by Haim Hanegbi, Moshe Machover and Akiva Orr, NLR Jan/Feb 1971 During the 1990s … there emerged, perhaps for the first time, a major cleavage within the elite. On the one hand, there is the ‘reactionary’ Zionist faction which hopes to freeze the world of yesterday. On the other hand, there is an increasingly powerful, ‘progressive’ faction, which seeks to ‘normalise’ the country, yet whose commitment to such normalisation weakens as its investment outside the country increases. This ruling class conflict doesn’t bode well for most Israelis, and for the Middle East as a whole. — Nitzan and Bichler The Global Political Economy of Israel , 2002