In Israel, Fear Is The Ultimate Renewable Resource

Naomi Klein's got a column on the developments in Gaza and their implications for Israel and the region in a forthcoming edition of The Nation:

...Why, in the midst of such chaos and carnage, is the Israeli economy booming like it's 1999, with a roaring stock market and growth rates nearing China's?...
...Israel's economy isn't booming despite the political chaos that devours the headlines but because of it...
...(T)he chaos in Gaza and the rest of the region doesn't threaten the bottom line in Tel Aviv, and may actually boost it. Israel has learned to turn endless war into a brand asset, pitching its uprooting, occupation and containment of the Palestinian people as a half-century head start in the "global war on terror."
...So in a way (Tom) Friedman is right: Israel has struck oil. But the oil isn't the imagination of its techie entrepreneurs. The oil is the war on terror, the state of constant fear that creates a bottomless global demand for devices that watch, listen, contain and target "suspects." And fear, it turns out, is the ultimate renewable resource.

She's sooo damned smart...