The US role in managing the Palestinian economy, it played a really key part, I think, in pushing forward this kind of neoliberal economic

strategy that was implemented in around about first 2007-2008, tied to the kinds of flows of foreign aid, determining what kind of economy was in place under the Palestinian Authority.

So now, I think the main way that the US is involved in these kinds of processes is through international financial institutions like the World Bank and the IMF, which have a really outsized role in structuring the PA's economic policies

strategies. So it's different little from the kind of fiscal austerity, high levels of indebtedness, the promotion of market economies, with the twist in the Palestinian context that there's heavy spending on security, a heavy spending on the Palestinian Authority's security arm, which, as I mentioned, is about controlling the politics of Palestine.

A podcast of documentaries and conversations that invites you to unlearn everything you thought you knew about economics. I'm Della Duncan, and I'm Robert Raymond.

The ongoing bombardment of the Gaza Strip has been front and center in the world's attention for the last couple of months, and it's important that we keep it there. But it's also important to remember that this latest escalation in violence is just that, an escalation, an increase in violence in a region where violence is the norm, not just militarily, but also politically and economically, what we might call structural violence.

The suffering in Palestine has been seen primarily as a humanitarian issue for decades now. But the reality is that reducing Palestine to a matter of humanitarian concern obscures issues of geopolitics and the political economy of the region, in a way that decontextualizes much of what is taking place in Palestine, and importantly, the material conditions and incentives driving the occupation.

In this conversation, part five of our ongoing series on Palestine, we're going to explore the political economies of Palestine and Israel with a guest who is deeply immersed in these questions.

Adam Hania is a Palestinian professor at the Institute for Arab and Islamic Studies at the University of Exeter, and author of Lineages of Revolt, Issues of Contemporary Capitalism in the Middle East, published by Haymarket Books.

In this conversation, Adam helps us understand the relationships between the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and Israel, how class manifests in these different regions, what the political economies of these regions are, and how they shape Israel's ongoing ethnic cleansing campaign.

And in general, the importance of understanding the geopolitical dynamics of the broader region and neighboring Arab states when trying to understand what is happening in Palestine and Israel.

And we just want to say a quick thank you to upstream listener Lewis Mercer for introducing us to Adam's work and suggesting that we speak with him.

And finally, before we get started, upstream is entirely listener funded. We couldn't do this without the support of you, our listeners and fans.

So if you haven't already, and if you're in a place where you can afford to do so, and if it's important for you to help keep upstream sustainable, please consider going to upstreampodcast.org forward slash support to make a recurring monthly or one-time donation.

Also, if you can, please go to Apple Podcasts or Spotify and rate, subscribe, and leave us a review there.

This really helps get upstream in front of more eyes and into more ears. We don't have a marketing budget or anything like that for upstream, so we really do rely on listeners like you to help grow our audience and spread the word. Thank you.

And now, here's Robert in Conversation with Adam Hania.

Hi Adam, it's great to have you on the show and I'm wondering to start if you could introduce yourself for our listeners and maybe tell us a little bit about how you came to do the work that you've done.

Thanks Robert, it's a real pleasure to join you today. Yes, I'm of Palestinian origin. I lived and worked in Palestine for about seven years at the time of the second interfather. Currently, I'm based in the UK. I'm a professor in the Institute for Arab and Islamic Studies at the University of Exeter. I work on political economy, global development issues there.

Academic work has focused on the Middle East and issues of political economy in the Middle East, especially the Gulf Arab sites currently finishing a book on oil and capitalism that should be out with Versa in 2024.

So one thing I try to do with my work is to place the question of Palestine, as I think we'll hopefully get on to today a little bit within the wider regional political economy of the Middle East and that's essentially where my focus on the Gulf States and oil come from.

Great, yeah, thank you so much for that and I'm going to ask you a little bit about that broader regional context near the end of the interview, but I think we're going to focus a lot here on the political economy within Palestine today.

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