Israel's Disinformation Bubble (Israel's Zombie Economy, Part 5)

In "Israel's Disinformation Bubble,” part five of the new series on Israel’s Zombie Economy, with Shir Hever in conversation with Jadaliyya Co-Editor Bassam Haddad on location in Strasbourg, France, Shir addresses Israelis’ views of Netanyahu and the Genocide, accessibility of knowledge in Israel, Israel’s use of AI in its Genocide in Gaza, and ultimate questions of accountability.

The series explores how Israel sustains its war machine despite mounting casualties, economic stagnation, and international isolation—revealing a society held together by financial manipulation, arms industry profiteering, and deepening political fragmentation. Through five interviews bridging academic analysis and informed commentary, economist Dr. Shir Hever examines the unsustainable contradictions driving Israel's social, political, and economic collapse amid the Gaza genocide.

Israel's Zombie Economy
Part 1: The War Currency
Part 2: The Counterrevolution of the Israeli Arms Industry
Part 3: Israel’s Breakdown into Tribes
Part 4: Is Israel’s Economy on the Verge of Collapse?
Part 5: The Disinformation Bubble

Produced by Jadaliyya, Co-sponsored by Gaza In Context and Mondoweiss.

Featuring
Dr. Shir Hever is an economist and political scientist. He was born and grew up in Jerusalem and now lives in Germany, having relinquished his Israeli citizenship. He is the Managing Director of the Alliance for Justice Between Israelis and Palestinians, a member of the Jewish Voice for a Just Peace in the Middle East, and until recently was the coordinator of the military embargo campaign of BDS. Shir studies and has written widely on the political economy of Israel’s occupation, apartheid, and the arms trade. His most recent book is The Privatization of Israeli Security (Pluto Press, 2017).

Bassam Haddad (Host) is Founding Director of the Middle East and Islamic Studies Program and Associate Professor at the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University. He is the author of Business Networks in Syria: The Political Economy of Authoritarian Resilience (Stanford University Press, 2011) and co-editor of A Critical Political Economy of the Middle East (Stanford University Press, 2021). Bassam is Co-Founder/Editor of Jadaliyya Ezine and Executive Director of the Arab Studies Institute. He serves as Founding Editor of the Arab Studies Journal and the Knowledge Production Project. He is co-producer/director of the award-winning documentary film, About Baghdad, and director of the acclaimed series Arabs and Terrorism. Bassam is Executive Producer of Status Podcast Channel and Director of the Middle East Studies Pedagogy Initiative (MESPI). He received MESA's Jere L. Bacharach Service Award in 2017 for his service to the profession. Currently, Bassam is working on his second book about Syria, titled "Understanding The Syrian Tragedy: Regime, Opposition, Outsiders" (forthcoming, Stanford University Press).