ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the evolution of the positions taken by the globalizing elites: political leaders, professionals, economists, and especially the business community in Israel toward the process of making peace with an age-old adversary. It also focuses on the new role played by a partially autonomous business community and those political, professional, and civil service elites with whom it shared the vision of a liberalized economy tied into the global market place. The key to such development, the political elites and business leaders agreed, was an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and with it, to the economic boycott and Israel's partial economic isolation. The chapter provides an overview of the transformation of the Koor corporation, from being the Histadrut's, indeed Israel's, largest industrial conglomerate, to Israel's first multinational holding company, and illustrates the multiple, interconnected dimensions of the liberal turn in the Israeli economy.
