I haven’t been following Israeli politics at all — actually, if truth be told, after being out front so much against the Iraq venture, I’ve spent the era of financial crisis taking a personal vacation from Middle East issues. But I have noticed that Netanyahu is in big trouble — not over foreign policy and security, but over economics. Oddly, however, much of the reporting seems to either neglect or downplay the background here, which is the extraordinary rise in Israeli income inequality over the past generation. Here’s Israel compared with the US, from the LIS data:

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When I first visited Israel in the early 1980s, it was still an egalitarian place, with a lot of the kibbutz spirit still around. Since the early 90s, however, the concentration of income and wealth has soared; at this point Israel may be the most unequal society in the advanced world, surpassing even the US. Goodbye kibbutz, hello Gilded Age.

No deep thoughts or analysis here, just pointing out something you should know.