Husni Mubarak succeeded Anwar al-Sadat in October 1981 at a time of troubled civil-military relations. Sadat’s pursuit of a separate peace with Israel after the war in 1973 raised important questions about the military’s future role, size and sources of weapons. If Egypt was no longer at war, it would no longer need its huge military establishment. Over the following decade, the number of men under arms declined as Sadat began to convert the military into a rapid strike force that could intervene in the Horn of Africa, the Gulf or Libya.

The overwhelming majority of big capitalists in Israel today emerged from a group of no more than 60,000 “veterans” of the Jewish settlement in Palestine who arrived before the creation of the state or are descendants of such veterans. Some, especially from Sephardic families who settled in Palestine without any connection to the European Zionist movement, already had prosperous businesses or land holdings in Jerusalem or Jaffa by the early twentieth century. Of the 160,000 immigrants to Palestine in the 1932-1935 period, many, especially those from Poland and Germany, brought significant amounts of capital with them. 41 million pounds, mainly in private capital, was imported into Palestine during this period.

From the elegant office towers of downtown Casablanca to the palatial villas on the outskirts of every major city, evidence abounds of Morocco’s owning class. The luxury cars of the bourgeoisie fill downtown streets. Nightclubs, posh restaurants and expensive boutiques flourish even in a time of national austerity. But all this should come as no surprise. Unlike many countries of the region that lay claim to “Arab socialism,” Morocco has always had an official commitment to capitalism and a clear policy of promoting capital accumulation in local hands. “Morocco has chosen the path of liberalism,” announced Finance Minister Mamoun Tahiri at a World Bank conference in the late 1960s.