West Bank: the Enemy as Employer, the Leader as Tormentor……….
“"We work like donkeys, little more than that," says a labourer from Na'alin. The 42-year-old father of three used to work in Israel and speaks fluent Hebrew, but now he is only given a permit to work on this settlement. "I would work anywhere else, for less money, without a second thought," he says. In total, 25,000 Palestinians work on Jewish settlements, in construction, agriculture and industry. But the Palestinian Authority (PA) recently passed a law to prohibit such employment. Last week, the Palestinian economics minister, Hassan Abu Libdeh, said that anyone found violating the employment ban could face up to five years in jail and fines of up to $14,000 (about £960). The depressed Palestinian economy means these men have little chance of finding employment elsewhere. About a quarter of the West Bank workforce is unemployed. "It's either this or stealing, there is no other way," says a 30-year-old accountant from Beit Sira, as he cements a grey brick wall in what will be a 32-apartment building at Kiryat Sefer. Labouring pays more than double the rate for the same work in the Palestinian territories. On this settlement, only men over 30 are given work permits and they are forbidden from wandering around by foot – they are driven daily from the gate to the construction sites and back. In an added twist, some of the labourers are building homes for settlers on land that once belonged to their own villages…………”
It says: “some of the labourers are building homes for settlers on land that once belonged to their own village……” So how did this land un-belong to their village? By what mechanism did this occur? Was it by sale, by expropriation, or by abandonment?
Okay, Abu Mazen’s (Mahmoud Abbas) son(s) allegedly don’t need to illegally work in an illegal Israeli settlement. Allegedly they get fat contracts for their communications firm through connections around the region. There are even reports, allegedly, that the Israeli officials expedite things for them, allegedly of course. The Fatah and PA honchos are starting to behave like the other Arab oligarchies, with the nepotism and corruption. His is part of what makes them acceptable to the regional despots.
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