Israeli officials will authorize 5,000 new work permits for Palestinian laborers. The move comes in the wake of the West Bank protests against the Palestinian Authority and the rising cost of living, and is meant to prop up the PA. The move is also a symptom of Israel’s hysterical reaction to foreign workers and African refugees.
July saw the Israeli government grant permits to 5,000 Palestinian construction workers, including those who work in illegal West Bank settlements. The cynical move harnessed a captive labor market whose own economy has been crushed by the occupation—the very occupation it is being recruited to build.
In August, Israel’s Defense Ministry also proposed another 6,000 permits for Palestinian workers.
Speaking to the Jerusalem Post about the proposal, the spokesman for the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories said, “We do not want the PA to crash,” adding that Israel needs to help keep the Palestinian economy afloat. He also remarked that Israeli authorities prefer Palestinians to foreign workers because the latter stay in the country.
The Israeli Population Immigration and Borders Authority echoed the preference for Palestinians to migrants who stay and make a home in Israel. So, as Israel deports the families of foreign workers – the same workers it brought to replace the Palestinians (see below) – and expels and jails African refugees, it begins upping the number of work visas for Palestinians.
Just as foreign aid is intended to keep the unsustainable and overextended PA afloat – giving some West Bank Palestinians a sedating sense of normalcy – so are Israeli work permits. Along with checkpoints and restrictions on freedom of movement, work permits are intended to shape the behavior of the Palestinian population.
A joint paper published by Kav LaOved and Gisha earlier this year pointed out that the salaries of Palestinian day laborers who work in Israel make up some 13 percent of the Palestinian GDP. While estimates of their numbers vary, Kav LaOved and Gisha report that approximately 60,000 Palestinians work with and without permits inside of Israel.
During the First Intifada, Israel revoked the general exit permits that were held by almost all Palestinians in the Occupied Territories which had previously allowed them to reach jobs inside of Israel, thus collectively punishing Palestinians for rebelling against the occupation. At the same time, Israel began bringing foreign workers from South East Asia and Eastern Europe to meet the demand for inexpensive labor.
The Second Intifada and the separation barrier caused the number of Palestinian day laborers working inside of Israel continue to decrease. According to figures from the Knesset, the number of legal Palestinian workers declined by 70 percent from 2000 to 2011, falling from 100,000 to 30,000.
The message to Palestinians who are dependent on Israel for work is simple: “behave,” support the PA and we will let you in to find jobs.
But, if you resist the steady expropriation of Palestinian territory, the administrative detentions, the arbitrary arrests of children – if you resist the total subjugation of your people – we will punish you. We will continue to squeeze your labor market and shut you out of ours so that you cannot support your family. It is a system of reward and punishment taken straight from Behavioral Psychology 101; it is Israel treating the Palestinians like a starving rat in a Skinner box. Israel giveth and Israel taketh.
Of course, the new permits also serve as yet another reminder that Israel is running the show—the PA is little more than a puppet.
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Kolumn9
Very true. Israel should stop all Palestinians from working in Israel because that would be better for the Palestinians, or so I gather from the article.
Jack
Rather its a opportunistic way to ease the tensions and keeping the hardships just below the boiling point for the people in the west bank.
In fact this is one of the advantage Israel made use of the Oslo accords, that they could outsource the occupation to a partner in the westbank and could therefore releasing itself from alot of culpability on what is going on there.
Kolumn9
You are completely right. Israel should cut off all contact with what goes on in the Palestinian Authority and ensure that no Palestinians enter Israel to work. That way Israel would have no culpability whatsoever.
Jack
They would have still the culpability since West Bank is occupied and being landgrabbed’.
Kolumn9
Hardly. There isn’t even such a discrete thing as the West Bank, it is just a collection of land. Even according to the law of occupation there is a bunch of land, some of which continues to be ‘occupied’ while the rest has already been liberated. There is absolutely no obligation on the occupying power to maintain the territorial integrity of the occupied land. And of course, there could hardly be culpability on the occupying power over the population of land that has been liberated and to which it has severed all connection.
Jack
Its strange that you dont know this basic fact, that Westbank belongs to the Palestinian state.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_territories
Bluegrass Picker of Afula
Yes. The Hebrew Royal House (and its recent successor, the IDF) decides who lives and who dies, between the East River and the Sea.
Richard Witty
Everything always serves the status quo.
Two points about it.
1. We ALL depend on the existing system for much in our lives, and that all paths of participation in the status quo are morally comprising in some respect. Life.
2. Politically, when those that are extremely critical of the status quo express their views, it confirms to the powers that be, that there is nothing that they can that will be appreciated. Damned if you don’t, damned if you do.
You saying that the work permits serves the status quo, serves the status quo.
The horrible consequence of that confirmation, is that your or then any dissenters’ comments end up dismissed.
A conditional approach, is damned if you do wrong, praised if you do something that could get to good.
BOOZ
@Richard :
Exactly my views.
Mya is causing to the causes she pretends to defend a disservice by antagonizing the parties to the extreme.
She is only fueling the “kol ha’olam negdenu ” trend of the Israeli publi-irrespective of the topic she is writing about.
Talbs
So Israel taking away the permits originally is “collective punishment” but increasing them again is a cynical move to harness a collective labour market? Brilliant article.
XYZ
Another version of this was the time someone pointed out here that during the 1970′s, when the Israeli occupation of the West Bank was in its early stages, the West Bank Palestinians had one of the hightest economic growth rates and rising standards of living in the world. So what was the response of one of the ‘progressives’ here? “Doesn’t matter, Israeli was ‘exploiting’ them”. You can’t win.
Vicky
Talbs, you seem to be assuming that issuing permits and revoking permits are diametric opposites, and if one is bad, the other must be good. They aren’t opposites. They’re both part of the same system of control, which has transformed the OPT into a captive economic market and had a significant impact on people’s ability to get work. Applying for a permit and spending hours every day travelling to and from your workplace on specially designated roads through specially designated checkpoints inevitably means that you reinforce that whole process, including the belief at its core: that it’s perfectly OK to exercise this level of control over a whole society. Among supporters of the occupation, you find people who don’t think the IDF is being harsh enough (“They should be prevented from working here altogether”) and others who try to present the IDF as some kindly and benevolent overseer (“The army gives some of them permits to work, what more do they want?”). Both groups take it for granted that it’s perfectly normal and OK for Palestinians to be kept in this situation, to the point where you register surprise that someone might see anything problematic in the permit regime.
Applying for the permits, using the permits, being stripped of the permits – none of these scenarios is without difficulty. At three o’clock in the morning the construction workers start queuing to go through Bethlehem checkpoint. The checkpoint typically adds an extra four hours to what is already a very arduous long day. They typically receive lower wages than Israeli employees, but they have no basis for complaint about that – they just have to take what they’re given. They are the ‘lucky’ ones; they have the permits, they have jobs. And they come back through that machsom in the evening not exactly looking full of the joys of spring. But to occupation supporters this does not register as exploitation because each of the men has a slip of paper in his pocket guaranteeing him the supreme privilege of taking four hours to move six miles down the road where he can work for peanuts.
XYZ, I’ve read the World Bank’s report on the OPT’s economic situation in the early 70s. If you haven’t looked at it yourself directly, it’s here. Scroll down to overall economic trends: http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/1993/09/01/000009265_3970311123238/Rendered/PDF/multi0page.pdf
Aside from an economic boom affecting the region generally, the report attributes early growth in Palestinian GDP and GNP to the sharp rise in employment of Palestinians as unskilled labourers in Israel (and later skilled Palestinian employment in the Gulf states). They took low-waged menial jobs and were paid less than their Israeli counterparts, and as mentioned earlier, with no means of complaint. I don’t find much to celebrate in the transformation of the Territories into a pool of cheap labour for the jobs that most Jews didn’t want. Plenty of other regimes have tried to argue that their oppression of certain groups was all OK really because these people had never had it so good – they’re happy growing cotton on the plantation, really, they’ve got secure housing, food, things they never dreamed of before! Again, that line of reasoning only works if you think it is your right to control these people. The army handing out a few permits here and there doesn’t suddenly make it some champion of liberty.
Kolumn9
It is perfectly normal for non-citizens to not be granted access to the labor market of a foreign state. There is absolutely no obligation on Israel to provide the Palestinians with employment within its labor market. And no, the territories being ‘occupied’ has absolutely no impact on the matter. Complaints about the permit system on the basis of exploitation or difficulty have a very simple and effective solution – eliminate the permit system and prevent all Palestinians from entering Israel.
RichardL
Correction: There is nothing “normal” about the labour market for Palestinians under the occupation. There may not be any obligation on Israel to employ Palestinians in its labour market, but GCIV stipulates plenty of obligations which are constantly ignored, such as the right to leave the territories and the obligation to provide relief schemes if the population is inadequately supplied. Israel has a responsibility to provide for the Palestinian’s welfare, not place them in a position where they are desperate enough to work for the occupation in arduous conditions at knock down rates.
What is your “very simple and effective solution” for ensuring that Israel meets all of its obligations towards the occupied population under international law?
Kolumn9
Well, even according to your colorful interpretation, Israel is only obligated to provide humanitarian assistance to the ‘occupied population’ in the case of humanitarian emergency and most certainly not obligated to allow access to the Israeli labor force. As for the right of the Palestinians to leave the territory, I doubt anyone on the Israeli side does much to prevent their departure. Israel does not, however, have the obligation to allow entry of Palestinians into Israel.
If one were to not accept your colorful interpretation, one would argue simply that Israel has no obligation whatsoever to the Palestinians resident in the territories governed by the Palestinian Authority and any claimed obligations can be entirely voided by an Israeli negation of its rights and claims on the territories governed by the Palestinian Authority. In other words, Israel is not obligated to continue a situation of occupation over any particular piece of territory or population, and on this the Geneva Convention is entirely explicit.
RichardL
To state the obvious, Israel is indeed not obligated to continue the occupation, quite the reverse. However while it is there it is obligated to do a lot more than “provide humanitarian assistance[...] in the case of humanitarian emergency.” Do not delude yourself otherwise; GCIV is easy enough to access.
But I miss your point. Are you arguing for the continuation or an end to the occupation? My point is that Israel abiding by international law and withdrawing from Palestinian territories would have considerable “impact” on the matter of labour relations, which you denied earlier. Outside of an occupation Palestinians would have better opportunities to find their own way out of poverty.
Vicky
Vicky, to use your words, the article seems to be assuming that Israelis and Palestinians are diametric opposites, and if one is bad, the other must be good. They aren’t opposites. Israel’s actions are not in a vacuum and the same for Palestinians. Neither is always right and neither is always wrong. This article stated that more permits is bad and less permits is also bad. Therefore, to me at least it is a pointless article. Would have been quicker to just write that the occupation is bad and anything Israel does that is not immediately withdrawing unconditionally to the Green line is also bad. That’s not going to happen and even if it did, judging by Gaza it would be a disaster for everyone other than Hamas.
I’ve not been to this site before, but from a quick look at the headlines I can see all it does is criticise Israel without any criticism of Palestinian actions or even any articles on what the Palestinian leadership should do to help peace.
I guess that means I won’t be back as there is nothing to be gained from such onesideness.
RichardL
Can the real author of this comment please identify themselves.
Talbs
That was me, apologies I wrote Vicky in the name in error.
Greg Pollock
The number of recently issued and proposed work permits is marginal relative to the available Palestinian work force, and I suspect some patronage associated with “security clearances” for the permits (who you know, or who someone you know knows). Not to detract from others’ views, above, I think the expansion a good thing; for more direct entanglement between Palestinians and Israeli business is needed if social protest is ever to have an impact. As the piece notes, the State tried shipping in long distance cheap labor, only to find such were having children and staying long term. The attempt to avoid Palestinian labor completely is hitting the Jewish State barrier, forcing a little bit of reality unto the State.
This is an early stage of apartheid regulation, and I recognize the personal weights involved as in Vicky, above. But one has to go through them before effective economic resistence is possible. Long term, Palestinian labor will become more important to Israei business, and that expolitive success will be the lever for change.
david shalev, esq.
The postcolonial pseudoscientific theorists present a “damn if you do, damn if you don’t” proposition. If you are employing them, you are exploiting them.
What’s funny is that according to postcolonial theory, the native’s agency is taken away (He/she is being marginalized/patronized). Yet the same proponents of Palestinian agency now claim that Israel’s responsibility to worry for the Palestinian’s well being. Israel is at fault not Abbas who just spent 30,000 dollars on a pair of shoes and Suha Arafat who uses the PA money for luxury trips to Paris.
Greg Pollock
Abbas just spent $30,000 US on one pair of shoes? Is this hearsay?
Vicky
The Palestinians are not free. The occupation means that they do not have political agency. If you are prepared to seal people up in cantonments, turn them into a captive economic market, and control their ability to create, obtain, and travel to work even within the Territories (internal checkpoints being the most superficial example of a problem that goes much deeper) then you can’t then claim to be respecting Palestinian agency in any sense of the word. This sort of ‘agency’ translates as, “We do what we like to you, it’s your responsibility to deal with it.”
The Palestinians themselves are stuck in a damned if you do, damned if you don’t position. They are caught up in occupation if they get permits and if they don’t get permits. The whole point is that the permit system does not confer freedom. I don’t know why you even bring the PA into this because it collaborates with the occupation authorities hand and glove. Its power is subservient to Israel’s, and Abbas is content to keep those scraps of power by kowtowing where necessary. The PA isn’t wildly popular, and this is why – it reeks of complicity. By your logic, Palestinians only deserve freedom if the puppets in the PA become paragons of all the virtues.
Greg, the shoe story is old. It first circulated about five years ago and has recently been resurrected by Hamas, who are hoping to benefit from the anger over the economy. I don’t think they know any better than anyone else what kind of shoes Abbas has, and I also don’t see how it’s relevant – the idea that the shoe choices of the Palestinian president are somehow more pressing and pertinent to Palestinian freedom than a military occupation. To the people living under that it doesn’t make much difference what the puppet-in-chief has on his feet.
Greg Pollock
Vicky, I was just being facetious. Shalev calls himself an attorney yet makes such a puerile claim. As to Abbas, I truly believe he dreads a return to violence and the Israeli response thereafter. I believe he is wrong to distance himself from the Wall protests, but I understand his fear. I am also aware of PA patronage. Keep in mind though, when this all ends, we will find any Palestinian government if such comes made only of people–as in Israel. At present, this sideliner believes violence inevitable and an alternative in action and words must be articulated.
XYZ
Even having Israel withdraw to the pre-67 lines and setting up an “independent” Palestinian state wouldn’t satisfy these people. Such a state would still be a “Bantustan” and would be economically unviable. This is the situation of most if not all the Arab states that don’t have oil. They are all dependent on handouts.
Even if the Palestinians were to completely disconnect from economic relations with Israel (which would be unlikely) they would still be completely dependent on others for handouts and supports. The Palestinian leadership would still try to shift blame on to Israel for supposed damage done during the “occupation” period. This is what all Egyptian governments have done until this day…blame British Imperialism (which ended in 1952) for their problems.
No country is really economically independent. The US is dependent on the Gulf States and China for financing their defecit, China depends on the American market for their products, the Saudis have to sell the oil to the West. Thus, the “progressives” will end up blaming the whole “globalist capitalist” system for everyone’s problems, including the Palestinians.
XYZ
All the of non-oil producing Arab states in the Middle East are poor and unproductive and dependent on handouts, or remittances from workers abroad and the such. An independent Palestinian state would be no different. They would still blame Israel for their problems, even if they maintained economic links. If they didn’t they would say their problems were due to previous Israeli “exploitation”, even though they had a higher standard of living than the surrounding non-oil producing Arab states. Egypt still blames British imperialist exploitation for their problems even though this ended in 1956 with the nationalization of the Suez Canal. Ultimately, the “progressives” will blame the whole globalist, capitalist system for “exploiting the Palestinians along withe everyone else”. No one in the world is really econnomically independent. The US needs China and the Gulf States to finance its deficit and China and Saudi Arabia need to sell their products to the West There is really nothing that will make the “progressives” happy except a total revolution against the current “system”.
XYZ
Sorry for the repitition, the server was acting up.
Greg Pollock
Since no economy is independent, do what we say or we will throttle you. Since you will never be perfect, be the nothing we demand. Would you, XYZ, allow this logic to be used against Israel and (Jewish) Israelis?