what hepen in israel is not you buisness the palastine live better than most of the pakistans
'Many Palestinians say they’re afraid to go to work, and afraid that they will be attacked,' says al-Quds University professor.
The Media Line|Published: 21.11.14 , 00:03
Jafar Al-Halabi has worked at the Mishor Adumim branch of the Israeli discount supermarket chain Rami Levy for ten years. About 15 miles east of Jerusalem, Mishor Adumim is an industrial area in land that Israel captured in 1967. Israelis and Palestinians work together in the store, and shop together as well.
“I have Jewish friends – we work together and we eat together (on breaks),” Al-Halabi, 43, told The Media Line. “We try not to talk politics. It’s better that way because everyone has his own ideas.”
After two Palestinians armed with guns and meat cleavers
murdered five Israelis in a Jerusalem synagogue this week, a nearby branch of Rami Levy sent its Palestinian workers home for the day, fearing revenge attacks by extremist Jews. That in turn set off a wave of speculation in social media that Rami Levy intended to fire more than 1,000 Palestinian workers.
“There is no intention to fire any of our workers,” a spokeswoman for Rami Levy told The Media Line.
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Arab workers doing construction in Jerusalem (Photo: Noam 'Dabul' Dvir)
The rumor was fueled by a
decision by the mayor of the southern city of Ashkelon Itamar Shimoni to suspend construction work, which is done almost exclusively by Israeli-Arabs, near kindergartens attended by Jewish children. Many nursery schools throughout the country stationed security guards at the gates.
Prime Minister Binyamin
Netanyahu reacted angrily to Shimoni’s order to suspend Arab workers saying “there is no room for discrimination against Israel’s Arabs.”
Netanyahu was talking about Arab citizens of Israel, who comprise 20 percent of Israel’s population. But in Jerusalem, where almost 300,000 Palestinians, most of whom are not citizens of Israel, live, the situation is more complicated. It was
two Palestinian cousins from the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Jabal Mukaber who committed the murders in the Jerusalem synagogue.
Palestinians in East Jerusalem have the same blue identification cards as Jewish Israelis who live in the city, although only a few thousand are Israeli citizens. They pay taxes, and get Israeli health care. But for the past few weeks, there have been daily clashes between Israeli police in Jerusalem, and Palestinian demonstrators, who often throw firecrackers at police.
A police spokesman said they intercepted a large shipment of tens of thousands of firecrackers, as well as knives, tasers and other weapons that was on its way to East Jerusalem. The shipment came from China, and was addressed to Palestinian residents of the city.
Police seize large shipment of fireworks and other arms headed for East Jerusalem (Photo: ..." style="font-family: arial; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 12px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent;">
Police seize large shipment of fireworks and other arms headed for East Jerusalem (Photo: Israel Police)
The clashes intensified after a
Palestinian bus driver was found hanging. While Israel says it is clearly suicide, Palestinians said they believed the man was murdered. Even after the Palestinian coroner said he agreed with his Israeli colleague, the rumors persisted. Dozens of Palestinian bus drivers staged a partial strike this week, sparking calls by Jerusalem city officials for them to be fired.
Some Palestinians in East Jerusalem said they stayed home because they are afraid of reprisal attacks by extremist Jews. They point to the events of the past summer, when
extremist Jews burned a Palestinian teenager, Mohammed Abu Khdeir to death, after the bodies of three kidnapped Israeli teenagers murdered by a Palestinian were found.
“There is an atmosphere of hatred and fear, and many Palestinians here in Jerusalem are afraid,” Mahmoud Muhareb, a professor of political science at al-Quds University, who lives in Shuafat in East Jerusalem told The Media Line. “Many Palestinians say they’re afraid to go to work, and afraid that they will be attacked.”
He says the killing of Mohammed Abu Khdeir also sparked anger in many Palestinians in East Jerusalem.
“They are no longer willing to accept the status quo and want to fight for their rights for Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine,” he said. Israel annexed East Jerusalem in 1967 and says the whole city is the capital of the Jewish state.
Many Palestinians from East Jerusalem say there are few jobs available in their neighborhoods and they therefore work in Jewish-owned businesses. Mohamed Abu Malkhia from the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Beit Hanina, currently works for an Arab bus company. But for ten years, he said he worked in the Kings Hotel in downtown Jerusalem in maintenance.
“We all have responsibilities and children and all we want to do is live in peace and quiet,” the father of two young children told The Media Line. “God gives us work, and we all want to work.”
He said he left the hotel business because they cut his hours, not because he had any problem. But many Palestinians who work in Jerusalem say they worry that if the tensions persist, they could lose their jobs.
When 500 Palestinians Lose Their Jobs At SodaStream, Who's To Blame?
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EMILY HARRIS
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Arab-Israeli colleagues react to the departure of the last Palestinian SodaStream employees from the company's plant in the Israeli city of Rahat on Feb. 29.
Jack Guez/AFP/Getty Images
SodaStream was at the heart of a controversy in the Middle East two years ago. The Israeli company, which makes a kitchen gadget to turn plain water into a flavored, carbonated drink at home, came under pressure for being an Israeli company operating in the West Bank.
Pro-Palestinian groups argue that Israeli businesses located there lend support to the Israeli occupation of the land Palestinians seek for their state. The flap only increased when Scarlett Johansson did commercials for the company.
PARALLELS
Scarlett Johansson's Middle East Flap ... Over Soda
Now, SodaStream has left the West Bank. It broke ground on a plant in Israel in 2011, began operations there in late 2014, and at the end of last December, closed its West Bank factory for good. Over the course of this transition some 500 Palestinians lost their jobs.
Between the government, the pressure groups, the company and the workers, who is responsible?
Coexistence CEO
SodaStream CEO Daniel Birnbaum says the company did not leave the West Bank owing to pressure but because it needed more space. He says revenue has increased fivefold since 2007, and the new factory in Israel's southern Negev desert consolidated jobs from operations in the West Bank, China, Germany and northern Israel.
He also says he always wanted his West Bank Palestinian employees to keep working at the factory in Israel — in part to prove Israelis and Palestinians can coexist. But to enter Israel, Palestinians need permits.
Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions. It is modeled after the movement that successfully isolated South Africa culturally and economically before that country's racist regime collapsed.
BDS leaders say their aim is to end Israel's occupation of the West Bank, which has been in place since 1967, end discrimination against Arab citizens of Israel, and enforce the right of Palestinians to move to areas, now part of Israel, that they or their relatives left or were forced to leave during the 1948-49 war around Israel's declaration of independence.
Many Israelis believe the true aim of BDS is to undermine the very existence of Israel.
"Even if they don't say it, that's the meaning. There's no other way of understanding it," says Arie Reich, a professor specializing in international law at Bar Ilan University.
He points in particular to the aim of permitting millions of Palestinians to live in Israel, which would potentially end the Jewish majority in the country. And although Reich claims the impact of the BDS movement has been limited so far, he has been actively involved in combating its efforts.
"If you don't stop it, it could spread and become more problematic," he says.
Nabil Bisharat (with his 8-year-old son) worked his way up over six years from the assembly line to management at SodaStream but recently lost his permit to work at the company's new facilities in Israel. He bought the empty land seen here behind his home with his high earnings at the Israeli company. Israel's government says its policy is to encourage jobs for Israeli citizens.
Emily Harris
SodaStream Strategy
BDS co-founder Omar Barghouti says SodaStream's decision to leave the West Bank was a result of coalition pressure. He is not surprised SodaStream tells a different version.
"As in the South African boycott case, no major bank or company admits at first that the boycott and divestments are hurting," Barghouti says. "So we do not expect SodaStream to come out and say, 'Oh, BDS forced us to leave an illegal settlement factory.' "
One charge Israel levels against BDS is that by pressuring Israeli companies to leave the West Bank, the movement is hurting the very people it aims to help: Palestinians. In many Israeli eyes, SodaStream is a prime example.
Barghouti criticized SodaStream for touting its wages and opportunities — now lost to Palestinians — as far superior compared with Palestinian companies, saying Palestinian business owners operate under severe restraints.
He acknowledges some Palestinians do pay a price when their Israeli employers move. But he blames Israel for making Palestinians economically dependent on Israel, including through its occupation of the West Bank.
"Israel has made many farmers go into the work factories because it confiscated our most fertile lands with its wall and illegal settlements," Barghouti says.
PARALLELS
Can Israelis And Palestinians Change Their Minds?
Birnbaum says his desire to keep employing West Bank Palestinians at his new factory proves Palestinians could benefit from Israeli work opportunities even if companies move from the West Bank. He accuses Netanyahu of denying his workers permits only to point a finger — wrongly in this case, he says — at BDS.
Netanyahu's office declined to respond to SodaStream's charges, except to say the permits were always known to be temporary and the government prioritizes jobs for Israeli citizens. An official in the prime minister's office also said the government had supported SodaStream's move with a grant worth approximately $7.5 million.
Birnbaum says his new factory created hundreds of new jobs for Israelis, including underemployed Bedouin women, and points to the 58,000 Palestinians working with permits, as well as an estimated 30,000 to 40,000 more without, in Israel daily.
"How is it that my 74 are going to take down the Israeli economy?"
Now a freelance trucker, Mustafa Sharabati did not try to get a permit to work in Israel when SodaStream, his former employer, left the West Bank. The commute would have been two hours each way, and with the current violence, he felt afraid to travel into Israel. His earnings have dropped significantly; the father of four is now buying groceries on credit.
Emily Harris
What About The Workers?
Nabil Bisharat was one of the lucky 74 Palestinian employees who had been allowed to continue working in the new SodaStream factory until earlier this month.
Over six years, he rose from assembly line work to managing more than 50 employees. He didn't mind getting up at 4 a.m. for the long bus ride to the new factory, or getting home after dark. The 48-year-old has always worked for Israelis, he says, but called SodaStream "the best."
"It's a five-star company for Palestinians," he says, over tea in the lovely home he built with SodaStream earnings. "It's a good job, good salary, good conditions, and they treat all workers equal, all the same. I felt that. I lived that."
A former SodaStream machine operator, Mustafa Sharabati, 31, echoed that sentiment. But he chose not to apply for a permit when SodaStream shut down in the West Bank.
"It's too far away from my family," he says, "and I'm scared to travel in Israel."
The current upsurge in violence makes him fearful of approaching Israeli checkpoints. Sharabati is now a freelance truck driver, but business is so slow, the father of four is buying groceries on credit.
Money is the main concern of Ala Al-Qabbani, too. The 24-year-old had worked at SodaStream three years before the company moved and would have happily kept working for SodaStream in Israel.
But he could not get a permit. Israel's first requirement is that Palestinians be at least 22 years old and married. Qabbani meets the age requirement, but he's single. He points out his conundrum.
"There are girls, but I need to get money before I can propose."
That will take a while. Qabbani now earns $12 a day, a quarter of his old salary, hawking produce from a street cart not far from where SodaStream used to be.
