Yesterday morning I wrote a long piece for Salon– putting in a lot more of my Dore Gold material along with the Dr. Mahmoud Ramahi material and a bunch of background stuff. I didn’t have time for lunch as I had to get out my hotel room there in East Jerusalem; anyway I was writing up a storm. Once I was done I got a cab across a Jerusalem swathed in a real storm, a dust-storm of fine yellow-grey dust, over to the massive new Central Bus Station and came down here to Tel Aviv..
I have to say Israel’s system of inter-city and intra-city buses is a real national asset: frequent, comfortable buses, well driven, with the schedules and routes all well posted; a good system for prepayment; busy, apparently safe terminals in the major cities, and designated bus lanes in most city centers to speed the buses along… On nearly every score it makes the national transit “system” in the US look totally pathetic.
… About 50 minutes after leaving Jeruslaem the bus rolled into the sixth level of the Tel Aviv Central Bus Station… I hauled my bag down two floors and got a #4 bus which brought me to the door of my hotel here near the ocean.
Then I got a call from my handler at the Government Press Office, telling me my application for a foreign press card had been turned down. Turned down! He claimed that the Boston Review, which had been sponsoring the application, “didn’t meet the guidelines” for their department because it comes out only bimonthly and therefore doesn’t count as “news” media.
He sounded really nervous throughout the whole conversation…
So then I sent an email to my editor at the CSM. She got on the case and I think it’s being handled… Keep your fingers crossed.
… This morning I had meetings with two really nice, really smart Israeli guys whom I’ve known for many years. Each meeting was set up in a cafe in a different shopping mall in a different part of North Tel Aviv. Driving out to these meetings– especiaslly the first one–was unbelievable! Mile upon mile upon mile of enormous, extremely lavish-looking apartment buildings and cranes hanging over the horizon at every aspect building yet more of the same.
Who on earth can afford to live in all these super-luxury apartments? What companies have the capital to invest in such mammoth-sized projects? This country has become so unbelievably wealthy since Yasser Arafat’s conclusion of the Oslo Accords with them in 1993 opened the door to much wider trade and investment relations with Europe and (especially) the “tiger” economies of East Asia! But for the poor old Palestinians themselves, meanwhile, Oslo brought almost nothing but further land-exprorpriations, further represssion, the deliberate fragmentation by the Israelis of much of the West Bank, continued economic dependence, insult, injury, and and penury…
Before Oslo– even at the height of the first intifada– Palestinians could come and go between East Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank fairly easily, could come and go between Jerusalem and Gaza fairly easily. Actually, during nearly the whole of that first intifada, 1987-93, East Jerusalem was the bubbling hub of the intifada’s entire nationwide organizing effort.
But then immediately after Oslo the Israeli campaign to strangle Jerusalem off from the rest of the West Bank really got underway in earnest. I was there in 1995 and saw the process near its beginning. Poor old Faisal Husseini, the late leader of the Jerusalem Palestinian community, an extremely decent and hard-pressed man, was tearing his hair out in frustration… Not only because of what he saw the Israelis doing every day there before his eyes but also because of his sense that Yasser Arafat really didn’t have a clue about what was happening to Palestinian Jerusalem. (One of the things that was happeninbg was that much of the land owned by Jerusalem’s historic Husseini family, of which Faisal was the heir, had been designated by the Israelis as a “nature zone” area, so first of all Faisal’s family was forbidden to build anything on it, and then the Israeli government expropriated it completely. Just a few years after that, guess what, the “nature zone” designation was lifted and an entire settlement for ultra-Orthdox Jews was built on it. So much for protecting the environment, eh?)
Tel Aviv is an almost completely Jewish city whose metropolitan population now comprises about one-third of the entire population of the state of Israel. Here, things feel very different from the way they feel even in the Jewish parts of Jerusalem. In Jerusalem, the conflict still feels very present, but here in Tel Aviv most people seem blithely unaware of the misery the Palestinians are living in, penned behind their ghastly great high walls and fences just 15 miles away from downtown Tel Aviv.
What wouldn’t the Palestinians give to be able to run their own economy, to have a fine interc-city bus system, to build massive housing developments, to travel freely between one Palestinian city and another, to have lovely, product-rich, multi-story malls… to be free?
I haven’t even started to write here, this time, about the ever-evolving ghastliness of the checkpoint you have to go through if you want simply to travel from Palestinian East Jerusalem to Palestinian Ramallah, just a few miles away… An almost martian landscape there at the Qalandiyeh checkpoint, which is dominated by two or three sets of those towering concrete walls, and watched over by 1984-ish, concrete-clad watchtowers… Very few of the Palestinians are able to cross the checkpoint zone in their cars. Most must take one vehicle from their city of origin to the checkpoint, then join the huddled hordes shuffling on foot across the dusty bleakness of the checkpoint area, then scramble amongst the noisy, diesel-stinking swirl of share-taxis on the other side to find a car going to their final destination.
What’s more, the Israelis are now busy “upgrading” this checkpoint area– all of which, of course, is being built deep inside the area of land that is Palestinian. Indeed, they’re turning it into something like an “international” checkpoint with waiting areas, parking areas, and even several parking spaces being specially laid out for handicapped drivers. So that’s what the checkpoint of the future will look like– there, and at four or five other key nodes throughout the West Bank.
The way the pass-book system operates in the West Bank is that Palestinian residents of Jerusalem, who have little blue passbooks/IDs that they have to carry with them at all times, are allowed to travel “out”, to Ramallah, or Bethlehem, or wherever– but the Palestinians who live outside Jerusalem aren’t allowed to travel in to the city that was until recently the capital of the whole West Bank… And then people with Ramallah passbooks are allowed to travel even further away from Jerusalem, to Nablus and the rest of the northern West Bank– but people from those other places are not allowed to travel “in” to Ramallah… The effect has been to cause all Jerusalem’s great institutions– hospitals, businesses, schools, NGOs, to wither on the vine… and also to encourage many Jerusalemites to shift their attentions towards Ramallah or elsewhere, which is where they have a better chance of finding employment.
These horrendous Israeli checkpoints sit astride this whole system of people-control and enforce it. And the cost of constructing these “upgraded” checkpoints that have been designed to ease the Israelis’ ability to control all movement between the cities in occupied Palestine is being met from– you guessed! — from the US aid package that was designated to provide ‘aid’ to the Palestinians themselves!
… There is something almost surreal about sitting on a sun-dappled cafe terrace, in the middle of a shopping mall with shoppers peacefully passing to and fro all around, and suddenly realizing that one is sitting and talking to the author of a considerable amount of earlier violence. I had that experience in a north Johannesburg shopping mall in 2003, when I had a long and impassioned (on his side) interview with the former Benny Alexander, secretary-general of the (“one settler, one bullet”) PAC. I had it again today, as I sat in a shopping mall in North Tel Aviv and the person I was with introduced me to the man who had been the organizer of the entire post-Munich campaign of assassinating Palestinians, back in the 1970s. (The two of them talked about Spielberg and the Oscars a little.)
But here’s the difference: I was sitting sipping lattes in Johannesburg with Khoisan X (Benny Alexander) some years after the conflict in question had ended… But I was sitting talking with these guys in North Tel Aviv today at a time when– for the Palestinians– the conflict is still absolutely at its height.
I’m a huge fan of mass transit, particularly rail travel. But I don’t know if it’s appropriate to analogize between Israel’s public transportation system with the U.S. national system. Although the U.S. has no “national” public transit outside of Amtrak (pitifully underfunded), there are at least parts of the country which have extensive regional transportation systems.
A better comparison would be between the Israeli bus and train system and, say, New Jersey Transit, since the entire country of Israel is about the same size as the state of New Jersey. NJT has fairly good rail and bus service. Not quite as much as I would like to see, but reasonably comprehensive (more so in the northern half of the state). I don’t know enough about Israel’s trains and buses (very little in the way of trains, I understand), but I would be curious as to how it stacks up to NJT.
“There is something almost surreal about sitting on a sun-dappled cafe terrace, in the middle of a shopping mall with shoppers peacefully passing to and fro all around…”
Israelis might retort that this was not always the case BEFORE they built the wall.
What is interesting, the way Tel Aviv is shown in http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0445620/ it is a pretty deadly glass-and-steel skyscraper city. Is this impression right – or they have nice historic areas?
Retrying some reflections on your enjoyable narrative:
I have to say Israel’s system of inter-city and intra-city buses is a real national asset: frequent, comfortable buses, well driven, with the schedules and routes all well posted; a good system for prepayment;
Well, except for those pesky passengers that board the bus with explosive belts and kill 20 to 30 people in a split second.
Who on earth can afford to live in all these super-luxury apartments? What companies have the capital to invest in such mammoth-sized projects? This country has become so unbelievably wealthy since Yasser Arafat’s conclusion of the Oslo Accords with them in 1993
In the west we call it work, and other neighbors could also try it instead of blaming and blowing others. The NASDAQ is led by US, Canada, and Israel as third country in total # of companies. Lately Israel has benefited from the outsourcing trend, just like India. And to complete the parallel its neighbor Pakistan has not benefited at all. Why? Go figure.
I was with introduced me to the man who had been the organizer of the entire post-Munich campaign of assassinating Palestinians, back in the 1970s.
That would be Golda Meir, she sought justice for the Munich massacre perps. Right on.
If Israel is doing so well maybe the U.S. can stop underwriting this country.
It is not just Palestinians in the OT that are in limbo; Israeli Palesinian communities are also kept in a deep freeze.
The right comparison would be between the Israeli bus system and the American highway system. Both were set up with efficient military mobilization in mind.
The afore comments are typical in their negation of the other. The Palestanians just do not exist for some of the commentators here except as a nusicane, a negative, or an evil. I always imagine such is the contempt the white settlers held the black at in Africa. South Africa in particular hold the best analogy of the tragedy that is going on and, hopefully, the promise of something better that may yet come.
The right comparison would be between the Israeli bus system and the American highway system. Both were set up with efficient military mobilization in mind.
The afore comments are typical in their negation of the other. The Palestanians just do not exist for some of the commentators here except as a nusicane, a negative, or an evil. I always imagine such is the contempt the white settlers held the black at in Africa. South Africa in particular hold the best analogy of the tragedy that is going on and, hopefully, the promise of something better that may yet come.
“[Tel Aviv] is a pretty deadly glass-and-steel skyscraper city. Is this impression right – or do they have nice historic areas?”
There are no historical relics because Tel Aviv was just a pile of sand when the first group of Jewish settlers arrived.
“A sand without people”, so to speak, eh, Peele?
I have seen photos of the “Old City” portion of Tel Aviv. I don’t know how old it is. It’s kept up for the tourists, I gather. A little googling shows me that it’s the Jaffa part that’s the old city: http://www.tel-aviv-insider.com/jaffa-1.php.
“What wouldn’t the Palestinians give to be able to run their own economy, to have a fine inter-city bus system, to build massive housing developments, to travel freely between one Palestinian city and another, to have lovely, product-rich, multi-story malls… to be free?”
Well, apparently what they won’t give is peace and recognition to Israel. But even if there were a good 2-state solution, Palestinian culture is still Arab culture and Israeli culture is largely European, so the two economies would not be equal. The Palestinians would be lucky to do as well as the Lebanese, but might end up as poor as the other Arab countries.
The current poor state of the Palestinian economy is the result of decades of rejectionism and Intifada, not the fault of the Israelis.
I have seen photos of the “Old City” portion of Tel Aviv. I don’t know how old it is. It’s kept up for the tourists, I gather. A little googling shows me that it’s the Jaffa part that’s the old city: http://www.tel-aviv-insider.com/jaffa-1.php.
“What wouldn’t the Palestinians give to be able to run their own economy, to have a fine inter-city bus system, to build massive housing developments, to travel freely between one Palestinian city and another, to have lovely, product-rich, multi-story malls… to be free?”
Well, apparently what they won’t give is peace and recognition to Israel. But even if there were a good 2-state solution, Palestinian culture is still Arab culture and Israeli culture is largely European, so the two economies would not be equal. The Palestinians would be lucky to do as well as the Lebanese, but might end up as poor as the other Arab countries.
The current poor state of the Palestinian economy is the result of decades of rejectionism and Intifada, not the fault of the Israelis.
I have seen photos of the “Old City” portion of Tel Aviv. I don’t know how old it is. It’s kept up for the tourists, I gather. A little googling shows me that it’s the Jaffa part that’s the old city: http://www.tel-aviv-insider.com/jaffa-1.php.
“What wouldn’t the Palestinians give to be able to run their own economy, to have a fine inter-city bus system, to build massive housing developments, to travel freely between one Palestinian city and another, to have lovely, product-rich, multi-story malls… to be free?”
Well, apparently what they won’t give is peace and recognition to Israel. But even if there were a good 2-state solution, Palestinian culture is still Arab culture and Israeli culture is largely European, so the two economies would not be equal. The Palestinians would be lucky to do as well as the Lebanese, but might end up as poor as the other Arab countries.
The current poor state of the Palestinian economy is the result of decades of rejectionism and Intifada, not the fault of the Israelis.
This country has become so unbelievably wealthy since Yasser Arafat’s conclusion of the Oslo Accords with them in 1993 opened the door to much wider trade and investment relations with Europe and (especially) the “tiger” economies of East Asia! But for the poor old Palestinians themselves, meanwhile, Oslo brought almost nothing but further land-exprorpriations, further represssion, the deliberate fragmentation by the Israelis of much of the West Bank, continued economic dependence, insult, injury, and and penury…
Interesting point of view. It is rather parochial and inaccurate to credit Oslo – and especially Yasser Arafat – with Israel’s economic growth during the 1990s. I’m sure that this had some influence but, on the whole, it was rather marginal when compared with the central place of Israeli R&D in data and telecommunications durint the 90s, along with positive government policy concerning foreign investment, as well as liberalization of monetary policy and the financial markets.
If Oslo (along with the billions of dollars from the donor countries) brought nothing to the Palestinians, much of this had to do, not only with the corruption of the leadership, but with the six years of war initiated by Arafat when he didn’t get his way in negotiations.
What is interesting, the way Tel Aviv is shown in…it is a pretty deadly glass-and-steel skyscraper city. Is this impression right – or they have nice historic areas?
Actually, central Tel Aviv was named a few years ago as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO due to its unique architecture, with over 4,000 Bauhaus style buildings.
“A sand without people”, so to speak, eh, Peele?
For anyone seriously interested in seeing exactly what the area of Tel Aviv (as well as many other areas of Ottoman Palestine) was like prior to the so-called “Zionist Invasion”, I highly recommend Benjamin Z. Kedar’s The Changing Land: Between the Jordan and the Sea : Aerial Photographs from 1917 to the Present.
1. Sorry about the accidental quadrupal post. I don’t know what did that.
2. “when– for the Palestinians– the conflict is still absolutely at its height”.
Israeli activity was much more pronounced during the heavy Intifada years than currently (that is, during 2001-2003).
“These horrendous Israeli checkpoints”
Were instituted in response to the Initifada. Without Palestinian violence, there would not be the checkpoints. You yourself went through checkpoints in the airports — are you, Helena, now an oppressed person? What about the checkpoints Israelis go through at the entrances to commercial establishments — are they not at least annoying? But don’t they protect you personally? Weren’t there checkpoints you went through at the Israeli bus stations — and didn’t they help keep you alive? There used to be checkpoints there, are they still there?
Checkpoints save lives — is that why you are opposed to them?
If Israel is doing so well
Judging Israeli wealth by North Tel Aviv is a bit like judging American wealth based on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. There’s still a good deal of poverty in Israel, and I’m not just talking about the Arab sector, whose social indicators are only marginally worse than those of the Jewish development towns in the south.
It is not just Palestinians in the OT that are in limbo; Israeli Palesinian communities are also kept in a deep freeze.
Funny that you should say this the day after the Israeli Supreme Court mandated equal budgeting for the Arab sector (prohibiting even indirect discrimination) and at a time when there is economic growth not only in Nazareth but in places like Umm al Fahm. With the exception of the Bedouin communities in the Negev, which are a special case, the economy of the Arab municipalities is recovering from the decline that followed the October 2000 riots, and Arab unemployment has reached a level comparable with the Jewish sector. Per capita income is still less, but this is due at least in part to factors such as larger average family size and lower employment rates for women.
Discrimination certainly exists and is quite rightly condemned; “deep freeze,” no.
“A sand without people”, so to speak, eh, Peele?
In this particular case, Wm. Peele is correct. Tel Aviv was founded in 1909 on uninhabited land, originally as a suburb of Jaffa.
Helena,
In Jerusalem, the conflict still feels very present, but here in Tel Aviv most people seem blithely unaware of the misery the Palestinians are living in
I doubt that very many of them are “blithely unaware” either of the Palestinians’ condition or of the conflict in general. For one thing, most of them do reserve duty; for another, they can’t escape seeing images of the Palestinians on television and in newspapers; for a third, nearly all of them know someone (whether Jewish or Arab) who was killed or injured in the conflict.
What people do is get on with their lives, just as the role of the United States and the UK in Iraq doesn’t prevent American or British people (or even those who are both) from occasionally going out and having a good time. Granted, it’s much easier for Americans or Israelis to do this than for Iraqis or Palestinians, but that doesn’t mean the people who do so are evil.
helena,
your posting takes me back to my own visit to tel-aviv in the fall of 2002…. i so hope to be able to make a return visit – there’s something about the region, for all of the strife and suffering, one can also find a courage and determined compassion.
anyway, just wanted to mention the massive influx of migrant workers that started in the late ’80s / early ’90s. i wonder if some of the economic progress you see isn’t the result of their work. in our (rightful) concern for the plight of the palestinians, it is easy to overlook the situation of the migrant workers – who seem to be basically treated as a slave-like class. their work permit is issued to their EMPLOYER… a perfect setup for exploitation (for example: if they get sick they can be fired and then have no health care).
i learned about these issues and difficulty palestinians are having in even getting health care. when i visited the tel aviv clinic of physicians for human rights (israel). i don’t know if visiting them interests you, or if you even have the time. but the people who work & volunteer at PHR were filled with amazing & inspiring stories… that they were kind enough to share with me (a complete stranger).
WarrenW,
regarding the checkpoints…. in general they aren’t about protecting anyone (there may be a few that are – but the vast majority are not). try traveling around in the westbank and you will see that this is case. even the IDF soldiers i spoke with were honest about that.
may i suggest you read jeff halper’s matrix of control?… or better yet – see it for yourself?
edq:
“If Israel is doing so well maybe the U.S. can stop underwriting this country.”
The Israeli government largely agrees with you. Under Netenyahu, Israel agreed that the U.S. would phase out the humanitarian portion of aid.
Israel has its problems with poverty, but overall it has become a well developed economy. So the economic aid is not necessary.
The aid package has largely been replaced with military assistance. Unfortunately, Israel still faces enemies sworn to its destruction and this package is therefore necessary. I, like many others, hope that there will be a day when this is not necessary.
…just wanted to mention the massive influx of migrant workers that started in the late ’80s / early ’90s. i wonder if some of the economic progress you see isn’t the result of their work.
What exactly is the economic nexus that you are alluding to here?
anyway, just wanted to mention the massive influx of migrant workers that started in the late ’80s / early ’90s.
I believe it was closer to the mid-90s, and the number of guest workers (not all of them are migrants) has declined markedly in the past two to three years. There have been recent moves to regularize their status, including a new law granting citizenship to foreign workers’ children who were born in Israel and have reached the age of ten years. A ministerial committee has also recommended that work permits be issued to individual workers rather than their employers, although I’m not sure whether this has been implemented yet.
Kav La’Oved is a good site documenting the experience of the foreign workers. Bambili is another organization that assists the foreign worker community.
What exactly is the economic nexus that you are alluding to here?
Possibly that guest workers have contributed to the Israeli economy, as they have done in just about every other First World country and even many of those in the Second?
it is easy to overlook the situation of the migrant workers – who seem to be basically treated as a slave-like class. their work permit is issued to their EMPLOYER… a perfect setup for exploitation (for example: if they get sick they can be fired and then have no health care).
i learned about these issues and difficulty palestinians are having in even getting health care. when i visited the tel aviv clinic of physicians for human rights (israel).
Israel has had a national medical insurance program since the mid-1990s. By law, employers must withold and pay National Insurance Institute payments – including health insurance taxes – for all employees, irrespective of whether they are citizens or migrant workers. Employers who do not do this are in violation of the law. Further, all residents (whether citizens or not) are entitled to medical coverage under this law.
regarding the checkpoints…. in general they aren’t about protecting anyone….
I would certainly want to see some substantiation on this sweeping assertion other than just the polemics of Jeff Halperin!
Jonathan Edelstein,
thank you for the update (and links) on the status of migrant workers.
JES,
regarding medical health insurance for migrant workers. my understanding from PHR, at least in 2002, if a migrant worker became ill the employer could fire them – at which point they were no longer a legal resident entitled to medical coverage.
regarding the checkpoints, blocked roads,… my assertion is based on personal experience. and it is no more sweeping than your own. have you traveled with palestinians in the west bank? or do you have any sources that document the location of the checkpoints, blocked roads.. and provides any security rational for them?
what information exactly does jeff halperin provide that you think is false? for my part, i didn’t really understand it until i had to experience it – day in and day out. i later found jeff halperin’s article (after hearing him speak in the usa at a church function)… i found his analysis to be quite consistent with my own experience (limited as it was – i was only there for 2 weeks).
Selise,
First off, my point was that if employers violate the rights of guest workers then they are breaking the law. (There are also serious problems with citizen employees being exploited illegally by unscrupulous employers.)
Not only have guest workers been allowed to remain in the country and been treated for serious illnesses after losing their jobs (depending, of course, on the seriousness of the illness and their ability to return to their country of citizenship), but there have been many situations where the authorities have gone out of their way to promise not to arrest or deport illegal guest workers when they come to get medical treatment. This has been the case, especially, following suicide attacks in major cities where guest workers have been wounded and killed.
As to your statement that the checkpoints “aren’t about protecting anyone”, I take exception to that, as well as your assertion that my statement was in any way “sweeping”. I believe that they are about protecting the Israeli population by preventing the free movement of suicide bombers and explosives within the occupied territories before they enter Israel. I don’t see that either you, or Jeff, provide any evidence to the contrary. In fact, documenting the location of roadblocks would be counterproductive, as the military and security sources that I am familiar with maintain that the most effective of these are those that are mobile and set up on a fairly random basis.
I have no doubts that innocent Palestinian civilians are terribly inconvenienced by these roadblocks. I also know from personal experience, however, that many innocent Israeli civilians are terribly inconvenienced by suicide bombers!
“I believe that they are about protecting the Israeli population by preventing the free movement of suicide bombers and explosives within the occupied territories before they enter Israel.”
but why do you believe that? is it personal experience? or can you provide some reference?
personally, i can’t see any security rational for preventing palestinians from jayyuos having to go through a checkpoint to get from their house to their agricultural land – and frequently not being allow to pass. or for palestinians from kufr qudum (sp?) having to go through checkpoints (and road blocks) before getting to nablus for an x-ray, and frequently not being allowed to pass… just because some settler doesn’t want to let them.
but, if you can explain how this is providing security to israelis, i love to hear it. personally, i think it is making life more dangerous for EVERYONE….
Selise,
From my understanding, the most significant problem for foreign workers in Israel up until about two years ago was the percentage who were in the country illegally. As a gateway country, Israel attracted considerable illegal labor migration. I believe a 2002 ILO report found that illegal workers were a larger percentage of the work force in Israel than in any European countries other than Switzerland and Cyprus (although not as large a percentage as in other Med gateway countries like Libya and Lebanon). The illegal laborers were, of course, outside the national health care system and probably accounted for many of the denials reported by PHR.
The proportion of illegal foreign laborers has recently declined, with corresponding improvement in the overall conditions for guest workers, and the current debate concerns how much to regularize the status of those who remain. For instance, last year’s immigration amendment granted citizenship only to the children of legal workers, and there is currently a petition before the Supreme Court demanding equal treatment for children whose parents entered Israel illegally. There is also a proposal to reduce the eligibility age for regularization from ten to seven, which I believe (although I’m not certain) has been backed by a ministerial recommendation.
Guest worker policy was mostly ignored during the 1990s but has been a major focus of the most recent government. The current policy is modeled after Belgium, with continuing study of other European examples.
The proportion of illegal foreign laborers has recently declined, with corresponding improvement in the overall conditions for guest workers
I should add that the deportation actions against illegal workers during 2004 were somewhat controversial at the time.
The proportion of illegal foreign laborers has recently declined, with corresponding improvement in the overall conditions for guest workers
I should add that the deportation actions against illegal workers during 2004 were somewhat controversial at the time.
Selise
You might want, for starters, to note how many explosive devices have been captured at, for example, the Hawara checkpoint, which is deep in the West Bank. Or do you think the Palestinians wanted them for use against each other?
eyal,
my point is only that there is no reason to have the checkpoints within the occupied terratories – couldn’t there be a checkpoint only at the border with israel? that would protect israel.
but now we come to the rub… what about all the israeli jewish settlers living in the west bank? well they could be protected by checkpoints at their entrances…. but then they wouldn’t be safe to travel…. so – we have a choice: either the settlers are protected and allowed to move freely – or the palestinians are.
so it comes down the settlements (or colonies or neighborhoods) – as far as i can see…. it’s not about protecting israel – it’s about making the settlement project possible.
and sadly “it is always the simple people who are made to suffer” as an IDF soldier told me (refering to both israelis and palestinians) – as he pretended to enforce a military order to stop palestinians from harvesting their olives throughout the west bank as a collective punishment for a particularly brutal bombing of a bus in tel aviv.
Jonathan,
BTW, did you see that the High Court of Justice issued a temporary injunction to halt work on the Museum of Tolerance and recommended mediation. Also, today’s Ha’aretz has an article by the attorney representing the Wiesenthal Center in which he outlines the case he presented:
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/688634.html
It is indeed interesting how people rush to judgement when there is a rational legal system with clear jurisdication already dealing with the subject.
“The illegal laborers were, of course, outside the national health care system and probably accounted for many of the denials reported by PHR.”
Johathan, that is quite possibly true – I’d be interested in seeing some data. the issue, as it was described to me, was that there were many migrants who entered the country legally. however, since their work permit was issued to their employer, if anything happened (from the employer dying to the worker being fired for being sick) the migrant then became illegal. i don’t know the numbers of people involved – but my impression was that there was a substantial number and that phr thought the worker permit system should be changed to allow migrant workers to change jobs.
thanks for the added info.
BTW, did you see that the High Court of Justice issued a temporary injunction to halt work on the Museum of Tolerance and recommended mediation.
Yes, I saw that. Meir Shamgar is going to mediate, isn’t he? I hope it gets settled peacefully.
The Berkowitz article was interesting – I’m particularly curious to know the context of the 1964 ruling, and the degree to which the sharia court’s change in attitude is politically motivated.
Just to clarify, permits for guest workers are given to the employers who sponsor their entry and their status can be revoked when they stop working for that employer. Further, the policy of the government over the last several years has been to lower the number of guest workers, particularly those who are here illegally. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this, and Israel has no more of an obligation than, say Kuwait or the UAE, to grant citizenship or automatic permanent residency to foreign workers.
Toward this end, the law was changed several years ago making it illegal for employers to engage illegal workers, including the imposition of heavy fines and possible imprisonment on the employer. However, even in these cases, the employers are obligated by law, not only to pay minimum wage, but to take care of NII payements (including health insurance taxes). Further, the government has instituted a campaign that has included regular radio advertising and direct assistance for illegal workers in getting back to their countries of origin without being forceably deported.
Just to clarify, permits for guest workers are given to the employers who sponsor their entry and their status can be revoked when they stop working for that employer.
I made a couple of inquiries today on this issue. Apparently, the system for health care workers (who account for about 80,000 of those in Israel on permits) is that they can change jobs but have a limited time to do so. If they quit or are fired, their work visa is converted to a one-month tourist visa. They’re supposed to get the work visa back if they find another job during that time, although as always, the bureaucracy sometimes doesn’t function as it should.
My acquaintance in the ministry couldn’t tell me what effect the visa conversion had on health care eligibility, or whether the same system applies to agricultural and construction workers. He’ll have to get back to me on that. He did say, though, that the ministerial committee has recommended that work permits be portable, and that there’s an initiative to provide all foreign workers with a written bill of rights when they enter the country. The translation is evidently taking some time and the written statement isn’t yet available in all relevant languages.
Personally, I favor portability of work permits, for the simple reason that it’s much easier to ensure decent labor conditions if workers can change jobs (not to mention that it’s harder to sue for back pay from outside the country). Government inspectors can’t be everywhere, and abuses are bound to occur in any situation where workers can’t leave. Given that work permits are generally issued to resolve labor shortages in particular areas, some limitations on type of employment might be appropriate, but there are ways to regulate this without tying workers to a single job. I’d say that the policies are moving in the right direction, though.
I don’t know what the current situation is but in the past there were a large number of Palestinians from the OT working illegally inside Israel. Because of their wrecked economy they were forced to seek work there. The Israeli government only allowed a small number of these Palestinians to work legally. Depending on how the border guards felt they would beat the living daylights out of these workers. Palestinian workers from the OT would also need an Israeli sponsor for these crummy jobs who would deduct a hefty commission from their wages.
After the Olso accords Israel pursued a policy of filling these jobs with workers from other countries.
JES wrote,
“If Oslo (along with the billions of dollars from the donor countries) brought nothing to the Palestinians,”
Its not Arafat or Palestinians fault only, JES put the fact don’t try to hid the real facts and truths, it’s the Israeli side also there is no welling to get through and give an independent state to Palestinians JES isn’t it?
BTW, the new offer by Hamas did you read it? Why then Israelis rejected?
Its in PLAN WORDS AND CLEAR? How you like to be to understand?
Go back to 1967 borders and all will sort out.
Salah
Haniyah’s statement about peace in return for withdrawal to the 1967 line (and I don’t see how you an say Israel “refused” it, since it was never more than a statement in an article) were later denied by Hamas*.
Selise
You’re missing my point. Say you have a suicide bomber in Nablus who intends to blow up in Tel Aviv. There are several points at which he can be stopped:
1) Before he even sets out (i.e. in Nablus).
1b)If the bomb is coming from elsewhere, it can be intercepted en route.
2) On the way to the Green Line
3) At the Green Line
4) Between the Green Line and Tel Aviv
Obviously, the more locations at which you have checkpoints, the greater the chance you’ll have to catch him; especially since if he’s going through only one checkpoint, the greater his chance of evading it altogether. Because of that, limiting checkpoints to the Green Line would greatly decrease the probability of intercepting attackers; especially because that means your opportunity to stop the attack is limited to the time it actually takes place, while checkpoits in the Territories can stop an attack in its preparatory phase (e.g. by intercepting the explosives). Again, this can be seen both by the amount of ordnance intercepted at checkpoints, as well as the fact that there have been many cases where suicide bombers were caught or detonated themselves at a checkpoint because they couldn’t pass it; in many of these cases, the bombers (if the bomb failed) or their organization said the attack was intended to happen inside the Green Line.
*http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3221239,00.html