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V. Brutal
Effects of the Closure on Palestinian Workers
The
Palestinian labor force and the Israeli economy have long been enmeshed in
a symbiotic relationship. As Palestinian workers grew dependent on jobs in
various Israeli industries, the Israeli economy relied equally on a cheap
and willing market of manual workers from the Territories. Until the Gulf
War in 1992, Palestinian workers were generally free to enter Israel
without impediments. This was true even as the West Bank and Gaza Strip
raged with violent clashes throughout the Intifada from 1987 through 1991.
According to
the International Labor Conference’s 1998 Report on the Situation of
Workers of the Occupied Arab Territories, “well over one-third of the
Palestinian labour force depended for their livelihood on jobs in Israel.
From Gaza and all over the West Bank, by some accounts as many as 160,000
workers…would commute across the green line on ‘normal’ days in 1992.”
Workers from the Gaza Strip were and continue to be particularly dependent
on Israel; at the beginning of the Intifada, 60% of the Gazan Gross
National Product came from work in Israel.
Israel, as the
party in the position of power, and the Occupying Power under the Fourth
Geneva Convention, is responsible for this symbiotic entanglement. By
hindering the formation of an independent Palestinian economy, Israel
caused Palestinian workers to seek, en masse, employment in Israel proper.
Israeli
efforts to create an interdependent economic relationship in this manner
are illegal under international humanitarian law. Article 52 of the Fourth
Geneva Convention, reads “All measures aiming at creating unemployment or
at restricting the opportunities offered to workers in an occupied
territory, in order to induce them to work for the Occupying Power, are
prohibited.”
Soon after
Israel’s victory in the Six-Day War of 1967, the I.D.F. denominated the
West Bank and Gaza Strip “closed military zones.”
Israel thereby
forged the power to control, at its discretion, the movement of people and
goods between Israel and the Occupied Territories.
The borders
between the Occupied Territories and Israel have, however, remained
generally open. Yet in recent years, initially as a response to the Gulf
War and repeated suicide bombings within the Green Line, the Israeli
military authorities have moved from openness to a policy of strict or
complete closure. During the Gulf War, Israel sealed the West Bank and
Gaza Strip, forbidding the passage of any Palestinians, be they workers or
otherwise, across the Green Line. Since that time, the closure has been
modified, i.e., certain classes of Palestinians have been permitted entry,
but has never been lifted completely.
This new
reality has meant the loss of livelihood for tens of thousands of
Palestinian workers. According to the Norwegian research institute FAFO,
in households that depend on the Israeli market for income, the average
real wage income fell, between 1987 and 1995, by approximately 45 per cent
in the Gaza Strip and by approximately 30 per cent in the West Bank.
The closures
have additionally prevented many Palestinians from receiving medical
treatment, worshipping at religious holy sites, shipping their produce and
goods, attending their University of enrollment, and visiting family and
friends in Israel and the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
In order to
placate the needs of Israeli employers left unable to function without
Palestinian workers, their primary source of cheap manual labor, Israel
has taken in tens of thousands of foreign workers, primarily from Asia and
Eastern Europe. Relying on data from the Israeli Central Bureau of
Statistics, the International Labour Conference found that the number of
foreign workers in Israel rose from 30,500 in 1994 to 84,000 in 1997.
Meanwhile the number of Palestinian workers fell from 38,300 in 1994 to
26,600 in 1996
, this down
from as many as 160,000 in 1992.
According to
Kav La’Oved, as of June 1998, the Israeli Labor ministry estimated that as
many as 186,000 foreign migrant workers were employed in Israel, 90,000
with permits and the remainder working illegally. 65% of these laborers,
primarily from Asia and Romania, work in construction, 20% in agriculture,
10% in care-provision and 5% in services and industry,
all industries
in which Palestinian workers have traditionally been employed.
Foreign
workers have distinct economic advantages over Palestinian workers for
Israeli employers. Because Palestinian workers are subject to the
unpredictable and often arbitrary closures of the Occupied Territories,
Israeli employers are unable to rely on them in any meaningful way.
Additionally, because of their legal status, Palestinian workers cost more
to employ than foreign workers do: a foreign worker earning the minimum
wage of 2085 NIS costs an employer 2098.86 NIS, while a Palestinian worker
earning that same minimum wage costs an employer 3110.55 NIS, a difference
of 1011.69 NIS.
In other
words, employing a Palestinian costs an Israeli businessman nearly 50%
more than a foreign worker costs. These strong economic disincentives from
employing Palestinians, imposed by the state of Israel through its closure
policy and labor laws, have contributed significantly to the high levels
of unemployment and poverty which afflict Palestinian society. Because of
the economic advantages of foreign workers, even during times when the
closure is eased Palestinians are unable to work in Israel, for their jobs
have been filled. Some hope for increased numbers of Palestinian workers
entering Israel lies in governmental plans to reduce the number of foreign
workers. For example, “In March Labor Minister Eli Yishai announced plans
to reduce the number of foreign workers in the labor force from 10 percent
to 1 percent by 2005, replacing them with Palestinian workers from the
West Bank and Gaza Strip.”
As part of its
closure policy, Israel requires that Palestinian workers possess a special
permit allowing them to work in Israel. Additionally Palestinian workers
are denied entry into Israel if they do not possess a magnetic
identification card which must be presented at border crossings. Permits
are obtained only where an Israeli employer specifically requests one be
given to a particular worker. Hence Palestinian workers depend entirely on
the sponsorship of an Israeli employer, a power dynamic which leads to
abuses of workers’ rights.
Israel
explains the closure and the corresponding reduction in Palestinian
workers employed in Israel as a measure intended to bolster national
security. Governments throughout the world commonly manipulate the
principle of national security to justify human rights abuses of all
kinds. The security justification has limits, particularly where it is
used to justify excessive hardship and where the population which suffers
because of “security measures” is meant to be protected by the
humanitarian legal framework outlined above by Professor Cotler. Professor
Cotler explains further:
[W]hile Israel
is permitted measures necessary for its security, the manner in which
Israel implements these measures - including the policy and practice of
closure - may violate its obligations under the Hague Regulations and the
Fourth Geneva Convention. For example, the "general" closure in the
occupied territories may not merely create inconveniences for
Palestinians; it may create serious hardship and, in some cases,
humanitarian crises….
Moreover,
restrictions on the movement of goods have further impoverished the
economies of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, causing a serious decline in
wages and a rise in local unemployment. At the same time, Israel has cut
back on the number of Palestinians permitted to work in Israel.
Admittedly, Israel does not have an obligation under international law to
create economic prosperity in the West Bank and Gaza or provide jobs
inside Israel for Palestinians. However, when its security policies make
it difficult or impossible for Palestinian residents of the West Bank and
Gaza to meet their basic needs independently, Israel bears the
responsibility for ensuring that these needs are met. At a minimum, Israel
has the duty to mitigate the impact of its security policies, with the
goal of ensuring the welfare of the population.
This duty is
heightened in the light of the history where the West Bank and Gaza have
emerged as economically dependent upon Israel, with tens of thousands of
Palestinians turning to Israel for employment in order to meet their
families’ basic needs. Yet, if Israel cuts back on Palestinian labor,
without adopting any substitute measures to provide for the occupied
population’s basic needs, it may cause a rise in poverty and increase the
number of individuals and families requiring food or cash assistance. As a
result, contributions to the PA by the international donor community have
often had to be diverted from investment and development projects to
emergency job creation or relief programs.
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