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Thursday, November 24, 2011

The biggest BDS fail in history! (updated)

The number of Palestinian Arabs working in Jewish settlements has increased since the PA announced they would ban such activity.

According to the head of the Federation of Trade Unions of Palestine, Shaher Saad, some 31,000 Palestinian Arab workers are now employed in Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria. This is a significant increase compared to the number of such workers in April, 2010 - estimated at 25,000 - when Mahmoud Abbas signed a law banning Palestinian Arabs from working in settlements. (Saad claims that it is an increase of between one and two thousand workers.)

At that time, the PA Economic Minister stated that anyone working in the settlements after 2010 would face up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $14,000.

Saad said that some 70,000 others are working in Israel proper.

Workers in Jewish communities in the territories get paid at least double the amount that they get in PA-controlled areas.

While the BDS movement advocates boycotting everything Israeli, they especially concentrate on anything to do with settlements outside the Green Line. They claim that Palestinian Arab "civil society" is demanding such a boycott. Yet tens of thousands of Palestinian Arabs themselves choose to work in the supposedly illegal and despised settlements themselves, and more are joining them every day - a direct contradiction to what BDS supporters are claiming.

If so many Palestinian Arabs themselves choose to work in Jewish settlements, they are obviously ignoring BDS demands. And those same evil settlements are providing a good living for many thousands of ordinary Palestinian Arabs - something that no BDS proponent can come close to claiming.

In fact, if it was up to BDSers and no Palestinian Arab would work for any Israeli employer, the unemployment rate in the territories would skyrocket and the effect on the Palestinian Arab economy would be devastating.

Israelis - and even those evil "settlers" - are helping ordinary Palestinian Arabs to support and raise their families with dignity. BDS wants to take that away.

And Palestinian Arabs themselves have chosen which side they prefer.

UPDATE: Thillo reminded me of a story I didn't cover from Ha'aretz, describing a study that showed that Palestinian Arabs invest far more in Israel than in their own areas. So that might be a bigger BDS fail.