H., 24 years old, works at the SodaStream plant in the Mishor Adumim industrial zone. We met at his family’s home in a village near Ramallah. Nine people live off his salary (the Israeli minimum wage, nearly $1,200 a month).
His brother Abed was there too; he’s once again looking for work in the industrial zone that’s part of the Ma’aleh Adumim settlement bloc – even though he doesn’t understand why his salary slip always listed a higher amount than what he had actually been paid.
L., from a village in the western West Bank, is around 20 and did six months in an Israeli prison after being caught two or three times working without a permit in Israel. He now works in a store in Ramallah for one-third the (low) salary he made in Israel. He fantasizes about ways to return.
M., in his 50s from the village of Deir Istiya, is sorry he no longer works in the settlement supermarket where he worked for many years. Toward the end of the second intifada the rules were changed, Palestinians were not permitted to work there, so he found work in Israel.
It is good work, relatively, a bit more than the minimum wage. But he now has to leave home at 3 A.M. to make it through the checkpoint and arrive on time, while for the settlement he could leave at 6:30 A.M. and get to work in 15 minutes.
And the owner was nice, he stresses. He still calls – and they don’t rehash the anger over the land the settlements stole. Young people in the family work in the industrial zone of the settlement of Barkan.
As M. puts it: “Without Israel I couldn’t support my family and achieve what I’ve achieved” – a house, education for his children, a plot of land for his son to build a house on, and so on. ...
H., because he is only 24, says: “If only the [direct Israeli] occupation would return. It was better before the PA – there was freedom of movement.” He can’t remember how it was back then.How come in this article Hass identifies all of the people only by their initials?
But for Israel’s convenience, he – like many others – is mistaken and blames the closures on the PA, not on Israel. An Israeli official told me this week (and, it seemed, took pleasure in the telling) that this is what he hears from Palestinians – that they miss Israeli rule. I can say to both of them that in Romania there are people who miss Ceausescu.
Because if they say their pro-Israel opinions publicly under that benevolent Arab rule, they could get killed!
Hass unknowingly proves their point for them - Israeli rule, even if they are not citizens, is better than Arab rule.