Israel's minimum wage is FAR higher than Palestinian average salaries

The Palestinian Authority negotiated with Israel this week agreements to help Palestinian workers in Israel.

Senior Palestinian Authority official and close Abbas aide Hussein al-Sheikh met Sunday with Israel's Foreign Minister Yair Lapid. At the time, he didn't describe the subjects of the meeting. But today, it was revealed that at least one of the topics dealt with Palestinian workers in Israel.

One was to have Israel pay Palestinian workers through Palestinian banks, which would ensure that deductions that are meant for social security benefits and insurance payments end up going to Palestinians. 

Palestinians claim that money that these salary deductions have accumulated since the 1970s to over 60 billion shekels. It is unclear whether Israel intends to pay that much.

Will it go towards "pay for slay?" Hopefully there will be transparency mechanisms in place.

Another topic was for the 20,000 Gazans who have permits to enter Israel. Right now they have commercial permits for vendors, but some of them are workers, and they should have worker's permits so that they can be paid at least the Israeli minimum wage.

"This ensures that the Palestinian worker receives the minimum wage (6000 shekels), and various insurances such as health insurance, work injuries, and other rights," a PA official said.

Israel's minimum monthly wage is actually 5300 shekels, or daily NIS 244.62 for a five day a week worker.

I've noted before that the average salary for a Palestinian worker in Israel is more than double that of those in the West Bank (and quadruple that of Gaza Strip workers.)  So it turns out that Israel's minimum wage is also far higher than the average Palestinian salary. 

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Zionist Locks and a test case for "pro-Palestinian" activists

From Ma'an:

The Palestinian Authority said on Thursday it seized dozens of high-security locks in Ramallah as a part of a crackdown on products manufactured in illegal Israeli settlements. The Department of Consumer Protection of the Palestinian Ministry of National Economy said it confiscated 70 “Mul-T-Lock” products, which are produced in a factory in the settlement of Barqan, near the Palestinian town of Salfit. Abdul Hamid Mizher, the director of the consumer protection department appealed in a statement to all Palestinian merchants to abide by the ministry’s instructions to boycott settlement products.

Mul-T-Lock is one of many companies that reside in the Barkan Industrial Zone. About 40% of the 6000 workers in that zone are Palestinian Arabs. When the PA tries to boycott these products, they are hurting their own economy. Israeli anti-settler group Gush Shalom says "We hope for the complete collapse of the Barkan Industrial Zone, which is an economic mainstay of the settlement project." The Israeli Supreme Court recently ruled that workers' rights in the territories must be to the same standard as within Israel. Barkan Industrial Zone apparently fell short in many areas compared to the working conditions in Israel. This is being used by "pro-Palestinian" activists as a reason to close the industrial zone altogether - when, if they really cared about Palestinian Arab workers, they should be lobbying to improve conditions and oversight at Barkan, not shut it down and add to the West Bank's already high unemployment rate. Which makes this a good test case to find out how many people who claim they care about Palestinian Arabs really think: Should it be shut down and add to PalArab unemployment, or should it be improved and brought up to salary and working standards that will help ordinary West Bank Arabs? Should it become a test case for Arab-Jewish cooperation or should it be scrapped? The answers to those questions can tell a lot about how "pro-Palestinian" many of these activists are.

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