Palestinian Child Labor in Israeli Settlements

Al-Jazeera published an article today about Palestinian children working in Israeli settlements. Israeli settlements have been deemed illegal according to international law. In the Jordan Valley, there are approximately 60,000 Palestinians and 9,500 Israelis living in 37 settlements.

Between 10000 to 20,000 Palestinians work inside Jordan Valley settlements, which varies according to the season. Five to ten percent of these numbers are child workers. These children often forgo school in order to make money for their families, who are often in or on the brink of poverty. There is a high drop out rate in the Jordan Valley because of the weak educational system, lack of adequate infrastructure, and Israeli restrictions on building new schools for Palestinians. According to a 2012 report from the Ma'an Development Centre, during the 2011/2012 school year, there were 10,000 children living in this area who started the school year in tents, caravans, or tin shacks. The report also notes that nearly one-third of schools here lack adequate water and sanitation facilities.

Children have been employed by settlers to clean, lift boxes, pick and package vegetables and fruit, working in extreme heat (up to 50-degrees Celcius) for eight to nine hour shifts. They earn approximately 50-90NIS ($14-$25) per shift, which is about 25-50 percent what they are entitled to under Israeli labor laws.

The short article is worth reading, as it touches upon the tough decisions children make in deciding to work in this context, including the push and pull factors hat influence their decisions.

[Photo: Ma'an Development Centre / Al Jazeera]

Hebron

Today, I travelled to Hebron, which, with 160,000 inhabitants, is one of the largest city in the West Bank. What makes Hebron unusual is the presence of 5 settlements and 500 Israeli settlers in the middle of the city center. Israeli army presence here is massive, and Palestinians are unable to cross through settler-occupied areas to reach other parts of town. This has consistently caused violence clashes between settlers and Palestinians, and israeli soldiers are occasionally sent in to evict Israeli settlers who are deemed under Israeli law to be illegally squatting in Palestinian homes and buildings.

Hebron has a rich religious history, which is linked to its recent violent history. In Islamic tradition, Adam and Eve lived here after being exiled form the Garden of Eden, while the presence of the Tomb of the Patriarchs - the collective tomb of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, along with their wives - makes it sacred to Jews, Christians, and Muslims alike. Although instead of promoting like-minded links between the major monotheistic religions, this has made Hebron a flashpoint for religious violence, most famously culminating in the Baruch Goldstein massacre.

In 1994, during Ramadan, Dr. Baruch Goldstein, an American-Israeli settler from Kiryat Arba in Hebron, opened fire on Palestinians praying in the Haram al-Ibrahimi Mosque, killing 29 men and boys in the back and wounding 150-200 others. After this incident, tensions between the Palestinians and the settlers grew, and the

city was divided into H1 (80% of the municipality of Hebron, under Palesti

nian control) and H2 (20%, which is under Israeli control). The 40,000 Palestinians living in H2 face daily harassment from the Israeli army and settlers. The open-air markets have been covered with netting, to catch the detritus and rubbish that the settlers throw down from the upper floors (see photo to the right). International human rights organizations keep 'observer' groups in town Voluntary teams (such as the Christian Peacemakers Team, who I interviewed) escort Palestinian children to school to protect them from settlers throwing rocks and verbally harassing them. Palestinian violence against settlers, too, has sometimes flared up.

When I was walking through the semi-abandoned market, there were Israeli soldiers on every rooftop, following my every move. I would often turn a corner and be face-to-face with 5 or 6 soldiers in full combat gear with the guns facing me. Unlike all of the other Palestinian markets that I have visited - Jenin, Nablus, Ramallah, Bethlehem, East Jerusalem - children were conspicuously absent from the city streets. At one point when I looked up through the netting and wires and eclipsed the blue sky above, I saw some children poking the heads outside of a window covered with bars. I waved at them, and they laughed and waved at me. In another area of the Old City, where I was told the poultry market once used to be bustling with commerce,

there were four young boys tending to cages filled with pigeons. They saw my camera, rushed over, and asked for an impromptu photo shoot. I obliged, as they became giddy each time they were able to see themselves reflected in the digital photo.

In H2, I saw anti-Palestinian graffiti, such as "Gas the Arabs" written on the doors of a Palestinian home. The morning of my visit, a settler drove to the entrance of the Arroub refugee camp and shot two Palestinian teenagers, accusing them of throwing stones. As

I write this, the boys in critical condition in the hospital (see the news story here). To quote a 2004 report by The Alternative Information Centre's Occupation in Hebron, "Israel's settlement policy, which supports the presence of radical Jewish fundamentalists with a strong anti-Arab ideology in the middle of a Palestinian city, is the proximate reason for the high level of violence in Hebron."

West Bank Settlements

Today, I visited some of the Israeli settlements around the West Bank. Israeli Jewish colonies set up in the Palestinian Territories are most often referred to as "settlements", although this is seen as a somewhat derogatory term to settlers and Israelis, mainly because there is so much politics tied to the term. According to the CIA World Factbook, some 187,000 Israeli settlers currently live in more than 100 such settlements in the West Bank, with around another 177,000 in the area of Arab East Jerusalem.

The World Court and UN Security Council both condemn settlement building as illegal under international law, a ruling that Israel disputes; the United States and the European Union have commonly deemed settlements an obstacle to peace and have urged Israel to stop further building. In May 2009, President Barack Obama demanded a freeze

of settlement construction in the West Bank. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded by saying, "Israel...will abide by its commitments not to build new settlements and to dismantle unauthorized outposts." Reports of continued settlement construction and expansion, however, have appeared in the international press. My trip to visit the settlements has also confirmed that there has not been a freeze to settlement construction. (See the picture to the right of Ariel settlement, where there is active construction on the expansion of the University). Netanyahu has stated, on several occasions, that settlement construction and expansion is part of the "natural growth" of the Israeli population. But it seems that settlement construction is designed to annexe large parts of the Palestinian Territories, thereby marginalizing and fragmenting the Palestinian population.

Settlements range in size from a collection of caravans on a remote hilltop to large urban areas, such as Ma'ale Adumim near Jerusalem, home to tens of thousands of Israelis and now considered by most Israelis to be a suburb of Jerusalem. I visited the settlement of Rahelim, near Nablus, and the settler who spoke with me gave me a short tour of the compound, which included the construction of a new preschool, funded by an American organization. I visited the large settlement of Ariel, which includes a university campus and 25,000 settlers. The settlement of Alfe Menache, which is a few miles from the Green Line, is considered a "moderate" settlement, with the residents hoping that they will one day be absorbed by the Green Line (as it moves closer in towards the West Bank) and become part of Israel.

The settlers in all of these communities have moved to the West Bank for both ideological (they believe the land belongs to them as the fulfillment of biblical prophecy) or economic reasons (the rent is cheap). Most of the people that I interviewed expressed an enormous amount of apathy for the occupation and the plight of the Palestinians ("Are we in the territories? I didn't even

notice!"). None had visited a Palestinian village, and most considered the land that they settled on to be just another part of Israel ("This land didn't belong to anyone when we arrived.").

Palestinians claim that the settlements illegally occupy land belonging to Palestinians, and that they frequently divert precious water resources from nearby Palestinian cities, towns and villages. Many roads threading their way through the West Bank as access roads to settlements off-limits to Palestinians, who commonly refer to these as "apartheid roads". Security around these roads and settlements means that Palestinians are frequently required to perform lengthy diversions to get to work, school, or elsewhere. There are numerous reports of harassment of Palestinians by settlers. As I drove along the road running south of Mount Gerizim, I saw some fields burning and a lot of Israeli military on the road. When I read the news later, I saw that the settlers living in the settlement of Yizhar had set fire to the olive and almond groves of the Palestinian fields of the neighboring Palestinian village, Urif, burning over 100 dunums (about 24 acres). See the news story here.

South Hebron Hills

Today, I toured the South Hebron Hills with a former Israeli soldier, Avichai, from an organization called Breaking the Silence, which aims to share what it is like to serve as a solider with the Israeli army. According to Avichai and Breaking the Silence, "The South Hebron Hills are situated far away form the inquiring eyes of Israeli society. They are almost completely ignored by the media and in public discourse. This large region and the many Palestinians who live there are forgotten in the conversations conducted about the future of the conflict. We, soldiers who served in the South Hebron Hills, have been witness to the consequences of this callous disregard. It's our duty to inform Israeli society about what happens in the Territories in its name, and hold a mirror that reflects the price of our presence in the Territories."

Much of the area of the South Hebron Hills has been confiscated illegally by the Israeli government and illegally by Israeli settlers to build the growing settlements of Carmel, Ma'on, and Otniel. Avichai told me about his training, which carried an overtone of treating all Palestinians as potential "terrorists", even if they had not committed any offense. He also said that his main job was to protect the settlers, even though they are living illegally on Palestinian land. Avichai introduced me to Yassir, a Palestinian resident of the village Susiya, who told the story of his village (consisting of tents and small caves) being destroyed by the settlers during the heat of July one year. The Red Crescent Society came and provided them with more tents, which were only large enough

for the children to stay in. But the Israeli civil administrators came and confiscated the tents saying they were illegal. When the villagers sought shelter in the shade of the olive trees, the military came and chopped down their olive trees. When they went to stay with the shepherds and their herd, the military came and blared their sirens so the herd would scatter in fear. I was moved to tears when he said, "We have only tents and caves - they are nothing - and they want to destroy it all." [See the photo of Yassir's home consisting of tents, with the Israeli settlement - red-roofed homes - in the distance behind it.] Unfortunately, stories like this are not uncommon.

We drove past the Palestinian town of Yatta, which has 40,000 inhabitants. Although agriculture used to be the village's mainstay, only a small fraction of its working population now works on the land. Yatta's land has been regularly confiscated from the town to build the settlements of Carmel, Ma'on, Otniel, and others. The majority of workers would daily cross the Green Line (5 kilometers away), often illegally, depending for their living on jobs in israeli industry and agriculture in the north of the Negev; these days the closures, checkpoints and absence of freedom of movement have hit this area badly.

Jacob's Well

Israel and the Occupied Palestinian territories host three great monotheistic faiths: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. On my visit to Jacob's Well, near Balata, I found a major Christian site, tended by a kindly Muslim man, Mohammed (and assisted by his 4-year-old grandson). Jacob's Well is the place where Christian's believe a Samaritan woman offered Jesus a drink of water, and he then revealed to her that he was the Messiah, which he didn't do that often. This is reflected in the parable: "Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again: but whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst" (John 4:13-14). A Byzantine church destroyed in the Samaritan revolt of 529 was replaced by a Crusader church, which is currently being restored single-handedly by a kindly old, gnome-like Byzantine priest. In 1979, a group of Jewish settlers claiming biblical ownership of the spot tried to occupy it. The monk tending the site was murdered, with an axe, but the settlers did not succeed in their endeavor. The current priest (pictured above) has had various attempts on his life from the settlers, while he has defended the site.

Amman to Nablus via the King Hussein/Allenby Bridge Border Crossing

Amman is only about 200k from Nablus, but, due to the numerous checkpoints and security features installed by Israel, it me took over 9 hours to get here. I catalogued my border crossing, entering Israel from Jordan via the King Hussein/Allenby Bridge border crossing:

- Drive 100K from Amman to Jordan-Israel border (1 hour)

- Taxi drop off on Jordan side of the border

- Walk about 2K (with luggage) to bus depot

- Give luggage to Jordanian official to be X-rayed; retrieve luggage

- Give passport to Israeli official

- Pay 5JD ($7.50); get on bus

- Get passport with Jordanian exit stamp

- Depart on bus; drive about 5K through the Jordan Valley, passing through several military checkpoints (30 minutes)

- Get off bus at Allenby Bridge Crossing; walk past fierce-looking man dressed in jeans and T-shirt, carrying large semi-automatic weapon

- Give luggage and passport to Israeli official

- Wait in line to get passport back

- Wait in line to get passport checked

- Wait in line to get personal belongings X-rayed

- Walk through metal detector

- Wait in line for passport control; answer questions; forfeit passport

- Fill out personal information form; wait in passenger waiting area (2 hours)

- Meet with Israeli official; answer more questions (15 minutes)

- Wait in passenger waiting area (1 hour)

- Meet with Israeli military officer; answer more questions (15 minutes)

- Wait in passenger waiting area (1 hour)

- Get called by Israeli official to retrieve passport; exit passenger waiting area

- Give passport to Israeli official; get another sticker on passport

- Retrieve luggage

- Exit Allenby Bridge Crossing Point

I took a bus from the border to Jericho (the world's oldest continuously inhabited city, settled 10,000 years ago) and then took a shared taxi through Ramallah and onwards to Nablus. The driver, (a surly young man who got into a fight with an elderly passenger and then a Palestinian Authority official), took a circuitous route to avoid the military checkpoints, so the journey took twice as long. But the drive was fascinating. Rising from Jericho into the hills, I could see one of the West Bank's largest and most contentious Israeli settlements, Ma'ale Adumim, which sprawls atop the hills slipping eastwards down from Jerusalem. It achieved official Israeli city status in 1991, and is home to over 30,000 settlers who live there illegally (according to international bodies) on Palestinian land. Palestinians claim that Israel's plan for Ma'ale Adumim's continual expansion is to ensure an 'outer ring' of Israeli settlements that will have the effect of isolating East Jerusalem from Jericho, and eventually the north West Bank form the south, cutting the entire West Bank in half.

On the short drive to Nablus, I didn't expect to see so many settlements, and I tried to write down as many names as I could (while losing a battle of window roll-up/roll-down with my driver): Rimmonim, Ma'ele Efrayim, Qusra, Migdallim, and Gav Hahar. They rose up like green oases - with maroon-tiled houses in the middle - amidst the hilly desert landscape. There are 187,000 Israeli settlers currently living in more than 100 settlements in the West Bank, with around another 177,000 in Palestinian East Jerusalem. One of the issues that I would like to explore more is the issue of settler violence, as there have been reports of settlers attacking Palestinian children on their way to school and destroying families livelihoods (e.g., farms and olive groves), which obviously has short- and long-term impacts on children and families. In fact, last week, Israeli settlers were accused of burning down a mosque in Luban al Sharqiya, near Nablus.