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Israeli Exploitation and Abuse of Palestinian Workers

Written by Subject: Israel - Palestine

Israeli Exploitation and Abuse of Palestinian Workers

by Stephen Lendman (stephenlendman.org - Home - Stephen Lendman)

US establishment media ignore the worst of Israeli illegal colonization, occupation, and apartheid rule.

With rare exceptions, US politicians one-sidedly support Israel, ignoring its high crimes of war, against humanity, and slow-motion genocide against the Palestinian people.

Combined they comprise the highest of high crimes, long ago criminalized under international law that's never enforced against the US, other Western countries, Israel, and their imperial allies — only their victims, falsely blamed for crimes committed against them.

Longstanding con man Bernie Sanders is on the wrong side of most vital issues, including the Jewish state, earlier saying "I am 100% Pro-Israel."

Translation: He fully supports Israel's hostility toward peace, opposition to the rule of law, and anti-human rights agenda — by ignoring its high crimes internally and abroad, while in favor of supplying its ruling regimes with billions of dollars of free money annually that's largely for military purposes, courtesy of US taxpayers who have no say about it. 

Nearly the entire US political class, past and present, operates the same way — the lot of them war criminals under international and US constitutional law.

Israel exploits and abuses Palestinians, including workers involved in agriculture, construction and other sectors of the country that its ruling regimes consider essential.

They endure deplorable conditions, earning sub-poverty wages and no benefits.

They're at risk of contracting COVID-19 and being unceremoniously dumped in the West Bank on their own if suspected of showing symptoms.

In late March, a Palestinian related a horror story to the Middle East Eye (MEE), saying:

He saw someone lying on the ground near an Israeli checkpoint, saying "he looked terribly ill" and feverish.

"He could barely move his body and he was struggling to breathe." Israelis "threw him here on the ground and left him" like unwanted garbage.

"How could they do this to someone," he asked? "It shouldn't matter if he's Palestinian, Israeli, or whatever." 

He was a Palestinian laborer in Israel. When later tested for COVIV-19, results were negative.

Other Palestinian workers in Israel showing suspicious symptoms are treated just as brutally.

"This is the true face of the Israeli occupation. They kill us on a daily basis, so this isn't any different for them" — what the MEE was told, the hard truth ignored in the West, ruling regimes in the US and Europe supporting Israeli ziofascism.

The PA is no better, operating in cahoots with Israel for special benefits afforded its corrupted officials.

Another Palestinian told MEE that he "never trusted the Israeli government with (his) life, so of course (he doesn't) trust them to protect (his) rights or health," adding:

"But (available work in the country when nothing else is available) is the only option (he has) to keep (himself) and (his) family afloat."

Abusive mistreatment of Palestinians is longstanding Israeli policy — with full support and encouragement from US regimes that are hostile toward ordinary people everywhere.

Working close to others in Israel regularly risks contracting COVID-19. Days earlier, the PA reported 495 COVID-19 cases in the Occupied Territories, claiming only 17 in Gaza.

The true numbers are surely far higher, maybe thousands of unreported cases because of scant efforts to test or otherwise keep track of and treat infected Palestinians.

Gaza's two million residents crammed into 17-square miles makes the Strip more densely populated by this number of people than anywhere else.

People living in close proximity to others make their area a breeding ground for spreading infectious disease when outbreaks occur.

Mondoweiss cited models developed by Ines Abdeljaoued-Tej that predict "11,014 (to) 113,171 cases of COVID-19 in Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem."

He expects peak outbreaks to occur in late May, the death rate in the Occupied Territories lower than in most other countries.

Since COVID-19 outbreaks began in Israel and the West Bank, settler attacks on Palestinians increased — ignored or aided by Netanyahu regime security forces.

On April 30, B'Tselem explained that Palestinian workers in Israel are unprotected, leaving them vulnerable to abusive practices by the Jewish state and employers.

They endure cruel and degrading treatment, in some cases endangering their lives and well-being.

Unlike Israeli workers, they have no benefits or rights. Away from home in the West Bank or East Jerusalem, no accommodations were made for them to sleep, get medical treatment if needed, or address other needs if arise.

They're on their own for abysmally low wages under abominable working conditions their Western counterparts wouldn't tolerate.

According to B'Tselem, Israel offered work to around 70,000 Palestinians. Only about 20,000 took up the offer.

"These workers did not receive any compensation, such as unemployment wages or a grant, and many were fired without compensation," adding: 

"The laborers now remaining in Israel have no medical insurance, and should they have to return to the West Bank for treatment, they risk losing their job." 

"In three cases that B'Tselem documented, laborers suspected of contracting the virus were taken to a checkpoint in the West Bank and left there, with no medical assistance or coordination with any authority on the West Bank."

As of May 3, thousands more Palestinians willing to accept rotten work in Israel will be prohibited from returning home until Ramadan ends on May 23.

B'Tselem stressed that Israeli occupation "is inextricably bound up in human rights violations."

The only solution is ending occupation, Palestinians and Israelis living in one state, serving all its people equitably.

Clearly it won't happen without all-out resistance against ziofascist repression.

Power yields nothing unless compelled.

VISIT MY WEBSITE: stephenlendman.org (Home - Stephen Lendman). Contact at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

My two Wall Street books are timely reading:

"How Wall Street Fleeces America: Privatized Banking, Government Collusion, and Class War"

https://www.claritypress.com/product/how-wall-street-fleeces-america/

"Banker Occupation: Waging Financial War on Humanity"

https://www.claritypress.com/product/banker-occupation-waging-financial-war-on-humanity/

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