Israel Matzav

'Palestinians' opposed to 'settlement freeze'

Many 'Palestinians' are opposed to a Jewish 'settlement freeze' in Judea and Samaria as demanded by the Obama administration. Their opposition can be summed up in two words: economic necessity.

"I don't care what the leaders say and do," al-Najjar told The Jerusalem Post at one of the new construction sites in Ma'aleh Adumim. "I need to feed my seven children, and that's all I care about for now."

The phenomenon of Palestinians building new homes for Jewish settlers is not new. In fact, Palestinian laborers have been working in the construction business from the first day the settlements began in the West Bank.

Today, Palestinian Authority officials estimate, more than 12,000 Palestinians are employed by both Jewish and Arab contractors building new homes in the settlements.

In some cases, Palestinians have found jobs in settlements that are located near their villages and towns.

Jamal Abu Sharikheh, 27, of the village of Bet Ur al-Tahta, has been working as a construction laborer in Givat Ze'ev for the past three years.

Asked if he had any problem building homes in the settlements at a time when the international community was demanding that Israel freeze the construction work, the father of four also said he was trying to support his family "in a dignified manner."

He and most of the laborers interviewed by the Post over the past week said they had never come under pressure from fellow Palestinians to stay away from work in the settlements.

"If they want us to leave our work, they should offer us an alternative," Abu Sharikheh said. "We don't come to work in the settlements for ideological reasons or because we support the settlement movement. We come here because our Palestinian and Arab governments haven't done anything to provide us with better jobs."

Back in Ma'aleh Adumim, most of the Palestinian laborers said they had no problem revealing their identities.

"We're not doing anything wrong," explained Ibrahim Abu Tair, a 42-year-old father of eight from the village of Um Tuba, southwest of Jerusalem. "We're not collaborators and we're not terrorists. We just want to work."

It's more than just that. The article goes on to say that the Israeli employers pay the 'Palestinian' laborers three times what 'Palestinian' employers would pay.

But this has been the problem with the 'Palestinian Authority' from the beginning. They never had any interest in creating jobs - they were only interested in 'creating' a 'revolution' through terror. With all of the billions the 'international community' has squandered on the 'Palestinians,' none of it has gone to create jobs. But the Obama administration looks down its nose when Prime Minister Netanyahu says that he wants to help the 'Palestinians' build their state reichlet economically from the ground up.

Speaking of which, don't think any of these 'Palestinians' actually believe that they will eventually live in peace with Israel.

While most of the laborers told the Post that they were opposed to the settlements, they nevertheless stressed that they would continue to show up for work every day.

"If you see how big some of these settlements are, you will understand why the talk about a two-state solution is kalam fadi [nonsense]," commented Iyad Mansour, 55, of the Kalandia refugee camp, who has been working in Ma'aleh Adumim for the past three years.

"These settlements are growing every day at a very fast pace," he said. "One day you see empty land, the next day you see new buildings. They are really fast in planning and building. But who knows? Maybe these settlements will one day become homes for Palestinian refugees."

At the end of the day, they will be here or we will be here. We should be doing all we can to make sure that we are the ones who are here at the end of the day.

Read the whole thing.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 10:19 AM