Wrong Side of the Wall (Illegal Palestinian workers in Israel)

NIGHT unfurls its starry veil over the olive groves of Um al-Fahm, an Israeli Arab city. Beneath the trees sleep 2000 laborers from the West Bank who do not have permits to work in Israel. Most hail from villages near Jenin a few miles away – but on the other side of the separation barrier. This is no romantic idyll, no back-to-nature movement. They live in the groves for months on end. Scattered about are bottles of water which serve instead of showers, cans of vegetables, sardines, tuna, and cheese.

On erecting the separation barrier in April 2002, the Israeli government declared these workers to be illegal transients and began an all-out war against them, as well as against Arab Israeli citizens who help them to get here, or give them shelter, or employ them. The campaign bears the proud name of "Targeted Weeding," modeled on the program of "Targeted Assassination" carried out against leaders of the Palestinian militias. Thousands of such workers have been locked up in Haifa's Damun Prison, which is notorious for subhuman conditions. Hundreds are deported daily back to their villages, after being forced to pay fines. Yet despite Israel's determination, they always come back.

The claim of the government is that these workers constitute an infrastructure for what it calls terrorism. Some of them, it is said, provide information to their families, like the telephone numbers of the taxi drivers who bring them. The "terrorist" leaders receive the information and use it to reach their targets.

The workers I met at Um al-Fahm deny these charges. Says Nabil (22), from the nearby village of Anin: "The accusations have no basis. The Arabs living in East Jerusalem, and any Arab who can reach East Jerusalem (which is still no problem, because the barrier around the city is far from complete – A.A.), can then take a taxi unhindered to anywhere in Israel. No one needs to consult with us before making an attack. The purpose behind the barrier and the reason why they persecute us is to make our families starve, so that we'll pressure our leaders to give Israel what it wants."

We left Jaffa at dawn to meet with the workers. From their hideouts in the olive groves, they arrive at a square in Um al-Fahm called al-Midan. Here they huddle in hope of work. Um al-Fahm is itself a city of workers, located on the heights overlooking Wadi Ara and lower Galilee, close to the northwest part of the West Bank. Its inhabitants are Arab citizens of Israel. We had to reach al-Midan Square before 6 a.m., because by then the jobs of the day are distributed. Out of the 2000 candidates, only 300 at most will find work among those of their fellow Arabs who dare to hire them. The rest will have to drag themselves quietly back to the groves. They cannot merely wander in Um al-Fahm. They must avoid the Border Guard, and they must also avoid friction with the inhabitants of this highly religious city. Strangers are suspect here. So they spend the rest of the day in the groves, staring idly at the sky, until another day has passed. Then out to the square again.

Many come from the village of Anin, which is visible from Escandar Hill in Um al-Fahm. It is a ten-minute walk. "In the good old days we'd light a cigarette in Anin and put it out on arriving at Um al-Fahm," says Majed, aged 20. That was before the fence. Today the journey takes ten hours. From Anin the worker travels the length of the northern West Bank and sneaks into Jerusalem, from which he can share a taxi back up to Um al-Fahm. The trip will cost him between 140 and 200 shekels (4.5 shekels = one dollar). After his arrival, he can stand on Escandar Hill like Moses on Nebo, look at his village, so close, so far – and "eat his heart out," says Ahmad, aged 40.

"This is the naqba (catastrophe) of the worker," adds Muhammad (32), a father of six. "The worker has become a helpless refugee. If he stays in his village, he'll have to fight for a crust of bread. There simply isn't any work there, or if something does come along, he'll make 20 shekels a day. If he takes his chances, though, and comes here, then he has to fight the scorpions and snakes and freezing cold by night, and by day the army, the hazards on the job, the blazing sun, and hunger."

And death. Two months ago an 18-year-old worker fell from a scaffold at a building site while trying to escape from the Border Guard. He hadn't seen his family, in a village near Jenin, for three months. He came back dead. None of the workers knows his name. Another died in the groves from snakebite.

We were joined by Muhammad Nasser, aged 30, who recited some verses by Lebanese poet Eliah Abu Madi:

Time has filled thirty years of my life with endless seeking.

When I turned to the west in search of a living, life turned to the east; I swear, if I tried turning east, it'd go west.

We sleep in shacks abandoned by everything but owls, they screech and cry.

The walls and roofs are coming apart, we see the star when it rises and sets.

Hard lives are ours, but far from humiliation, and so they are sweet to the noble spirit.

When pain gnaws at my soul, I tell her, Patience! With patience you'll achieve the things you seek.

The workers nod. All agree that patience is the only way if they want to feed their children. This is expressed by the first Muhammad, the father of six. He and some of his friends were attacked five months ago by the Border Guard: "They beat us and stole our money, and then they deported us. From me they stole 1700 shekels, my pay for twenty days' work. We filed complaints, but nothing happened. That day I went back to my village in utter humiliation. How would another man feel in my place, returning to his children in humiliation, and his son says, 'Daddy came back without money.' How will his son feel? This is the utmost in humiliation."

Muhammad Nasser, the poetry lover, has worked for 18 years in Israel: "Most of the employers from Um al-Fahm pay the workers their wages, between 50 and 150 shekels a day, and treat us with respect. But there are others who exploit the fact that we're illegal in order to avoid paying up. My brother worked a stretch for one of these, each day from 7 a.m. until 11 p.m. He'd come back to the grove and sleep on his back and snore all night, like a slaughtered calf. And after all that, the guy didn't pay him a shekel."

Al-Midan Square has a coffee shop where the locals hang out from six in the morning. They too were once construction workers. Khaled Suleiman (62) from Um al-Fahm says: "What crime have these workers committed? All they want is a livelihood and freedom." Adds his neighbor, Mas'ud Hussein (42): "I feel pain and sympathy for them. We're all in the same pit."

In the group stands Muhsein, a little big man from Anin. He is 13, and he has been working in Israel for a year and a half. He ought to be in eighth grade, but ever since the death of his father, he has had to support his mother and twelve siblings. Muhsein works as a cleaner and anything else he can find, earning between 50 and 60 shekels per day. After work he sleeps in the grove or by the door of a mosque.

Sa'id: "That's all we need, that the army should come and yell at us, 'You still have the nerve to be playing here?'"

After the laughter, Sa'id went on: "Me too, I've never played ball. If you gave me one, I wouldn't know how to kick it. Since the age of ten I've been working in Israel. All my brothers did well in school except me, so my parents sent me to work."

Sa'id's family had a thriving business, exporting home decorations to Israel. The present Intifada destroyed their livelihood, and as a result the father collapsed. Sa'id then became the sole breadwinner for a family of sixteen. "Despite the hardships," he says, "I feel proud when my brothers and sisters bring back good grades. They look at me with a lot of respect, because I'm the oldest, and I'm in the role of their father."

The solution to the problem of illegal work could be simple: give these workers permits and allow them to enter Israel legally. But that would not square with Israeli policy as Nabil describes it: "The problem is that our demands, such as the right of return and Jerusalem, are hard for Israel to swallow; if fulfilled, they would end its existence. That's the reason for the continuing slaughter on both sides, which gets nowhere. We workers are hurt the most, because Israel uses us as hostages in order to impose its will on the Palestinian leadership."

Nabil sums up four years of Intifada: "Before it started, we demanded the right of return. Today we demand an Israeli withdrawal from our villages and an end to the closure; we've forgotten all about the right of return and Jerusalem. The Intifada has turned the clock back on many things."

These workers come from the "firing zone" of Jenin, regarded by many as the most important center of Palestinian resistance. When we asked Nabil about the forms this resistance takes, he was careful in his response: "This is not my business, and I can't answer you. I'm a worker and I love Palestine. The resistance has its own considerations and demands, and it's their right to demand them. I can tell you this, though: until now we haven't seen a single good result from this Intifada."

That was also the position of the other workers we talked to. Ahmad(40) had this to say: "The killing on both sides doesn't help. Both lose, and the workers are the ones who feel it in their pockets." Taher (46) adds: "People who work for the Palestinian Authority get their wages no matter what. But for us, the workers, there is no solution. The suicide actions have hurt us badly. We've neither liberated our homeland nor managed to make a living."

Despite this sobering picture, we did not hear a single word of despair. Maher (20) said simply: "They try to dry up our hope, but I won't lose it." We asked why not. "Because despair is not my way." Majed (20): "As long as Israel leaves an opening, we'll sneak in to work, even if we have to travel by way of Hebron." Other youngsters joined in: "The wall won't stop us from working!" Here Nabil introduced a touch of realism: "That isn't true. Here's our village Anin just across from us, and we can't get to it. The wall has stopped a lot of suicide actions, but it's also kept thousands from work."

Ahmad sees a broader horizon: "We're neighbors. They can't do without us and we can't do without them."

Hard lives are ours, but far from humiliation, and so they are sweet to the noble spirit.

When pain gnaws at my soul, I tell her, Patience! With patience you'll achieve the things you seek. n

Illegal West Bank Workers in Um al-Fahm

Wrong Side of the Wall