Apartheid

205
In most cases, these passes are issued to allow Palestinians to work outside the Palestinian
self-rule areas. Others are issued to allow the Palestinians to leave the country (because they
must pass over Israeli territory in order to travel abroad). Yet, in many cases these passes are
not issued at all, or they are issued for two to three hours only.
This is a problem especially for Palestinian youths, since they are seen by Israel as the
greatest threat to security. The Pass Laws are implemented with painstaking pedantry at the
Gaza Erez crossing, where people from the ages 18 to 35 have little or no chance of ever
being allowed into Israel. Only medical doctors and a few other professionals who fall within
this age group and are considered essential for Israel are at times allowed in.
According to Edward Said:
There was a proliferation of over a thousand laws and regulations
designed... to rub their noses in the mud, to humiliate and remind them
of how they were doomed to less-than-human status... To hold
meetings required a permit. Entry and exit required permits. To dig a
well required a permit – one that was never given. 455
Palestinians also suffer from economic limitations due to the Israeli-imposed closures
of checkpoints, markets, shops and, indeed, whole towns and cities. Palestinian trade
depended entirely on Israeli supervision until 1992. After limited Palestinian self-rule was
established within certain enclaves in 1995, the Palestinians still lacked direct export and
import access. These limitations were due to Israeli security procedures, such as checkpoint
controls and periodic ‘shortages’ of passes for movement, especially to indigenous residents
of the West Bank and Gaza. 456 Aside from trade, Palestinian economic development also still
depends almost entirely on Israel: ‘This economic reality in Palestine is shaped by two
factors: the interdependence of the Palestinian and the Israeli communities and the power
imbalance, favoring the Israelis’. 457
Israel’s main export market is still Palestine, because it forces Palestinians to buy
Israeli products. In value, it dropped from $1 billion in 2000 to $250 million in 2002, mainly
due to the Second Intifada. However, much of Israel’s export is unofficial, illegal and
clandestine. For instance it sells large amounts of goods to the Palestinians and to Arab
countries that nominally boycott Israeli goods. This is done by utilization of Arab sanctionsbusting
businessmen, hiding ‘Made in Israel’-markings in parts of products, for example of
mobile phones and audio headsets, that are not visible to consumers, and the like. Similarly,
many of Israel’s huge military exports are illegal and therefore also unofficial. 458
The exploitation of Palestinian labor takes place in ways most similar to apartheid
South Africa, i.e. through low wages. In the settlements, especially, Palestinian laborers are
given less than the Israeli law stipulates as minimum wages, despite protests from the
International Labor Organization, ILO, and other authoritative bodies. Moreover, medical
insurance covering work-related accidents, also required of employers by Israeli law, is
mostly unavailable to Palestinian laborers. Interestingly, the Israeli state has never enforced
any punishment of these flagrant abuses of the law by the settlers. 459
Since 1992, Israelis employ less Palestinian workers from the West Bank and Gaza.
Instead, like the Greeks and the South African Whites before them, they import workers from
abroad. In Israel they have come mainly from Lebanon and Thailand. From 1992 to 1996,
455
Ibid.
456
Palestinian Development Plan 1998-2000: Summary Document, Ramallah: Palestinian Authority, December
1997: 8
457
Olmsted: Thwarting Palestinian Development, 1996: 11
458
Immanuel: Israeli Products Slip through Cracks in Arab Boycott, 2002
459
Law Society: Palestinian Workers Exploited & Israeli Economic Oppression: The Case of Settlement
Workers, Palestinian Workers in Israeli Settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, 2000, Chapter 2.2., Wages