Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, November 2003, pages 44-45

Islam and the MidEast in the Far East

 

Study Finds Israel's Migrant Workers Endure "A Contemporary Form of Slavery"

 

By John Gee

Over 300,000 foreign migrants work in Israel. They now comprise 13 percent of its workforce—the highest proportion in any Western state apart from Switzerland. More than 200,000 of these migrant workers are now in Israel illegally.

Their situation is considered in a comprehensive report titled Migrant Workers in Israel, the contents of which justify its subtitle: "A Contemporary Form of Slavery".

The report, which received very little attention in the U.S. media, was released at the end of August. It was published by the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Network (EMHRN) and the Paris-based International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH). EMHRN links 60 human rights organizations in 20 countries in the Europe-Mediterranean region and FIDH is composed of 115 organizations based in 90 countries.

The report notes that there were relatively few foreign workers in Israel until the first intifada, when frequent closures prevented Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza Strip from traveling to work. Mass Soviet Jewish immigrations could not meet the demand for cheap labor, so Israelis who had formerly employed Palestinians sought temporary workers from overseas. The Ministry of Labor began issuing work permits valid for up to two years.

According to the report, the erosion of the Palestinians' position continued even during the relative calm immediately following the signing of the Oslo Agreement in 1993. Between 1992 and 1994, it notes, the number of work permits issued to Palestinians fell from 115,000 to 65,000: "The number of permits from the occupied territories dropped as a result of a separation policy, and not as a result of security measures." The numbers have been slashed further since, thus inflicting severe hardship on the workers' families.

Some supporters of the Palestinians used to argue that the workers of the West Bank and Gaza Strip provided Israel with such a cheap source of labor that they had become indispensable. It has long been evident, however, that the latter part of this argument was not true: when it suited Israeli governments over the past 15 years to cut down the number of Palestinian workers, they did so without hesitation. It turns out that another presumption was faulty as well: despite not needing to be flown to Israel or found accommodation, Palestinian workers were not cheaper than recruits from poor Asian countries. According to the FIDH-EMHRN report: "Looking at it crudely, from the employer's point of view, a Chinese costs $10 for 10 hours of work per day, while a Palestinian costs $30 for the same number of hours." Even though other foreign migrant workers normally are paid more, their average payment still is approximately half to two-thirds that of Palestinian laborers.

It is estimated that half the migrant workers come from Asia (China, Thailand and the Philippines), 45 percent from Eastern Europe (chiefly Romania and Moldova), and the remaining 5 percent from Africa and Latin America.

Those in the worst position are the Chinese who, the report says, "have all paid substantial sums—between $6,000 and $10,000 (several years' wages for a Chinese worker, which is often borrowed from friends and relatives) to the Chinese agency in order to work in Israel. The agency is licensed or controlled by the government—it was confirmed in the Knesset on 1 January 2002 that the Chinese government agency takes 25 percent of the worker's salary over two years as a commission; the agency and the Israeli agency pay for the visa fee and the transport and divide the profits between them."

The report refers to cases of Chinese workers being dumped at the roadside and told that there is no more work for them, and others threatened with deportation. In one case, reported in the April 1996 Kav La'Oved newsletter, a man due to be deported was held for 11 months in prison because he could not be sent home: he had legitimate grounds to fear that those from whom he had borrowed money to go to Israel would kill him when he returned and was unable to pay them off. The report does not say as much, but it appears that the Chinese government does little to help these workers via its embassy because they're a good cash cow.

Thais and Filipinos receive more protection from their governments, who insist upon proper contracts for their citizens. The Filipinos are also well organized, and a group of them even have affiliated with Israel's labor federation, the Histadrut. Nevertheless, they often are underpaid, paid late and forced to work longer hours than agreed. "The mission met Filipino care workers who had signed contracts for $700 per month, but only received $500, $200 being deducted for maintenance, although such a deduction was not mentioned in the contract."

The FIDH-EMHRN report points out that, both by its own treatment of the migrant workers and by its failure to act in defense of their rights, the state of Israel is in breach of provisions of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and of two major ILO conventions, to which it is a party. It also allows the violation of its own laws, which supposedly guarantee all workers 12 paid holidays a year, 9 days of paid religious holidays, maternity pay, sick pay and severance pay.

The conditions of many migrant workers improve if they work illegally. While tied to one employer as a legal worker, an individual may have his or her rights ignored by the employer and be unable to secure official help in seeking restitution. However, providing the worker can avoid deportation, s/he can choose more freely among jobs and find better wages than before.

The economic difficulties Israel faces as a result of the present intifada—brought on by its leaders' determination to hang onto occupied Palestinian lands—have pushed unemployment to its highest levels since the early 1950s and produced populist agitation against foreign workers, who supposedly are taking jobs from Israelis. In fact, Israelis refuse to work for the low pay and under the conditions those foreigners face. Nevertheless the migrant workers still experience a more hostile environment, and an official drive to deport illegal workers is still in progress.

Migrant Workers in Israel was researched and written by Michael Ellman, a London solicitor and member of the International Board of FIDH, and Smain Laacher, a Paris-based sociologist. The two went to Israel at the invitation of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (a FIDH affiliate) and Kav La'Oved (Workers' Hotline), whose dogged fight to secure better treatment for migrant workers in Israel will be familiar to long-term readers of this column.

 

Bomber Arrests and Trials Leave Unresolved Questions

The second death sentence on a Bali bomber was handed down by an Indonesian court on Sept. 10, after Imam Samudra was found guilty of planning the attacks, in which 202 people died. He also was found guilty of involvement in bombing churches on the island of Batam three years ago, and in a robbery to finance the Bali attacks. A month earlier, Amrozi Nurhasyim had been sentenced to death. Other co-conspirators were due to come to trial or be sentenced following trial after the Imam Samudra hearings ended. Next in line is Mukhlas, alias Ali Ghufron, who is said to have been been the Jemaah Islamiah's (JI's) regional commander for Malaysia and Singapore when the decision was made to carry out an attack in Bali.

Mukhlas was the oldest of three brothers involved in the Bali bombings, the others being Amrozi and Ali Imron.

A curious blend of attitudes has emerged in the testimonies to date. While all those involved insist that they acted for Islam, they have exhibited some attitudes that do not sit well with their attempts to portray themselves as high-minded fighters. In his testimony at one trial, Ali Imron said, "Frankly, I do regret it because even though the victims were mostly whites, it was still wrong." Imam Samudra, during his trial, said, "I'd like to say thank you to the prosecuting team, which has demanded the death sentence. Because in death we live peacefully, and in death we draw near to God."

The implied hostility to others on the basis of their color and a professed eagerness to give up the gift of life when it is not necessary go against the beliefs of most Muslims.

Most bizarre was Ali Imron's description of how he and Amrozi took the tires off the van bought to carry the main bomb used in the Bali attacks and changed them for older ones, in the hope that they could later sell them for a good price. Such concern for making a few bucks while preparing to kill and maim hundreds of people does not attest to profound idealism.

The first steps toward the Bali attacks were taken after the breaking up of JI networks in Singapore and Malaysia. Hambali, alias Riduan Isamuddin, was the chief figure linking JI to al-Qaeda. He convened a meeting of JI activists in southern Thailand in January 2002, where he is reported to have told them to move away from planning attacks upon targets such as embassies, where security had been stepped up, to softer ones, such as bars or other places where foreigners gathered. Another meeting was held the following month in Bangkok, when Hambali handed over most of his role to Mukhlas. It was at that meeting that Bali, a predominantly Hindu island which makes much of its income from Western tourism, was identified as a target.

Thailand was evidently a relatively safe haven at that point. It does not seem to have been on the alert for JI activities, and was only stung into taking them more seriously after the Bali attacks. Hambali was captured in a joint Thai-CIA operation in August in Ayutthaya. New industrial areas have sprung up in this ancient and historic city, along with modern flats, and it was in one of these that Hambali was finally cornered and delivered into U.S. custody.

All these arrests and trials have not resolved the exact status of Abubakar Bashir. His trial on charges of seeking to overthrow the Indonesian government and leading the JI ended on Sept. 2 with his being sentenced to a four-year prison term. The Indonesian court found him guilty of taking part in, but not of leading, anti-government subversion, and decided that there was not enough evidence to prove that he was the JI's leader. Critics within and outside Indonesia thought that Bashir got off lightly in the face of overwhelming evidence, but it remained unclear how much hands-on operational involvement he had: that seemed to have been left to others, while Bashir put out a politico-religious message that supported JI's aims.

John Gee is a free-lance journalist based in Singapore and the author of Unequal Conflict: The Palestinians and Israel, available from the AET Book Club.

< Prev		Next >