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.”
The life of an illegal transient
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.”
The making of an illegal transient
One of his fellow workers, Sa’id, has adopted Muhsein. He is 18.
We asked Muhsein what he does after work.
“Nothing.”
“Sa’id, why don’t you buy him a soccer ball?”
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.”
Four Years of Intifada
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.”
A broader horizon
Ahmad sees a broader horizon: “We’re neighbors. They can’t do without us and we can’t do without them.”
“Open the fence,” said Sa’id, “and let people go back to work”.
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.