Martin Wicks, editor of the trade union magazine Solidarity recently visited Israel as a guest of the Workers Advice Centres, a trade union initiative. Below is an edited version of his report.
This was my first trip to Israel. I’ve read widely on the conflict and know a fair amount about it, but seeing the reality before your eyes gives you a much more graphic sense of the political, social and economic situation than just reading from the printed page.
I went as a guest of the Workers Advice Centres (WAC), which was originally an information centre that also provided legal assistance for Arab workers, who comprise nearly 20% of the population. It ran practical campaigns eg securing benefits for unemployed people in annexed East Jerusalem after the authorities closed down the benefit office. It also continues to provide legal assistance for individual workers.
After a number of years of this activity it decided to try to organise a new trade union.
Histadrut is the internationally recognised ‘trade union’, yet it is not a real trade union. It originated as a Zionist labour organisation to create jobs for Jews in Palestine. Until 1956 it did not allow Arabs to join, and even since it has done little for them. When the government decided to introduce foreign labour, Histadrut agreed that they could be employed at lower rates than Israeli workers.
Histadrut used to be a major employer itself, but faced a big crisis when all its companies were privatised recently and as a result it lost most of its membership
Riding on the train from Tel Aviv to Haifa, the first thing that struck me was the militarisation of Israeli society. Everywhere there were men and women in uniform, some with heavy weapons nonchalantly slung across the shoulder (hopefully with the safety catch on).
Israel is a paranoid society, in which "security" is a big industry. There are "guards" everywhere, many of them civilian, who check your bags when you enter railway stations, public buildings or even gardens. Indeed you can imagine an economic crisis if peace reigned and all these people were put out of work.
I visited Madj al-Krum, an Arab village, really a small town, with a population of 11,500. It sits on the slopes of a valley along which there five Arab villages are spread. Through the floor of the valley runs a road that splits it in half.
On the other side, on a higher site, lies the city of Carmiel, a Jewish city built on confiscated Arab land. In this valley there are two communities, as different as chalk and cheese.
On the Carmiel side is wealth and opulence, covered with greenery. There is no shortage of water here. On the other side you see an arid picture, a neglected community, with houses rising on the craggy, barren slopes. There is a water shortage, not because of any technical difficulties but because these people are Arabs.
The flowers of Carmiel are treated better than the Arabs on the other side of the valley. Even though they are Israeli citizens they are denied the same rights as Jewish citizens and they are denied the resources which the latter have.
The richness of Carmiel looks down on the other side of the valley seemingly mocking the Arabs and reminding them of their true place in Israeli society – at its very bottom.
But even this is not enough. There are some Arab houses on the wrong side of the road further down the valley. Carmiel wants them to cross the road to where they are supposed to belong. They want to develop the ‘Jewish’ side but these Arabs are in the way. They have bought out some of them, and they are seeking to pressure the rest to move from homes in which they have lived for years.
No Arabs can live in Carmiel. They must cross the road to where they belong! Samia Khatib, a woman activist in Majd al-Krum, described the situation as "third world over here, first world over there".
This is Israel, a colonialist and deeply racist society. The same traits are reflected elsewhere, in different ways.
I was shown around Jaffa, originally an Arab city (with a small Jewish population), by Asma Agbaria, a young Israeli Arab woman, who is the chairperson of WAC. Jaffa is just outside Tel Aviv. As Tel Aviv expands, Jaffa is needed for housing for Jews, and the town is being ‘developed’ with luxury apartments.
In the shadow of one big block I saw a couple of rough and poor one storey houses of bloody minded Jaffan Arabs who will not move. As you walk around Jaffa, a neglected city, you see islands of opulence, as if you have a ‘first world’ city co-existing with a ‘third world’ city in random arrangement, which makes a mockery of the word planning.
Jaffa is an old port that has been left to rot. In the harbour is a fishing fleet that supports 300 families. Once again these people are in the wrong place. The fishing fleet has to move to re-develop the harbour as a marina for rich Israelis. Capitalism will, of course, take the money of a few rich Arabs, just to show there are no hard feelings.
The fishing fleet might have to travel further for their fish, but no matter. Such is the path of progress in Israel.
Whilst the Arabs suffer national oppression in Israel there is also a class division which cuts across communities. The Arab leaders of the council in Jaffa, associated with the Israeli Labour Party, have gone along with the plan to ‘re-develop’ Jaffa. This will bring plenty of money into the town – but it is unlikely that many Arabs will see much of it.
Everywhere there is national oppression, some members of the oppressed minority will make their peace with the ruling power to further their own interests at the expense of the majority. In South Africa for example there has been the enrichment of a small number of black people whilst the majority remain in shanty towns.
I visited the WAC office in Nazareth, the only predominantly Arab city in Israel. However, it has suffered the consequences of a new Jewish town, Upper Nazareth (or Nazareth Illit), built near-by, overlooking it from a hill-top, like a fortress.
Two activists of WAC, Khitam Na’amneh and Manal Jabour showed me round. They told me Nazareth used to have a thriving market. But since the building of Upper Nazareth and the arrival of hypermarkets, this has declined. When I visited, the old town centre, where the market used to be, was lifeless.
The WAC has mainly but not exclusively concentrated on organising Arab workers (it was involved in a campaign in a Heineken Factory which involved both Arab and Jewish workers). Arab workers face a job apartheid, mostly confined to construction and labouring jobs, as well as service sector jobs. Official unemployment rate is 20% but the real figures are undoubtedly higher.
I sat in on a meeting with some local people who WAC were trying to persuade to take building jobs they had negotiated with the employers. Asked whether they had any experience of this work, one young man said: "Every Arab knows this work." They wondered whether these were jobs worth taking because of their experience of being turfed out of jobs that were supposedly permanent but had proved to be temporary.
At the time of the first Intifada, when the borders with the West Bank were closed, workers who had jobs in Israel could not get to work. This created a shortage of labour that led the government to introduce foreign labour. Many of these workers have worked under virtually slave labour conditions – earning wages below the minimum level for Israeli workers. Unemployment levels have risen amongst Arab workers and add to their discrimination.
WAC has fought for jobs for Arab workers in the building industry. But the employers prefer to employ imported labour because it is cheaper and these workers are more quiescent because they do not want to lose their jobs. The building employers federation is currently taking the government to court since it reduced the number of foreign labourers allowed in the country. They want more.
A couple of companies said they would take local Arab workers if they could find them, so WAC has put this to the test. Whilst the work of WAC is on a small scale (it has secured around 100 jobs, and has less than 500 members) it is nonetheless politically important, since nobody else is attempting to organise Arab workers.
Obviously the Israeli regime is not enthusiastic about an independent union for its Arab population. WAC was registered with the Registrar of Non-Profit Associations only after a 2-year struggle. Since then the Registrar has again raised questions about the registration – though without definite charges.
WAC asked the International Labour Organisation to intercede with the Israeli authorities. Unfortunately the ILO disingenuously responded that WAC was not "a workers’ organisation", therefore, they could not help.
My Trades Council in Swindon wrote in support of WAC to the ILO, who responded that if they had evidence that ‘the situation’ had changed then they would reconsider their decision.
Perhaps the real point is that the ILO don’t want to upset the Histadrut. The work of WAC in the building industry shows that it is building trade union organisation, if anybody doubted it. Labour movement organisations should write to the Israeli Registrar protesting and call on the ILO to intercede
My trip to Israel gave a graphic and indelible impression of the reality of ‘the state of the Jews’, as experienced by the 20% of the population that is Arab/Palestinian. Racism and discrimination is a consequence of such a state. The fact of the Holocaust does not justify the dispossession and oppression of another people.
But, of course, the conflict is not one of Jews versus Arabs. The numbers of Jewish opponents of the Israeli state is growing, as shown by the brave stand of the young refusers and the refusal of the reservists to serve in the occupied territories. It was inspiring to see Jews and Arabs working together, as equals in their joint struggle against the Zionist state, giving us a glimpse of a possible future.