The closure of the territories, announced here last week after a series of terror attacks on Israeli civilians, threatens to cripple sections of Israel’s economy and the livelihoods of tens of thousands of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.
Such were some of the assessments made at Sunday’s weekly Cabinet meeting about the implications of sealing off the territories.
But Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin told his Cabinet that the closure “must reaccustom the country to being independent of the territories for its labor force.”
Communications Minister Shulamit Aloni, of the Meretz bloc, warned that the closure could bring the territories’ 2 million people to the point of starvation.
The Israeli army’s commander for the southern sector said the closure will make life “very difficult for the Gazans and is likely to increase violence there.”
“If we want to advance peace, we have to let these people be more relaxed and allow (PLO Chairman Yasser) Arafat to come to an area where Hamas will not be in control, where there will be a better mood,” Aloni said, referring to the Islamic organization that has taken responsibility for the recent attacks on Israelis.
“When we are talking about making peace, their situation will never have been worse than it is today,” Aloni said of the residents of the territories. “We cannot ignore their needs.”
Israel has closed off the territories before, including in late March, 1993. This closure is seen by some to be a delicate maneuver that must provide for Israelis’ need for security without jeopardizing the peace process.
In Israel, those most affected by the closure are the building trades and agriculture, which, since 1967, have become increasingly dependent on cheap Arab labor.
The order to close the territories came April 7 – one day after a suicide car- bomb attack in the northern Israeli town of Afula claimed the lives of seven Israelis, most of them high school students.
After Sunday’s Cabinet meeting, it was learned the closure may extend beyond Israel’s Independence Day celebrations on April 14, the date originally selected as the final day of the closure.
Last week, the Hamas movement said it would step up terror attacks against Israel and turn the Independence Day celebration into a period of mourning.
To counter potential economic problems Israelis may face because of the closure of the territories, Agriculture Minister Yaacov Tsur and the director general of the Prime Minister’s Office, Shimon Sheves, are to work out a scheme that will mobilize thousands of Israeli high school students and army personnel to help with the harvest.
Both men are, incidentally, kibbutz members who could be expected to be especially sensitive, and hostile, to the idea of importing foreign labor, an idea also discussed here.
Israelis may also be encouraged to return to agricultural work by government subsidies that will increase wages paid in this sector.
Some of the shortfall in the labor force is to be met by permitting the entry into Israel of some 18,000 foreign workers, mostly from Thailand.
Some 15,000 of them will be employed in the building trades, and the rest in agriculture.
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