Israeli officials denounced as groundless charges that Palestinian Arab workers from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip are being discriminated against in Israel.
“Israeli labor laws and collective agreements apply to all workers,” whether they are Jews, Israeli Arabs or Palestinians from the territories, said Izhak Barak, legal advisor to the Israel Ministry of Labor And Social Affairs.
Barak, testifying before a U.S. government trade panel, was replying to charges made by the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee.
The Arab committee is seeking to have the U.S. trade representative deny Israeli export products duty-free entry under the 12-year-old Generalized System of Preference program.
That law requires that countries in the program be removed if they violate accepted international labor standards.
The hearing was convened by a 10-member committee, made up of representatives of various U.S. governmental departments. It is not expected to render its decision until April 1.
The committee’s decision is relayed to the trade representative for recommendation to the president. The current trade representative, Clayton Yeutter, who scheduled the hearing, is not expected to continue in that post in the Bush administration.
“We are dismayed that this hearing was at all necessary,” Meyer Eisenberg, chairman of the national law committee of the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith, told the committee.
He said the charges were made by groups that want to undermine Israel’s economy and erode U.S.-Israeli relations.
SUPERIOR LABOR PRACTICES
Rudolph Oswald, director of the AFL-CIO’s department of economic research, also objected to the hearing, saying Israel’s labor practices are better than the other countries on which hearings were held, or even countries, such as Indonesia and Thailand, for which petitions for hearings were denied.
Alfred Moses, a vice president of the American Jewish Committee, said that the rights that Palestinian workers have in Israel should be contrasted with Arab countries which also receive preferential benefits — such as Egypt, Jordan and Syria — and where workers have little or no rights to organize or strike.
Judith Chomsky, an ADC lawyer, charged that there was “legalized discrimination” against Palestinian workers from the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
She said they do not receive the benefits Israelis or non-citizen Jews receive, such as unemployment insurance, child allowance, old age and survivor’s benefits, seniority rights and severance pay.
These charges were echoed by Maria Segal of the National Association of Arab Americans, who said Palestinians receive only half the pay of their Jewish counterparts, even though they pay dues to the Histadrut.
But Barak stressed that instead of suffering, Palestinians have had full employment since 1967 and their quality of life has improved.
Daniel Bloch, representing the Histadrut, said the trade union federation is open to Palestinians, but none have applied except for 15,000 people living in East Jerusalem.
“In the meantime, the Histadrut considers the Palestinian workers as if they were full members and defends their rights on equal footing with its full members,” Bloch said.
“Since 1967, the Histadrut has succeeded in obtaining equal salaries, social benefits and working standards for the Palestinian workers.”
CHARGE UNION BUSTING
Mohammed Rashid Al-Reshiq, secretary of an East Jerusalem union of taxi drivers and mechanics, and Khalim Tourna, an official of a Palestinian hotel and restaurant workers union, charged that Israel blocks union organizing and harasses, jails and deports union officials.
But Shalom Harari, an advisor on Arab affairs to the Israel Defense Ministry, said most West Bank unions are political groups affiliated with the major Palestinian terrorist organizations.
He maintained that Israel ignores their political activities, but arrests the union leaders when they are responsible for terrorism and violence.
David Twersky of Women’s American ORT, representing the Jewish Labor Committee and the National Jewish Community Relations Advisory Council, said the ILO has sent fact-finding delegations to the West Bank and Gaza Strip every year since 1978 and found that the Palestinian workers receive all legitimate rights in Israel.
He noted that the ILO has confirmed that since 1967, 15 new unions have been registered in the West Bank and Gaza, joining the 38 already in existence.
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