College Grads in Rural "Area C" Assess Their Future

JOURNAL # 8 - COLLEGE GRADS IN RURAL "AREA C" ASSESS THEIR FUTURE

"How does the occupation affect your lives?" I asked Asma and Ibtisam, two college grads who cannot find work. They live in rural villages near the southern city of Hebron. Asma’s family’s land has been cut in half by the Wall. They can still access it, but get harassed by soldiers. But Asma wanted to talk about something else.

"The problem we have is our men have to work in Israel in order to feed their families." Her expression showed her displeasure. Some 47,000 Palestinians get work permits, but the majority enter Israel illegally, going around, over or through the so-called "security barrier". (The work is almost always in construction.) Ibtisam’s husband is one such man. He has no work permit, but sneaks across the Green Line into Israel, sometimes to Beer Sheva and sometimes as far as Tel Aviv. "How does he know when there is work to go to?" I asked. Palestinians who live inside Israel call their contacts in the West Bank. "How long does it take for them to get to Israeli jobs?" It can take up to 12 hours to get to a work site, depending on whether they find soldiers at a checkpoint and have to wait til they are distracted before dashing across whatever barrier is in place. I have learned that thousands of Palestinians get across the Wall or through the fence every day in order to go to work --proof that the Wall is not the reason there are no more suicide attacks inside Israel.

Ibtisam’s husband started working illegally in Israel at age 16 to help support his family. That was 15 years ago, and he is still doing it, supporting his aging parents and now his wife of four years. Ibtisam married after she finished college.

Asma's 18 year old brother also tried working illegally in Israel, but after having to run from soldiers once, he quit. Since the transit to and from work is so risky, most men stay away 2-4 weeks at a time, leaving wife and children alone. Sometimes soldiers raid construction sites in Israel and arrest any Palestinians they can catch. The penalties are 2 months in prison and 4000 shekels fine for the first arrest, 6 months and 6000 shekels for the 2nd offense, and 12 or more months and 12,000 shekels for the 3rd. (4000 shekels equals about $1090)

Asma then surprised me with the information that if you have children, you can get a permit to work in Israel. While I was trying to digest this bit of information, Asma continued providing additional pieces to the puzzle. It costs money to maintain a permit. Israel collects 2,000 shekels a month from each permitted worker. A full time salary in Israeli construction might be 6000 shekels. After the "tax", the remaining 4000 is enough to provide the basics for a family of 4 or 5 children. So Israel collects a lot of money and gets a skilled labor force with a pretty good assurance that the laborers won’t try to stay permanently in the country. I had heard that Israel is making a bundle from enforcing the occupation, so now I have new data to support that thesis.

Asma and Ibtisam shifted the conversation from blaming their problems on the occupation to blaming the Palestinian Authority (PA). "They don’t provide jobs. 85% of college grads don’t find work," says Ibtisam. "I graduated in Math from Hebron University and wanted to teach school. But there have not been any openings for 4 years. It is common knowledge that you have to have connections to get a job, even in a hospital. I don't have connections." The Arabic word for such pull is "wastaa." With gracious sarcasm, they call it "Vitamin W."

Even though Asma was at the top of her class at Al-Quds University, majoring in Physics, the job she got as a teaching assistant barely covered her carfare for the hour commute, so she quit. Instead, she did what many young people feel is their only chance for a future. She applied for (and received) a full scholarship to study abroad. "The PA gets a lot of money from abroad, but they don’t help the people. In fact, today and tomorrow there is a national teachers’ strike because teachers have not been paid for two months."

I asked the young women about solutions to the dilemmas they face. "We need leaders who will help the people, not like Abbas (current Prime Minister of the West Bank) who gets a lot of money and doesn’t help." Last summer Asma met some injured people from Gaza in at her local hospital. They told her that life in Gaza is good, because foreign money is distributed among the people.

At this point, Nur, the student volunteer who had been quietly working in the same room, chimed in. "We don’t need to wait for leaders to act. We can start businesses and employ people and not depend on the political parties. We should see where the money is and invest it in Palestinian companies." To this Asma replied that half of her village is rich and half is poor. She once approached a rich man and asked him why he wasn’t building a factory to employ people instead of building more apartments. He didn’t answer her.

Another stress, faced by college students, is pressure to join one of the two major parties, Fateh or Hamas. Sometimes they are threatened with "problems" if they don’t join. Asma said she refused to join either party. "I didn’t care. I am a strong woman," she added with a broad smile.