What a discouraging and utterly revolting article but thank you for posting it. I just threw what books I had of Mr. Wiesel's in the trash. Is that it Eli? See no evil, hear no evil when it applies to the Palestinians but copiously weep for internationally despised settlers who have plundered the goods of the Palestinians and not one tear for the Palestinians who lost their entire heritage to those same settlers? Wow. Just wow.
Intro:
As Israel's disengagement from Gaza enters Day 2, we go to Gaza City to speak with leading Israeli journalist Amira Hass. A majority of the Jewish settlers have accepted a compensation package - in between $150,000 to $400,000 - from the Israeli government in return for leaving Gaza. Hass reports that the thousands of Palestinians working for the settlers are receiving nothing. ============
(snip)
Amira Hass: ... Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in a televised address last night. It is unclear exactly how much the disengagement plan is costing the Israeli government. But last month it was reported Israel is seeking an additional $2 billion dollars or more in aid from the United States to help pay for the plan - which would in effect double the amount of aid Israel already receives from the U.S. The costs of the withdrawal include operations carried out by security forces as well as moving and compensating the settlers.
A majority of the settlers have accepted a compensation package from the government in return for leaving Gaza. An average family can expect to receive the equivalent of
$150,000 to $400,000 in compensation, depending on house size, the number of children and length of residence in the occupied territories.
On top of that, there are removal expenses, two years" free rent and redundancy compensation. Many of the settlers are
already beneficiaries of government subsidies for settling the land.
(snip)
AMY GOODMAN: Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, in a televised address last night. It's unclear exactly how much the disengagement plan is costing the Israeli government, but last month it was reported Israel is seeking an additional $2 billion or more in aid from the United States to help pay for the plan, which would almost double the money it gets from the United States, as the largest recipient of foreign aid in the world. The costs of the withdrawal include operations carried out by security forces, as well as moving in compensating the settlers. ((snip / snip of how the Israeli settlers paid the Palestinians 1/3 of the minimum wage while paying other foreign workers the full minimum wage))
So, we cannot understand
the wealth which they have acquired to settlers during the last year -- during the last 30-35 years, without remembering, without taking into consideration the very low salaries they paid or the very low cheap labor they got from Palestinian -- from the Palestinian labor market. They -- not only did the settlers settle in the land which is not theirs, on the Palestinian – very precious Palestinian land, which was taken from the use of -- possible use of Palestinian cities and refugee camps. Not only were they using the only sweet water left in the Gaza Strip, not only did they get all of the subsidies you mentioned, but they also enjoyed the very -- this low wages that they paid to their workers.
So their compensations now -- the Israeli government, the Israeli parliament issued a law a few weeks -- a month ago, law of compensations. And it specifically entitles Israeli workers, those who lived in the occupied territories, in the occupied Gaza Strip or those who lived in Israel but worked in the occupied Gaza Strip, and their employers were Israelis, it entitled them to two different sorts of compensations for the loss of their jobs.
It specifically says, this law, that only Israelis get this compensations. One is called fees of adaptation for losing the job. And the other one actually entitles the workers to get compensations even though they were not fired from their jobs, because you can get compensations if you are being fired, severment, I think it’s called,
severance compensation. But these are only for Israelis, not all, which means for Jews, not for Palestinians.
(snip)
AMIRA HASS: ... But let us not forget that
at the same time Israel is accelerating and expanding its colonialist project in the Gaza, in the West Bank. It is a project which actually cuts the Palestinian territory into small pieces, small Bantustans, and enlarges and connects all Israeli settlements and blocks settlements to each other and to Israel proper. In ten or 20 – and this was the main reason why Sharon was very clever, very clever politician, why
Sharon decided to sacrifice the settlements and the settlers of the Gaza Strip for the sake of leaving the 400,000 settlers in the West Bank. So, you have the -- you sacrifice 8,000 settlers for 400,000 in the West Bank, including Jerusalem. (snip)
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/08/16/1326221The entire interview is worth reading. Amira Hass is such a brave woman & honest journalist.
Excuse me my friends while I shed not one, not one single tear for those settlers or for this current charade.
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