After a two-hour wait at the Kibbutz Eyal military checkpoint, nearly 2 kilometers from Qalqilya [en Cisjordanie], on a particularly freezing January afternoon, thousands of Palestinians return to their homes. Apart from a few women working on Israeli fields, they are mostly men working on construction sites. They left for Israel fourteen hours earlier. Now they board Palestinian taxis that take them home near Nablus, Jenin, Qalqilya and Tulkarem.
This is the lot of 140,000 Palestinians officially employed in Israel, of whom around 100,000 work inside the “Green Line” [territoire israélien tel que reconnu par le droit international]and the others in settlements [colonies juives de peuplement] in the West Bank. They have become accustomed to the difficulty of entering and leaving Israel, but not to the systematic extortion they are subjected to in exchange for the right to work in Israel. The Israeli authorities seem perfectly aware of the problem but are struggling to solve it.
Work permit: 2,500 shekels per month
Under the current system, tens of thousands of Palestinian workers pay 2,500 shekels in cash [environ 700 euros] per month for the granting of a work permit which is not supposed to cost them a single penny. The money is shared between a Palestinian intermediary and an Israeli, Jewish or Arab entrepreneur.
“To date, I have already had to pay more than a quarter of a million shekels [plus de 70 000 euros]”, explains a worker. “With this money, we could buy a house.”
The extortion of which these Palestinian workers are victims stems from a system set up by Israel, a priori for security needs. An Israeli entrepreneur must first submit an application for a work permit to the Population and Immigration Administration. Currently, 4,200 Israeli contractors have received permits for Palestinian workers.
Within the game [acronyme hébreu du “Coordinateur des activités gouvernementales dans les Territoires”, également appelé “Cogat” en anglais]it is believed that there is no other possible approach. “We want to make sure that the worker somehow has a stepfather, father or stepmother in Israel.”
Although this approach makes sense, its implementation remains problematic. “A building contractor can also be someone who is looking for 10 people for a certain project”says Assaf Adiv, director of Maan, an Israeli organization that represents Palestinian workers in Israel.
When the works are finished, this contractor is supposed to inform the Population and Immigration Administration. But over the years, a