The Palestinian Authority (PA) is working to collapse Israeli agriculture in the Jordan Valley by preventing Arab workers from the PA from working in the Israeli agricultural areas of the Valley, TPS has learned.
PA officials claim they are working to prevent the spread of the Coronavirus (COVID-19), but the PA’s goal is to reduce the Israeli presence in the Valley for political reasons, and has intensified its activity since the unveiling of the US President Trump’s Deal of the Century peace plan, farmers in the Jordan Valley told TPS.
The Palestinian Authority has been actively attempting to stop tens of thousands of PA Arab from working in the Israeli communities.
Many testimonies given to TPS, including videos, recordings, photos and meetings with PA Arab workers of the Valley, indicate that PA and Fatah officials have threatened the workers and prohibited them from accessing the Israeli palm groves, greenhouses and agricultural areas in the Jordan Valley.
The threats were made by phone, and in a number of cases, the PA confiscated the vehicles of labor organizers who violated their directives.
Israeli farmers told TPS that families of workers from the surrounding villages said that some of the labor organizers’ family members were arrested in Jericho as hostages and as a means of pressure.
Some 6,000 Arab workers are employed in the agricultural areas, which constitute the source of livelihood to 70 percent of families living in the Valley. Recently, the number of workers has not exceeded more than 400.
Testimonials from Israeli farmers indicate that Fatah operatives in yellow vests threaten the workers and place roadblocks between the villages and the Israeli agricultural areas.
Workers claim that the Fatah and PA operatives have raided houses of workers and even Israeli farms and sought out those who continued to work in the Valley, receiving tipoffs by paid snitches.
The Arab workers now say to their employers that “Israel seems to have decided to abandon us to the Palestinian Authority and is eliminating decades of agricultural work and neighborly relations in the Valley.”
“How does the Israeli Army helps the Authority to abuse workers who want to earn a living working for the Israelis and, on the other hand, allows the Authority to operate normally,” Arab workers in the Valley ask their employers.
Evidence from PA Arab workers also shows that the “Raisim” (manpower contractors) close to the Palestinian Authority plan to take control of the date plantations and greenhouses by controlling PA Arab manpower and causing damage to Israeli agriculture.
The threats to the workers have already caused enormous damage and considerable financial losses to the Israeli farmers.
Jordan Valley Council head David Elhayani told TPS that the entire Israeli population in the Valley is under significant threat of economic collapse.
“The economic damage is enormous and threatens the entire Jewish population of the Jordan Valley because all households are linked in one form or another to the agricultural associations facing the most severe crisis in recent years,” he said.
Farms holding tens or hundreds of acres closed overnight, Elhayani says. The spice industry, which 95% of its produce is meant for export, is about to be wiped out not only because of the collapse of world markets, but first and foremost because of the Palestinian Authority’s activities.
More than any other industry, the situation is threatening the palm industry, which will face a general elimination within weeks, according to Elhayani and his colleagues. Farmers will soon be required to carry out a process of thinning of the dates. The dilution work requires skill and experience, but as long as the PA threatens the Arab workers, tens of thousands of tons of dates still on the trees will be lost.
Elhayani and some Israeli farmers in the Valley are blaming the Israeli defense establishment for failing to put the Palestinian Authority in place and not realizing that the agricultural sector in the Valley is at least as essential as the health services Israel is working to secure for the Palestinian Authority.
Elhayani and many other farmers in the Jordan Valley are furious at the Israeli government’s intention to transfer a total of half a billion shekels as a loan or grant to the Palestinian Authority while millions of shekels are going down the drain and with them the Israeli households’ source of livelihood.
The head of the council accused the government of being a partner in the agricultural collapse in the Jordan Valley.
“Unthinkable,” the regional council said, “that the Civil Administration is helping the Palestinian Authority and its security forces to operate in Area C while threatening to eradicate life and livelihood of thousands of families in the Valley, to which Israel intends to apply its sovereignty.”
The Jordan Valley Regional Council is currently working to review a class-action lawsuit against the PA, which is preventing agricultural labor while exploiting the Corona crisis.
Israeli farmers and Arab laborers say that a decades-old fabric of life, living side by side, Israelis and Palestinians in agricultural areas is facing the worst crisis. The relationship lasted during the First Intifada, the Gulf War and the Second Intifada and the PA is now ruining it.
In addition, PA Arab workers complain that they lost their livelihood under threats from Fatah members who promised hundreds of them a NIS 400 monthly compensation, even though none of them have received anything so far. Others said that Fatah and the PA recommended that they approach the “Ra’isim” close to the PA in order to find alternative work for them.