Israeli lawmaker Zvi Sukkot (Religious Zionism Party) is demanding that the Israel Defense Forces cancel its policy of forcing towns in Judea and Samaria to let in Palestinian Authority Arab workers, Arutz 7 reported on Monday.
While the military banned Palestinian Authority residents from working in Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria in the months following Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre, the restriction was lifted in late 2023.
Israeli courts subsequently ruled that the IDF has the final say regarding the admission of laborers, essentially giving it the authority to force communities to let in Palestinian workers despite ongoing security concerns.
“The communities must admit Palestinian laborers, even if they express explicit opposition to their entry,” Sukkot noted in a letter to IDF Central Command head Maj. Gen. Avi Bluth. “Palestinians are banned from entering inside the Green Line due to the security threat; in Judea and Samaria, they have to let them in, even if the communities oppose it.”
The current state of affairs “is a situation of discrimination between blood and blood in an unacceptable way,” the Israeli lawmaker charged, asking the IDF Central Command head to address the disparity with the situation inside pre-1967 Israel “as soon as possible” ahead of a discussion in the Knesset Judea and Samaria subcommittee.
Last month, following an attack in which a terrorist with a work permit hammered to death an Israeli resident of Samaria, Sukkot called on the government to reverse the decision to allow PA Arabs to work in communities and industrial zones throughout Judea and Samaria.
“Tens of thousands of Palestinians enter communities in Judea and Samaria daily, and are located next to kindergartens, schools and the homes of families whose owners were called to the front lines,” Sukkot wrote in a letter to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
He noted that “the vast majority of Judea and Samaria Arabs expressed sympathy and support for the murderous actions of Hamas on Oct. 7 and believe the massacre was ‘justified, appropriate and praiseworthy.’”
Before the war, some 200,000 PA Arab workers were employed throughout the Jewish state, including 30,000 in Judea and Samaria.
Two surveys last year found that some two-thirds of PA Arabs in Judea and Samaria support the Oct. 7 attacks, in which thousands of Hamas terrorists broke through the Gaza border, murdered some 1,200 people, wounded thousands more and took 251 captive.
Plans to readmit PA Arabs in to Jewish communities have been met with dismay by many Israelis. A poll taken in Eli, a town of some 4,500 inhabitants in the Binyamin region of Samaria, showed that 82% of residents oppose their entry, regardless of additional security measures.
