# Can Israel SURVIVE Without the Palestinians? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 22, 2004, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-israel-survive-without-the-palestinians/256404 "2004-07-22T20:26:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2004, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-israel-survive-without-the-palestinians/256404/1 "2004-07-22T20:26:26Z")
Suppose that Ariel Sharon gets his wish, and Israel completes its barrier fence between itself and the territories. Then, Gaza is withdrawn from. Now (theoretically) Israel can bar anyone whom it suspects of terrorist activities. What would be the economic impact upon Israel? Take the farming/agricultural sector…almost all of the farm work now is done by palestinian labor. Or the service jobs (waiters, laundry workers, construction work) now being done by palestinians…it seems to me that their removal would probably have a very serious effect upon the Israeli economy. I have heard that Israel now imports laborers (from the Philippines and Thailand)-this must be very costly. Are the Israelis unwilling to do manual work? Could the country survive with most of its menial jobs being unfilled? 😕 ---
**Author:** ![PaulFitzroy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/2acd7d/32.png) [@PaulFitzroy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PaulFitzroy)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2004, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-israel-survive-without-the-palestinians/256404/2 "2004-07-22T21:41:11Z")
> [@](#): > > Take the farming/agricultural sector…almost all of the farm work now is done by palestinian labor. Cite? This is an argument I frequently hear from anti-Israel people along the standard lines of “the Jews are all a bunch of rich bastards who don’t do real work for themselves.” Not that I’m accusing you of being this type of person, I’m just saying they always say this. Israel has Jews of both rich and poor backgrounds. It’s not like America, where the last Jewish steelworker or maid vanished a few decades ago; Israel’s Jews vary greatly in economic background. Many different jobs are accounted for. ---
**Author:** ![Ike\_Witt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ike_witt/32/283_2.png) [@Ike\_Witt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ike_Witt)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2004, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-israel-survive-without-the-palestinians/256404/3 "2004-07-22T21:56:18Z")
> [@PaulFitzroy](#): > > This is an argument I frequently hear from anti-Israel people along the standard lines of “the Jews are all a bunch of rich bastards who don’t do real work for themselves.” Not that I’m accusing you of being this type of person, I’m just saying they always say this. Who says these sorts of things, other than you? Can you point to one cite? ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2004, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-israel-survive-without-the-palestinians/256404/4 "2004-07-22T22:34:59Z")
Very few Palestinians have been coming through to work in Israel over the past 3 years - maybe 5% of before. They’ve largely been replaced by workers from various Third World or East Block nations, like Thailand, Nigeria or Romania. ---
**Author:** ![PaulFitzroy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/2acd7d/32.png) [@PaulFitzroy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PaulFitzroy)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2004, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-israel-survive-without-the-palestinians/256404/5 "2004-07-22T22:38:38Z")
> [@](#): > > Who says these sorts of things, other than you? Can you point to one cite? Who says these things? A cite on the Internet? That’s not what I mean. I happen to live in a liberal college town where a lot of people for some reason have an axe to grind against Israel, and this is one of their standard arguments “Israel exploits Palestinian labor.” I’m sick of hearing it, that’s all. ---
**Author:** ![Finagle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b19c9b/32.png) [@Finagle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Finagle)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2004, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-israel-survive-without-the-palestinians/256404/6 "2004-07-23T00:05:53Z")
> [@PaulFitzroy](#): > > Cite? > It’s not like America, where the last Jewish steelworker or maid vanished a few decades ago; Israel’s Jews vary greatly in economic background. Many different jobs are accounted for. Are you claiming that there are no low-income or working class Jewish people in America? That seems unlikely. A higher percentage of Jewish people do enter white collar professions and the average income is a bit higher which I think you can attribute to the cultural emphasis on education and learning. However an education does not guarantee a high income. ---
**Author:** ![PaulFitzroy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/2acd7d/32.png) [@PaulFitzroy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PaulFitzroy)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2004, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-israel-survive-without-the-palestinians/256404/7 "2004-07-23T01:06:51Z")
There are low-income Jews in America: Orthodox Jews. There are several Orthodox Jewish cousins of mine on my mother’s side with many children, small houses, and low-paying jobs. However there really isn’t a Jewish working class to speak of like there used to be. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2004, 5:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-israel-survive-without-the-palestinians/256404/8 "2004-07-23T05:40:07Z")
Some cites to provide some real data. [http://www.israeleconomy.org/nbn/nbn10.htm](http://www.israeleconomy.org/nbn/nbn10.htm) > [@](#): > > A Ha’aretz economics correspondent reports as follows: “Israel has the second highest percentage of foreign workers in the world in relation to the country’s total work force. Finance Ministry Director-General, Professor Avi Ben Bassat, said yesterday that Israel was second only to Switzerland in this respect. According to the director-general, the percentage of foreign employees in the work force is between 8.5 and 12 percent, while in Switzerland they make up 15 percent of workers.” … > > One, unemployed Israelis will simply not take “menial” work. Why should they? They receive far too many benefits to stay home and drink coffee. Indeed, the bureaucracies set up in Israel to deal with unemployment do more to prevent employment than to eliminate it. Anyone interested in reading about Israel’s unemployment and its bureaucratic response, may read about it here: [israeleconomy.org](http://www.israeleconomy.org/policystudies/ps36sum.htm) > Two, even if the “officially unemployed” did want to work, their tax burden is so high, it is better to get a “black-market” job that pays without “talush” (reporting) and collect unemployment and welfare benefits on top of it. [http://www.kavlaoved.org.il/katava\_main.asp?news\_id=3&sivug\_id=3](http://www.kavlaoved.org.il/katava_main.asp?news_id=3&sivug_id=3) > [@](#): > > Altogether, then, a total of 150,000 illegal workers formed 6%-7% of the work force in Israel last year, making an impact on the overall employment conditions. “I don’t recall such high numbers of unreported workers. They can’t be ignored. We must take them into account when deciding our policies”, says Pfeffermann, a member of the labor ministry commission for reduction of foreign work. > > On top of the unauthorized workers, the year 2000 saw 140,000 legal foreign and Palestinian workers, reaching a total of 13% of the work force - twice the numbers witnessed in most developed countries, according to Pfeffermann. > > The data in the survey, led by Foreign workers coordinator in the authority, Roni Bar-Tsuri, were gathered during 1999 in interviews with 415 foreigners, 80% of which worked illegally. One surprising fact is the relatively mature age of the workers. 39% were in their 30’s, and 32% were over 40. Almost 70% were East-European, 18% African, 10% Asian, and 3% South-American. Most subjects - 48% - work in construction. 28% work in household and personal care, and 13% work in the services industry. So in short, Israel can do without Palestinian labor. Overly generous unemployment benefits could be reduced to some sort of “workfare” concept, or they could continue to import foriegn workers, legal and otherwise. A negotiated settlement with open but secure borders would be better for Israel than a fence. But the negotiated settlement solution would be even better for the Palestinians. They need the jobs more than Israel needs them. A negotiated settlement could include promises of economic development and investment within a nascant Palestine. Deals over tax revenues on employment opf Palestinian citizens within Israel. Now all we need is a pragmatic leader to displace Arafat and actually negotiate in good faith. Without that we have Sharon taking a good idea, a seperation fence that was supposed to follow the Green Line as closely as possible, and twisting it into an unteneble political incursion through the occupied territory. Idiot. ---
**Author:** ![Noone\_Special](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/noone_special/32/2863_2.png) [@Noone\_Special](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Noone_Special)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2004, 8:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-israel-survive-without-the-palestinians/256404/9 "2004-07-23T08:03:19Z")
I think the title of this thread is actually backwards. Palestine (assuming it comes into being within the next few years, which while Arafat is around is far from certain. No, I **don’t** want to get started on that in this thread - there are plenty others!) probably cannot stand on its own economic legs for some time to come. They **need** the Israeli market to work in far more than the Israeli market needs them - while it is oh so true that Israelis don’t want to do blue-collar work, the Israeli market has adapted to the absence of the Palestinian laborers by bringing in many foreigners - some legal and some illegal - from around the globe (Romania, China, Thailand and the Philipines come to mind as primary sources). Whether or not Israelis may eventually adjust to having a real local working class remains to be seen; but in the meantime, the nearly complete lack of Palestinian labor in Israel is hurting their economy more than ours. BTW - I think part of the OP’s misunderstanding may be that there **are** some Arab-Israelis doing relatively low-level low-pay work; but these are Israeli citizens, not residents of the Occupied Territories. It is the latter who have disappeared from the Israeli labor market, to be replaced by foreigners. Dani ---
**Author:** ![Ike\_Witt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ike_witt/32/283_2.png) [@Ike\_Witt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ike_Witt)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2004, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-israel-survive-without-the-palestinians/256404/10 "2004-07-23T12:33:46Z")
> [@PaulFitzroy](#): > > I happen to live in a liberal college town where a lot of people for some reason have an axe to grind against Israel, and this is one of their standard arguments “Israel exploits Palestinian labor.” I’m sick of hearing it, that’s all. Hmmmm. You relie on the arguments of people who have an axe to grind against Israel, why is that? Why don’t you express your views on the subject? ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2004, 12:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-israel-survive-without-the-palestinians/256404/11 "2004-07-23T12:37:26Z")
…for the cites. this is really amazing…ifyou count illegal alien workers, the foreign population of Israel must be about 350,000 people! This is a considerable minority…no doubt, these people will be most reluctant to return to their third-world countries. The impact of such a large, non-native group settling (permanently) in Israel must be disconcerting to the Zionists. Will Israel in this century become a “melting pot”? ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2004, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-israel-survive-without-the-palestinians/256404/12 "2004-07-23T13:01:56Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > The impact of such a large, non-native group settling (permanently) in Israel must be disconcerting to the Zionists. > Will Israel in this century become a “melting pot”? As long as they don’t get citizenship, it won’t. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2004, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-israel-survive-without-the-palestinians/256404/13 "2004-07-23T13:54:43Z")
A big if **clairobscur**. If one assumes peace in the foreseeable future (an act of unmitigated optimism to be sure), the future nature of Israeli identity is an open question. 20% of current Israeli citizens are Arab. If foreign workers stay and have children born in Israel, are those children citizens, even if the worker was not? If so, you are adding another perhaps 10% non-Jewish population to the docket, both of whom have higher birth rates than secular Jewish Israelis (the Orthodox minority has a higher birth rate but still are fairly small group relative to secular Jews in Israel). In peacetime Palestinian Arabs may want to move to Israel for better economic prospects and a shorter commute. How many years til Israel loses its Jewish character under those assumptions, or at what cost does it maintain it?