All language is but a poor translation.
-
Jerusalem sites sprayed with anti-Christian graffiti →
Vandals sprayed anti-Christian graffiti on a monastery and a Christian cemetery in Jerusalem overnight, in two apparent “price-tag” attacks, police told AFP on Wednesday.
“Overnight, graffiti was sprayed on the gates of the entrance of the Armenian cemetery reading ‘Jesus is a son of a bitch’ in Hebrew, and on a monastery belonging to the Greek Orthodox saying the same thing,” police spokeswoman Luba Samri said.
Samri said the attackers also wrote “Happy Hannukah” and “price tag” at the second site, the Valley of the Cross monastery, and slashed the tyres of nearby cars.
“Price tag” is a euphemism for revenge hate crimes by Israeli extremists, which normally target Palestinians and Arabs.
Initially carried out in retaliation for state moves to dismantle unauthorised settler outposts, they have become increasingly unrelated to any specific government measures.
The attacks tend to involve the vandalism or destruction of Palestinian property and have included multiple arson attacks on cars, mosques and olive trees.
Perpetrators are rarely caught.
At first, the attacks were predominantly in the West Bank, but they have expanded over time to include sites inside Israel, and in Jerusalem. In recent months, Christian sites have been targeted as well.
Samri said a third apparent “price tag” attack had been reported in a West Bank village called Shukba, near the city of Ramallah, in which attackers set fire to a car and sprayed “price tag” and “happy holidays” nearby.
Police were investigating all three attacks, she said.
Source: sinidentidades
-
Guatemala Nobel winner criticizes 'doomsday' hysteria →
Rigoberta Menchu, the 1992 Nobel Peace Prize winner, is unhappy about the commercial hype over the supposed ancient Maya predictions of an end of the world on December 21.
The date marks the end of an era that lasted over 5,000 years, according to the Mayan “Long Count” calendar. Some believe that the date, which coincides with the December solstice, marks the end of the world as foretold by Mayan hieroglyphs — an idea ridiculed by scholars.
Nevertheless, millions of tourists are expected to flock to Mexico and Central America for celebrations that will include fireworks and concerts held at more than three dozen archaeological sites.
But don’t expect much authenticity, said Menchu, an indigenous Guatemalan of Maya ethnicity.
“The authentic celebration of the Mayas — that will not be seen by everyone, that is part of the private lives of the Mayas,” said Menchu late Monday as she marked the 20th anniversary of her Nobel win.
“We are going to bid farewell to the grandfather sun and will bid him farewell in thousands of ways,” Menchu said. “We don’t care what the government will do.”
The government of President Otto Perez has planned events at 13 archeological sites, especially at Tikal, some 530 kilometers (330 miles) north of Guatemala City.
Native Maya communities, however, have separate ceremonies planned at 11 other sites.
Menchu is hardly the first native Mayan to decry the exploitation of her heritage.
“We are speaking out against deceit, lies and twisting of the truth, and turning us into folklore-for-profit,” Felipe Gomez, leader of the Maya alliance Oxlajuj Ajpop, said in October. “They are not telling the truth about time cycles.”
The Maya culture flourished between the years 250 and 900, then slowly entered a period of decadence ending around 1200.
Archeologists believe long catastrophic drought sparked political destabilization and triggered wars that led to the collapse of Maya culture.
Scholars say that December 21 simply marks the end of the old Mayan calendar and the beginning of a new one.
Source: sinidentidades
-
![jayaprada:
Workers use an immersion heater to boil water. (2011) (photo: Ron Amir)
[….] Similarly to the other estimated 30,000 Palestinian workers without work permits in Israel, these laborers are confined to building sites day and night for fear of being arrested.
“Every two weeks or so the police come and detain us. They take us to the checkpoint and send us back into the West Bank. It’s their way of telling us whose boss. But they know we’ll just make our way back in,” said Faisal. Israeli NGO Kav LaOved reports that when workers are apprehended, they are usually transported back into the West Bank. But workers can also be indicted. Sentences usually include three months in jail and a police preclusion for three years, barring them from entering and working in Israel lawfully. Basem has had numerous run-ins with the police for working without a permit, but he spoke of how in his experience, no contractor had been penalized for employing illegal workers. He said that this was partly as a result of workers not naming their employers out of fear of being blacklisted.
Israeli photographer, Ron Amir, has a long and close relationship with this particular group of workers. He initially met them while documenting the lives of illegal workers for an exhibition, and subsequently became a friend. Ron described how Palestinian construction workers usually find employment through a long chain of middlemen. Workers are initially hired by a subcontractor from their own village, who is then recruited by a series of other contractors within Israel. Ron claimed that this structure is geared towards obscuring the complicity of Israeli firms in employing illegal workers. This in turn diminishes the prospect of the general contractor being held legally accountable. As Kav LaOved reports, the incentive for employing a Palestinian without a work permit is high. The cost of employing a Palestinian worker with a permit is about 70% higher than employing one without a permit (210 versus 124 shekels respectively).
[….] Israeli labor laws states that every worker in Israel is entitled to the full range of social rights regardless of whether or not they have a permit. Despite this, primary research by NGOs such as Kav LaOved and Gisha suggest that Israeli employers systematically abuse the rights of Palestinian and immigrant workers, particularly those without permits.
Basem didn’t seem phased by the dangers in his line of work. He spoke of a 22 year old Palestinian worker who died this past November after falling off a construction site in Netanya. No charges have as of yet, been lodged against the contractor of the dead worker. Suheib Zayud, 19, fell from a construction site in 2011, he remains in a coma. His contractor denied that he had ever employed Suheib. As a result, the worker’s family received no financial compensation, and have been burdened with all the medical expenses. This case, as well as others before it, suggest that the contractor of the fatally injured worker in Netanya, is unlikely to face legal ramifications.
The work conditions of illegal workers are often substandard, with legally required on-site security and safety conditions systematically neglected. As Kav LaOved reports, in past cases of work-related accidents involving illegal workers, employers have denied any connection to the employee. The lack of a permit and official documentation mean that the employee is unlikely to be able to prove their eligibility for compensation from the National Insurance Institute. A lack of official documentation, and workers commonly receiving cash in hand from subcontractors, makes employees more susceptible to exploitation, and increases the difficulty of proving a violation of rights in labor courts.
At the end of 2011, a total of 27,000 Palestinians were legally working in Israel, predominantly in construction and agriculture. According to a publication issued by the Association of Builders in Israel in 2011, the sector needs 20,000 more workers. Numerous Israeli contractors have reported that they are consistently short of construction workers.
—Alon Aviram, Palestinian employment: The phantom workers of Israel](http://24.media.tumblr.com/db6e5ff696efee73966529647703db92/tumblr_meq8jt92DA1qjdk8lo1_1280.jpg)
Workers use an immersion heater to boil water. (2011) (photo: Ron Amir)
[….] Similarly to the other estimated 30,000 Palestinian workers without work permits in Israel, these laborers are confined to building sites day and night for fear of being arrested.
“Every two weeks or so the police come and detain us. They take us to the checkpoint and send us back into the West Bank. It’s their way of telling us whose boss. But they know we’ll just make our way back in,” said Faisal. Israeli NGO Kav LaOved reports that when workers are apprehended, they are usually transported back into the West Bank. But workers can also be indicted. Sentences usually include three months in jail and a police preclusion for three years, barring them from entering and working in Israel lawfully. Basem has had numerous run-ins with the police for working without a permit, but he spoke of how in his experience, no contractor had been penalized for employing illegal workers. He said that this was partly as a result of workers not naming their employers out of fear of being blacklisted.
Israeli photographer, Ron Amir, has a long and close relationship with this particular group of workers. He initially met them while documenting the lives of illegal workers for an exhibition, and subsequently became a friend. Ron described how Palestinian construction workers usually find employment through a long chain of middlemen. Workers are initially hired by a subcontractor from their own village, who is then recruited by a series of other contractors within Israel. Ron claimed that this structure is geared towards obscuring the complicity of Israeli firms in employing illegal workers. This in turn diminishes the prospect of the general contractor being held legally accountable. As Kav LaOved reports, the incentive for employing a Palestinian without a work permit is high. The cost of employing a Palestinian worker with a permit is about 70% higher than employing one without a permit (210 versus 124 shekels respectively).
[….] Israeli labor laws states that every worker in Israel is entitled to the full range of social rights regardless of whether or not they have a permit. Despite this, primary research by NGOs such as Kav LaOved and Gisha suggest that Israeli employers systematically abuse the rights of Palestinian and immigrant workers, particularly those without permits.
Basem didn’t seem phased by the dangers in his line of work. He spoke of a 22 year old Palestinian worker who died this past November after falling off a construction site in Netanya. No charges have as of yet, been lodged against the contractor of the dead worker. Suheib Zayud, 19, fell from a construction site in 2011, he remains in a coma. His contractor denied that he had ever employed Suheib. As a result, the worker’s family received no financial compensation, and have been burdened with all the medical expenses. This case, as well as others before it, suggest that the contractor of the fatally injured worker in Netanya, is unlikely to face legal ramifications.
The work conditions of illegal workers are often substandard, with legally required on-site security and safety conditions systematically neglected. As Kav LaOved reports, in past cases of work-related accidents involving illegal workers, employers have denied any connection to the employee. The lack of a permit and official documentation mean that the employee is unlikely to be able to prove their eligibility for compensation from the National Insurance Institute. A lack of official documentation, and workers commonly receiving cash in hand from subcontractors, makes employees more susceptible to exploitation, and increases the difficulty of proving a violation of rights in labor courts.
At the end of 2011, a total of 27,000 Palestinians were legally working in Israel, predominantly in construction and agriculture. According to a publication issued by the Association of Builders in Israel in 2011, the sector needs 20,000 more workers. Numerous Israeli contractors have reported that they are consistently short of construction workers.
—Alon Aviram, Palestinian employment: The phantom workers of Israel
Source: jayaprada
-
How The Media's Recent Defense of Using "Illegal Immigrant" Misses an Entire History | Alyssa Figueroa →
Assigning legality or illegality to human beings crossing the U.S.-Mexico border has always been hinged to the Anglo-American denial of the inherent belonging-ness and inextinguishable presence of Indigenous peoples on the lands that the colonizers’ ancestors invaded and occupied. It is this central and most obvious power relationship between those who inherited the settler constitution and the Indigenous peoples across North America that is most often masked and obscured in the debates over the so-called ‘illegal.’ The entire debate needs a more relevant framework, as seen through Indigenous peoples’ lenses. Without it, it is only the preacher preaching to the choir. Before folks can conceptualize the broader dimensions of migration and immigration in the United States, we need to address the underlying ideologies and discourses that Anglo Americans use to recreate the Anglo as ‘native’ and the Indigenous as ‘Other-foreigner,’ which is the story of the settler society.
And so this concept of the “illegal” — there’s no such thing as “illegal.” Illegal is connected to the concept of terrorist, the terrorist is connected to the concept of the enemy, the enemy is connected to the concept of just war. And all of these concepts were originally developed in the European and Spanish courts when they decided to go global. And we still see this play out today. Apaches were one of the first people in the United States to be legally constructed as an enemy of the Spanish crown. The militarists and politicians constructing this entity we now call the United States absorbed this concept and then re-invented the concept of the ‘Apache’ in the Department of War. Concurrently, the Spanish crown was inventing the concept of enemies in Africa and Asia; we have to understand what ‘illegal’ is functioning as at its root in a global context.
When we understand this discourse of the ‘illegal’ as a regurgitated and re-spun 21st century song of 19th century settler societies in a global context — from Israel, to Argentina, to South Africa, to Texas — we then can comprehend and engage migration, movement, and borders in the United States as an ongoing policy of exterminating Indigenous peoples, cultures, identities, and polities, and in displacing families and communities in order to appropriate Indigenous lands and resources on a hemispheric level.
This has always involved policing and managing the displaced Indigenous labor, ‘biopower,’ within and across the arbitrary boundary line that is the Mexico-U.S. border, which bifurcates many Indigenous nations. This deep inequity between the colonizers and the colonized has been ‘feeding’ the consumption levels of the dominating group for the last two centuries. It is a formula of deep social, economic and political oppression, inherently violent and exploitative, is dependent upon and fuels adversarial, militarized systems of dependency and warfare. In a nutshell, it will not and cannot sustain life. Any system that feeds off of suffering, misery, and subjugation can only manufacture immense imbalances. This kind of a system incrementally numbs members of society to violence and suffering. This is the system underlying the concept of the ‘illegal’; this is unacceptable on any terms.
There is a hidden history of atrocity that these borders are based upon — conquering, subjugating, and if that doesn’t work, massacring people to get them out of the way of the local, regional and national elites’ objectives of expansion, such as the ongoing U.S. expansion into Mexico. However, these words ‘Mexico’ and ‘Mexican’, are so saturated with race and hate oriented discourse and ideology, that most people cannot distinguish the two terms from their naturalized sense of privilege and power over those they perceive to be from ‘Mexico’ and those they perceive to be ‘Mexican.’ It is frightening how powerfully saturated these two ideologies function across the U.S., and even in Canada. In fact, many Native Americans in the United States today don’t completely understand how they too have come to adopt the Anglo-American genocidal ideologies connected to “Othering” and hatred toward Indigenous peoples of Mexico. Furthermore, many Native Americans are in constant turmoil about the obvious factors that Indigenous peoples of Mexico peoples are literally the blood descendants of their own ancestors as well. The entire U.S.-Mexico border region is one of the most diverse regions of indigeneity, and yet, as a result of the anti-Mexico/Mexican rhetoric and practices on the ground, most Native Americans vehemently deny any relation to Mexico — illustrating the depth of internalized anxiety and even anti-Indigenous hatred we have absorbed across generations.
Nobody teaches Native Americans in the state-funded schools that the border is a construct of the global system of domination. American teachers don’t ever teach us that borders never existed until their ancestors occupied Indigenous peoples’ lands. The mainstream Anglo-American centric media never discusses alternative viewpoints of borders and walls from an Indigenous view of self-determination and anti-colonialism. However, for millennia up to the current period, our ancestors have worked out differences in very different ways. We did not commit mass extermination. We developed games and competitions and other forms to engage peoples with differences or conflicts so that we can share resources. There were never any walls in the Americas or the concept of ‘illegals.’ Walls were never used by the ancestors to create a continent of open-air prisons.
Source: jayaprada
-
US-Backed Regime in Bahrain Bans All Protests →
The US-backed dictatorship in Bahrain has banned all rallies and protests in the country, the latest repressive measure imposed on the population in response to persistent pro-democracy protests that have not let up for almost two years now.
Lt. Gen. Shaikh Rashid bin Abdullah Al Khalifa, Bahrain’s interior minister, issued a statement on Monday essentially announcing that freedom of expression in Bahrain is a threat to the state and inserting lies about the pro-reform movement’s ties with “extremism.”
“It was decided to stop all rallies and gatherings until ensuring that security is maintained through achieving the targeted security to protect national unity and social fabric to fight extremism,” Bahrain’s state news agency reported, quoting the interior minister as saying “any illegal rally or gathering would be tackled through legal actions against those calling for it and participants.”
The Obama administration, contrary to its own propaganda about being on the side of the people in the Arab Spring, has continued to lend economic, military, and diplomatic support to the tiny Persian Gulf monarch throughout its brutal repression of peaceful demonstrators since early 2011, when forty-seven unarmed protesters were shot and killed with live rounds by security forces.
The Bahraini regime hosts the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet, which allows the United States to “project power” in the Persian Gulf and patrol the Straits of Hormuz, through which 40 percent of the world’s seaborne oil passes. That ruthless geo-political advantage is not something the Obama administration is willing to give up for the sake of democracy and human rights.
Banning all protests and demonstration is a dramatic violation of basic rights, but it is only one aspect of the repressive, martial-law type responses from the US-supported dictatorship. Others have included systematic torture, beatings, weaponizing tear gas, imposing curfews, harassing well-known activists, show trials and detentions, and cracking down on press freedoms, among many others.
Source: jayaprada
-
Children were subjected to isolation and ill-treatment; many developed a fear of dogs used for searching. They suffered from nightmares, sleeping and eating disorders, bedwetting, and feared re- arrest or acquired unhealthy habits such as smoking
–Twelve-year-old arrested 10 times by Israel in three years via The Electronic Intifada
According to a report released by Save the Children and the East Jerusalem YMCA Rehabilitation Program in March, the Israeli authorities have arrested and detained over 8,000 Palestinian children in the West Bank and East Jerusalem since 2000 (“The impact of child detention: Occupied Palestinian Territory,” March 2012).
[…]
The report found that most of the children were handcuffed and blindfolded during their arrest — which was most often carried out on suspicion that the children threw stones — and that they were almost always interrogated and held without access to a lawyer or their parents.
Nearly all children (98 percent) were subjected to physical or psychological violence during their arrest and detention, the report found, and 90 percent of children suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder.
[…]
Addameer, the Ramallah-based Palestinian prisoners’ support and human rights association, has reported that as of 1 September this year, some 194 Palestinian children were held in Israeli detention centers, including 30 below the age of 16 (“Key Issues: Children,” Addameer website).
(via jayaprada)
(via jayaprada)
Source: electronicintifada.net
-
Banished Issues – 5 Things You Won’t Hear About at Tonight’s Debate →
The (il)legitimacy of the drone war: The administration is in direct violation of several domestic and international laws in its drone war. They have invented a definition of “imminence,” a required element for justifying the use of force for self-defense in international law. They’re ignoring a Reagan-era statute that bans extra-judicial assassinations. And they appear to be violating the decision of the Supreme Court in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, which said due process must be “accorded to a US citizen deprived of liberty in connection with hostilities (this was ignored, for example, when the administration targeted and killed three US citizens without due process, including a 16-year old boy).
For these and other reasons – like the fact that the drone war in Pakistan and Yemenkills and terrorizes civilians – at least two UN investigators have called the legality of Obama’s drone wars into question. Christof Heyns, UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions called on the Obama administration to explain under what legal framework its drone war is justified and suggested that “war crimes” may have already been committed. The UN human rights chief Navi Pillay also called for a UN investigation into US drone strikes in Pakistan, noting their questionable legality and that they indiscriminately kill innocent civilians.
The failure and cruelty of the Iran sanctions: While Iran will certainly be talked about, the issue of sanctions will only range from harsh to harsher. What will not be discussed is the fact that sanctions have historically failed to change the policies of the targeted regime, and indeed appear to be failing to change the Iranian regime’s policies as well. Especially ignored will be the horrible humanitarian consequences that have already begun to manifest in Iran: The Charity Foundation for Special Diseases, a non-governmental medical organization supporting six million patients in Iran, has warned publicly that the sanctions are putting millions of lives at risk by causing deep shortages of medicines for diseases like hemophilia, multiple sclerosis and cancer.
“The sanctions imposed on the Islamic Republic of Iran have had significant effects on the general population,” UN Secretary General warned in a statement earlier this month, “including an escalation in inflation, a rise in commodities and energy costs, an increase in the rate of unemployment and a shortage of necessary items, including medicine.”
“The sanctions also appear to be affecting humanitarian operations in the country,” he wrote. “Even companies that have obtained the requisite licence to import food and medicine are facing difficulties in finding third-country banks to process the transactions.”
This, all while the consensus view in the entire US and intelligence community is that Iran has no nuclear weapons and has not made the decision to begin to develop nuclear weapons, which they are years away from technologically anyways.
Source: jayaprada
-
NATO ‘Regrets’ Killing Children in Southern Afghan Attack →
NATO has issued a statement today expressing “deep regret” for the killing of three children in the Helmand Province over the weekend, saying that the deaths were “accidental” and promising further investigation. They also claimed two actual Taliban were killed
The comments were a stark contrast to initial NATO comments about the killings, in which they insisted that even though the three slain were between 8 and 12 years old, all of them were “Taliban.”
Family members say the children were sent out to gather dung, which is dried and used as fuel during the harsh winters in mountainous Afghanistan. Local tribal leaders confirmed bags of the dung were found at the attack site.
What wasn’t found at the site were the two “Taliban” supposedly killed in the attack, and while provincial officials echoed NATO’s claim that two Taliban in the area were killed, locals insist they never saw any bodies except for the three children.
See more:
Video Shows Drunk, Stoned US Security Contractors While on Duty
Source: jayaprada
-
[TW: Sexual Violence] By failing to investigate effectively sexual violence against women, the Colombian authorities are sending a dangerous message to perpetrators that they can continue to rape and sexually abuse without fear of the consequences
–Marcelo Pollack, Colombia researcher at Amnesty InternationalColombian authorities fail to stop or punish sexual violence against women via Amnesty International
The report Colombia: Hidden from justice. Impunity for conflict-related sexual violence, a follow-up report examines efforts made by the authorities over the past year to ensure those suspected of criminal responsibility for sexual violence in the country’s long-running armed conflict face justice.
[…]
In the context of Colombia’s armed conflict, women are targets of sexual violence to sow terror within communities to force them to flee their land, wreak revenge on the enemy, control the sexual and reproductive rights of female combatants or exploit women and girls as sexual slaves.
[..]
Sexual violence, particularly in the context of the conflict, is often not reported to the authorities as women are frequently too scared to talk, fear the stigmatization attached to being a survivor of sexual violence or believe the crime will not be effectively investigated.
(via jayaprada)
(via scarylenin-deactivated20121014)
Source: amnesty.org
-
Massive Rally Against US Drone Strikes to Be Held in Pakistan →
A convoy of Pakistanis and foreign supporters (including a handful of Americans) are in the capital city of Islamabad tonight preparing for the start of tomorrow’s major march into the South Waziristan Agency.
The rally aims to protest ongoing US drone strikes against Pakistan’s tribal areas, and is organized by Pakistani MP Imran Khan, whose Pakistani Tehreek-e Insaf (PTI) party is using nationwide resentment against US attacks to increase its political profile ahead of the next election.
Officially the Pakistani government insists it is opposed to the US drone strikes, but in practice they have done little to prevent them, and the US maintains that they have the “tacit consent“ of the Pakistani government to continue.
The Tehreek-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has also issued a statement today denying media reports that they have offered to provide security for tomorrow’s march, saying that their forces are “too important” to waste their time with an opposition rally. The TTP also called the rally a political “gimmick.”
See more:
US Warns Americans Not to Attend Pakistan’s Anti-Drone Rally
Source: jayaprada
![jayaprada:
Workers use an immersion heater to boil water. (2011) (photo: Ron Amir)
[….] Similarly to the other estimated 30,000 Palestinian workers without work permits in Israel, these laborers are confined to building sites day and night for fear of being arrested.
“Every two weeks or so the police come and detain us. They take us to the checkpoint and send us back into the West Bank. It’s their way of telling us whose boss. But they know we’ll just make our way back in,” said Faisal. Israeli NGO Kav LaOved reports that when workers are apprehended, they are usually transported back into the West Bank. But workers can also be indicted. Sentences usually include three months in jail and a police preclusion for three years, barring them from entering and working in Israel lawfully. Basem has had numerous run-ins with the police for working without a permit, but he spoke of how in his experience, no contractor had been penalized for employing illegal workers. He said that this was partly as a result of workers not naming their employers out of fear of being blacklisted.
Israeli photographer, Ron Amir, has a long and close relationship with this particular group of workers. He initially met them while documenting the lives of illegal workers for an exhibition, and subsequently became a friend. Ron described how Palestinian construction workers usually find employment through a long chain of middlemen. Workers are initially hired by a subcontractor from their own village, who is then recruited by a series of other contractors within Israel. Ron claimed that this structure is geared towards obscuring the complicity of Israeli firms in employing illegal workers. This in turn diminishes the prospect of the general contractor being held legally accountable. As Kav LaOved reports, the incentive for employing a Palestinian without a work permit is high. The cost of employing a Palestinian worker with a permit is about 70% higher than employing one without a permit (210 versus 124 shekels respectively).
[….] Israeli labor laws states that every worker in Israel is entitled to the full range of social rights regardless of whether or not they have a permit. Despite this, primary research by NGOs such as Kav LaOved and Gisha suggest that Israeli employers systematically abuse the rights of Palestinian and immigrant workers, particularly those without permits.
Basem didn’t seem phased by the dangers in his line of work. He spoke of a 22 year old Palestinian worker who died this past November after falling off a construction site in Netanya. No charges have as of yet, been lodged against the contractor of the dead worker. Suheib Zayud, 19, fell from a construction site in 2011, he remains in a coma. His contractor denied that he had ever employed Suheib. As a result, the worker’s family received no financial compensation, and have been burdened with all the medical expenses. This case, as well as others before it, suggest that the contractor of the fatally injured worker in Netanya, is unlikely to face legal ramifications.
The work conditions of illegal workers are often substandard, with legally required on-site security and safety conditions systematically neglected. As Kav LaOved reports, in past cases of work-related accidents involving illegal workers, employers have denied any connection to the employee. The lack of a permit and official documentation mean that the employee is unlikely to be able to prove their eligibility for compensation from the National Insurance Institute. A lack of official documentation, and workers commonly receiving cash in hand from subcontractors, makes employees more susceptible to exploitation, and increases the difficulty of proving a violation of rights in labor courts.
At the end of 2011, a total of 27,000 Palestinians were legally working in Israel, predominantly in construction and agriculture. According to a publication issued by the Association of Builders in Israel in 2011, the sector needs 20,000 more workers. Numerous Israeli contractors have reported that they are consistently short of construction workers.
—Alon Aviram, Palestinian employment: The phantom workers of Israel](http://24.media.tumblr.com/db6e5ff696efee73966529647703db92/tumblr_meq8jt92DA1qjdk8lo1_1280.jpg?.jpg)
