Am I Not a Human? (10): The Suffering of the Palestinian Worker under the Israeli Occupation

This book is the tenth among the series of "Am I not a Human?" which is a rich interactive documentation of the Palestinian suffering under the Israeli occupation. The 110 pages book deals with the suffering of the Palestinian worker, the history of the Palestinian labor movement and its struggle to restore its rights. It also talks about the direct targeting of the Palestinian workers, the infrastructure and the agriculture sector. In addition to the Israeli restrictions on the Palestinian economy. For example, since al-Aqsa Intifadah on 28/9/2000 and till the end of October 2010, the press in the West Bank (WB) and Gaza strip (GS) was attacked 1251 times.

The workers living in GS and WB are 24.4% of the Palestinian people i.e., one quarter of the population there. Israel has always worked to strangle the Palestinian economy in order to make the Palestinians economically dependent on Israel. This book also discusses the "open door policy" which was advocated by Moshe Dayan in 1968, that aims to increase the individual standards of living while dismantling the Palestinian economic capacity.

Statistics reveal that more than 35% of the labor force is in GS, and 25-30% of the labor force in the WB had been working in very bad conditions from 1970 till 1993. The Palestinian workers salaries do not exceed 30-50% of the salaries of their Israeli counterparts.

The book asserts that stopping the suffering of the workers is neither by increasing the international financial aid, nor through the employment support programs, rather it is by ending the Israeli occupation. The statistics and documents in this book are rich and updated. Moreover, it contains testimonies, and photos that are very persuasive and convincing.