Palestinians working inside Israel have been defrauded of more than US $2 billion say Israeli economists PAJU (Palestinian and Jewish Unity) # 473, March 5th, 2010
Jerusalem – Israel has defrauded Palestinian workers of more than US$2 billion by deducting from their salaries contributions for welfare benefits to which they were never entitled, Israeli economists revealed this week.
A new report, “State Robbery”, says the theft continued even after the Palestinian Authority was established in 1994 and part of the money was supposed to be transferred to a special fund on behalf of the workers.
According to information supplied by Israeli officials, most of the deductions from the workers’ pay were invested in infrastructure projects in the Palestinian territories – a presumed reference to the massive state subsidies accorded to Jewish-only settlements in the occupied territories.
“This is a clear-cut case of theft from Palestinian workers on a grand scale,” said Shir Hever, a Jerusalem-based economist and one of the authors of the report. “There are no reasons for Israel to delay in returning this money either to the workers or their beneficiaries.”
Typically, the workers lose a fifth of their salary in deductions that are supposed to cover old age payments, unemployment allowance, disability insurance, child benefits, trade union fees, pension fund, holiday and sick pay, and health insurance.
According to the report from the Alternative Information Centre and Kav La’Oved (the Israel organization Worker’s Hotline), 92% of the money was secretly transferred to the finance ministry.
In one especially cynical use of the funds, the report notes, the money was spent on portable stoves for soldiers involved in Israel’s brutal three-week assault on Gaza last year.
In response, the finance ministry called the report “incorrect and misleading”, but presented no rebuttals of the report’s allegations. Mr Hever said the government body responsible for making the deductions had initially refused to divulge any of its figures, but had partly relented after some statistics were made available through leaks from its staff.
Adapted from “Israel Stole $2bn from Palestinian Workers” by Jonathan Cook. See: http://www.palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=15727
Distributed by PAJU (Palestinian and Jewish Unity)