Trade Union Friends of Israel

The High Court of Justice concluded on 10 October that “applying foreign law on the Palestinian workers as opposed to applying Israeli law on the Israeli workers violates the Palestinian workers' basic rights and subjects them to discrimination… and that given the circumstances under consideration, Israeli law applies to the labour relations between the Israeli employers and the Palestinian workers who are residents of the West Bank”.

Israeli employers had argued that in cases where the contract between the employer and the employee did not specify which law would apply, the local law, in other words Jordanian law, would apply by default to Palestinians, and the fact his employer was Israeli was irrelevant. But the court ruled that in the particular case of the West Bank, there were essentially two territories: the Palestinian-occupied areas and the "Israeli enclaves", which had a special status.

A day after the High Court ruling, 90 Palestinian workers of “Yamit” irrigation and filtering systems factory in the West Bank went on strike, and are holding up the plant’s activities. The workers are demanding the minimum wage, medical treatment and holiday leave, all according to Israeli law.

Secondary School and University Strikes in Israel
The start of the university academic year has been delayed in Israel following the decision by the Senior Lecturers' Union (SLU) to commence striking on Sunday 20 October, the day thousands of students were set to begin classes.

The strike follows a failure to reach a last minute settlement with the Finance Ministry. The union says that a collective wage agreement has been missing for lecturers since 2001, and consequently wages have eroded significantly in the intervening years. Prof. Zvi Hacohen, head of the lecturers' negotiations team, said that lecturers' salaries had been reduced by an average of 15% in recent years.

Secondary schools also remain closed throughout Israel as the Secondary School Teachers’ Association (SSTA) has now been on strike over wages and working conditions since Wednesday 10 October. The Finance and Education ministries have continued to call on the union to accept already existing wage agreements and to end the strike.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert also waged into the quagmire this week, stating that the strike was hurting the students and the status of teachers in Israel, and called for it to end. But all negotiations have thus far ended without tangible progress. Ran Erez, the head of the SSTA, says the union is holding out for a large wage increase with no increase in workload, and claims that the union has the resources to continue the strike for a further three months.

Middle East Peace Process: Annapolis Conference
Momentum has been building in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process in recent months. Fortnightly meetings have been held between President Abbas and Prime Minister Olmert since July and the appointment of Tony Blair as the Quartet’s Middle East Envoy in June has helped spark a new round of diplomatic activity. The current focus of diplomatic initiatives is on the US sponsored peace conference to be held in Annapolis in November.

Tensions remain over what is hoped to be achieved at the November conference. The Palestinians want to discuss final status issues whilst Israel would prefer to agree to a joint declaration of interests. The two sides are negotiating over how to address the issues of the future Israeli-Palestinian borders, the fate of millions of Palestinian refugees and the status of Jerusalem, which each side claims as its capital.

Questions also remain over which members of the Arab League will attend the conference, in particular Saudi Arabia and Syria, who have both refused to confirm their attendance. Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh called on Arab states to boycott the November peace conference and spoke out against “any normalisation” of relations with Israel. Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatolah Khameini, has also called on Muslim countries to boycott the conference.

In an effort to improve trust between the two parties, Israel released 57 Palestinian prisoners to the West Bank on 1 October and a further 29 prisoners to Gaza on 2 October. This follows the Israeli release of over 250 prisoners in July. In another goodwill gesture to President Abbas, Israel said on 10 October that it will grant residency permits to 5,000 Palestinians who have been living illegally in the West Bank. The residency permits will be granted as part of the ‘family reunification’ policy established at Oslo in 1993 and that has been on hold since 2001, following the outbreak of the second intifada.

Temporary International Mechanism to be resumed
In a joint statement on 24 September all members of the Quartet agreed to extend the Temporary International Mechanism (TIM) and resume direct aid to the PA emergency government based in Ramallah by 2008. The UK was one of the first countries to resume aid, donating over £3 million on 11 July.

Gaza: Four killed in factional fighting
Fighting erupted between Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) in the Southern region of Rafah in the Gaza Strip, on 21 October, killing one PIJ member. The fighting followed further clashes on 20 October between the two groups which left three people dead, including a woman and a fifteen year old boy.

UN: Hezbollah has increased military strength since 2006 war
According to a report to the UN Security Council, Hezbollah has rebuilt and even increased its military capacity since the end of the war in Lebanon last summer.

The report said the findings about the situation in the region was “deeply disconcerting and stands in stark contradiction to the terms of Resolution 1559,” which contains the ceasefire provisions. It called for disarming forces in southern Lebanon and for the UN peacekeeping operations and Lebanese army to monitor the ceasefire.