Israel/Palestine
Related: About this forumSodaStream CEO: Idiotic Israeli red tape, not BDS, got Palestinians fired
After a tearful goodbye party, a stream of 74 Palestinian workers left a SodaStream factory for the last time on Monday.
After the company became the target of an intense boycott campaign in 2014, it was forced to relocate to the south of Israel. Only 74 experienced Palestinian workers were able to continue to work for the company, which employs some 400 Negev Bedouin at the new plant out of a total staff of 1,200.
Then the Israeli government refused to renew the work permits of those remaining Palestinian workers.
The CEO of SodaStream is furious. But his anger today is directed at the Israeli government rather than at the BDS movement that brought the boycott plague upon his house in the first place.
This has nothing to do with BDS, Birnbaum told The Times of Israel on Tuesday. It has everything to do with the Israeli government. I hope someone in the government will step up and correct the idiocy in the bureaucracy.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/sodastream-ceo-idiotic-israeli-red-tape-not-bds-got-palestinians-fired/
Israeli
(4,161 posts)AL BIREH // Worry for the loved ones he supports has been weighing on Nabil Bisharat since he lost his job at fizzy drinks machine producer SodaStream on Monday after the Israeli government refused to renew his work permit.
For Mr Bisharat, a father of seven, and 73 other Palestinians whose permits expired on February 29, the governments decision has sent them from financial stability and prospects for advancement with the Israeli company to struggling to find work in the depressed West Bank economy.
Its a shock, Mr Bisharat said over lightly sweetened coffee at a cafe in Al Bireh, the twin city of Ramallah that is close to his home in the village of Jaba. Until the last moment I didnt believe they would fire us.
Mr Bisharat, 42, started at SodaStream six years ago and worked his way up from assembly worker to shift manager to line manager and, three years ago, to head of a department. He had 53 people working under him, about half of them Israeli Jews. Now he may have to go back to the job he did before joining SodaStream, working as a baker.
The dismissals also end what workers say was SodaStreams status as a rare island of coexistence where Palestinians and Israelis got along and became close despite all the tensions and violence swirling around them.
Whoever wasnt there wouldnt believe it, Mr Bisharat said. Its like a big family, with a lot of friendships. Im not a politician, Im a simple man but thats the reality. Both Arabs and Jews reached the point of not rejecting the other and wanting to live in the same land in peace. They share our celebrations, our sorrows, everything. When someone feels sorry we share it, its sharing feelings, not only work.
Co-workers organised goodbye breakfasts and lunches for the departing Palestinians and a colleague of Mr Bisharats treated a group of them to a day out at the marina of the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon. On Monday, before the Palestinians got on the bus back to West Bank for the last time, hundreds of workers formed a huge peace sign outside the plant.
In response to a query as to why the work permits were denied, the prime ministers office replied that the policy of the government is to give priority to the employment of Israeli workers.
But with plans already approved by Israels security cabinet to give work permits to another 30,000 Palestinians from the West Bank in addition to the 58,000 who already have permits, according to the Haaretz newspaper, it seems puzzling that the 74 could not be accommodated. And these figures do not take into account the estimated 30,000 Palestinians from the West Bank who work in Israel illegally.
Ive been working on this 25 hours a day, Ive spoken with every minister or senior executive in the Israeli government and they are sending me from one official to the next, making excuses about preferring Israeli employees, said SodaStream chief executive Daniel Birnbaum. Its ridiculous. There is no way 74 people will change anything in the dynamics of the Israeli economy.
Mr Birnbaum said the Palestinian workers were being victimised by the government in a bid to discredit the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, which calls for boycotts against Israel over its occupation of the West Bank.
In late 2014 SodaStream closed its plant at the West Bank settlement industrial zone of Mishor Adumim and moved to Lehavim in southern Israel following a BDS campaign that included targeting Hollywood actress Scarlett Johansson, who advertised the companys products. More than 500 Palestinian employees mostly people ineligible for permits to enter Israel lost their jobs, while 74 were given temporary permits and moved with the company to Lehavim.
Source : http://www.thenational.ae/world/middle-east/20160305/israel-sacrifices-palestinian-workers-to-discredit-bds-campaign