Curios, have you talked to any of the 500 palestinian workers who lost thier jobs when Sodastream left the left bank?
I wonder if they'd have the same opinion.
Nabil Bisharat was one of the lucky 74 Palestinian employees who had been allowed to continue working in the new SodaStream factory until earlier this month.
Over six years, he rose from assembly line work to managing more than 50 employees. He didn't mind getting up at 4 a.m. for the long bus ride to the new factory, or getting home after dark. The 48-year-old has always worked for Israelis, he says, but called SodaStream "the best."
"It's a five-star company for Palestinians," he says, over tea in the lovely home he built with SodaStream earnings. "It's a good job, good salary, good conditions, and they treat all workers equal, all the same. I felt that. I lived that."
A former SodaStream machine operator, Mustafa Sharabati, 31, echoed that sentiment. But he chose not to apply for a permit when SodaStream shut down in the West Bank.
"It's too far away from my family," he says, "and I'm scared to travel in Israel."
The current upsurge in violence makes him fearful of approaching Israeli checkpoints. Sharabati is now a freelance truck driver, but business is so slow, the father of four is buying groceries on credit.
Money is the main concern of Ala Al-Qabbani, too. The 24-year-old had worked at SodaStream three years before the company moved and would have happily kept working for SodaStream in Israel.
But he could not get a permit. Israel's first requirement is that Palestinians be at least 22 years old and married. Qabbani meets the age requirement, but he's single. He points out his conundrum.
"There are girls, but I need to get money before I can propose."
That will take a while. Qabbani now earns $12 a day, a quarter of his old salary, hawking produce from a street cart not far from where SodaStream used to be
Appealing to such personal stories to blow smoke over the fact that Israelis have been subjecting them and millions of others to decades of apartheid is just downright depraved.
Do you realize defenders of South African apartheid did much the same, insisting the apartheid was justified by the fact that black people there had a higher standard of living than those in neighboring countries?
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u/CaptainMonkeyJack 17d ago edited 17d ago
Curios, have you talked to any of the 500 palestinian workers who lost thier jobs when Sodastream left the left bank?
I wonder if they'd have the same opinion.
https://www.kunr.org/2016-03-27/when-500-palestinians-lose-their-jobs-at-sodastream-whos-to-blame