Employing the Enemy: The Story of Palestinian Labourers on Israeli Settlements - Hardcover

Vickery, Matthew

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1783609958 ISBN 13: 9781783609956

Publisher: Zed Books, 2017

Synopsis

How would it feel to build homes for other people on land that had been taken from you? That bitter toil is the daily reality for the thousands of Palestinians who are working to build illegal Israeli settlements. It is a job that requires a disavowal of their legal rights and comes with little to no job security, low wages, and dangerous working conditions. Through a vivid and moving narrative, Matthew Vickery introduces us to the Palestinian workers who fill these harrowing positions.
 
Based on conversations with these workers and their families, the book explores the rationale, emotions, and consequences of such conflicted employment. In doing so, Vickery draws attention to a previously neglected aspect of the Palestinian experience and Israeli subjugation. This, coupled with an innovative and groundbreaking analysis of the Israeli government’s role in the settlement employment sector, exposes the true nature of these practices as a new, insidious form of state-sponsored forced labor.  Exploring ways that such practices might be challenged, Employing the Enemy paints a powerful picture of how and why people collude with their own oppression, and why a solution to the Israel/Palestine conflict that provides dignity and rights for all is urgently needed.
 

About this title

About the Author

Matthew Vickery is senior commissioning editor for e-International Relations and a British Research Council in the Levant language scholar. He has written for Al-Jazeera, New Internationalist, openDemocracy, Middle East Eye, and the Herald, among other media.
 

Review

“The story of Palestinian workers in Israeli settlements is not well known. This book tells it with candour and vividness. Essential reading for those who want to understand the true extent of Israel's domination of the Palestinians.” (Ghada Karmi, author of In Search of Fatima: A Palestinian Story)

“Vickery convincingly illuminates a little known aspect of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank—the exploitation and abuse of Palestinians so desperate for work that they take underpaid and humiliating jobs in Israeli settlements.” (Richard Falk, former UN Special Rapporteur on Palestinian rights)

“Provides a vivid exposition of the material struggles and moral dilemmas faced by these workers, as well as the ways in which their labour produces its own small, steadfast gestures of resistance.” (John Reynolds, author of Beyond Occupation)

“A forensic and humane study of Palestinian workers in Israeli settlements, Vickery's book is a much-needed resource on a complex issue.” (Ben White, author of Israeli Apartheid: A Beginner's Guide)

“Employing the Enemy provides fascinating insight into issues that are usually only available to the NGO readership. . .. Easy to read, extremely thought provoking, and should be read by anyone interested in the structural hardships imposed on the Palestinians living in the West Bank.” (Palestine Square)

“Vickery writes clearly and movingly about the lives and conflicts of the people that he met. . . . It draws such a clear and concrete picture of the injustices that are being suffered by the Palestinian workers and of the direct and premeditated role played by the Israeli government in creating this situation.” (Jews for Justice for Palestinians)

Edition details

• Publisher: Zed Books
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 1783609958
• ISBN 13: 9781783609956
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 160