(Ynet News) Akiva Novick - Hundreds of laborers flooded West Bank settlements on Monday with the end of the settlement construction freeze. One Palestinian resident of the Jerusalem area said, "At the end of the day both sides need to make a living, and although we are rivals, the need to put food on the table overrides everything else. I have no problem building settlements; I have been doing it for twenty years." "We want genuine and just peace, just like everyone else, but peace without income is worthless," he added. "I don't care if the settlements stay here. The most important thing is for us to live in peace, what's wrong with that? We don't believe the boycott on settlement goods will last. The workers cannot survive another extended period of just sitting at home without doing anything, which has been the case now for almost a year." "They [Palestinian workers] are being threatened with five years in prison if they work for us after January 1," said Shaul Goldstein, head of the Gush Etzion Regional Council. "The real coexistence, after all, happens here, and the Palestinian Authority is trying to sabotage this. I am the one who wants peace and they just want war. This is the difference between us." Goldstein said that the start of construction in the settlement of Neve Daniel was celebrated with a joint barbeque which included 80 Palestinian construction workers and 40 Jews.
2010-10-01 09:26:25Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive