US embassy cable - 04TELAVIV6498

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 TEL AVIV 006498 
 
SIPDIS 
 
NEA/IPA 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/19/2014 
TAGS: KWBG, ECON, IS, SETTLEMENTS, ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN AFFAIRS 
SUBJECT: GUSH KATIF FARMERS SHORT-HANDED FOR HIGH SEASON AS 
THAI WORKERS DEPART 
 
Classified By: Economic Counselor Bill Weinstein for reasons 1.4 (b) an 
d (d) 
 
1.  (C) Summary: On Saturday, December 18, the visiting Thai 
Labor Minister and the Thai Ambassador to Israel met with 150 
Thai agricultural workers in Gush Katif and encouraged them 
to leave the settlement for security reasons.  The meeting 
resulted in over 80 workers tentatively agreeing to depart, 
either to find jobs inside Green Line Israel or return to 
Thailand.  Gush Katif communications director Devorah Rosen 
told Econoff that only twenty Thais intend to leave, a number 
that would not cause the settlement farms to close 
permanantly, but would hinder "high season" production from 
December to February, especially on farms larger than 20 
dunams.  In the longer-term Gush Katif hopes to replace 
departing Thais with Nepalese workers, but this lengthy 
bureaucratic process has been made more difficult by the 
GOI's reluctance to grant employment permits for settlements 
slated for evacuation.  While Rosen asserted that Thai 
laborers are well-treated and better paid than their 
counterparts inside Israel, the Thai Embassy described poor 
working conditions in the settlement, including employers who 
withhold salaries and passports to prevent workers from 
fleeing.  End Summary. 
 
--------------------------------------------- --------- 
Thai Government Intensifies Push for Laborers to Leave 
--------------------------------------------- --------- 
 
2.  (SBU) Thai Labor Minister Uraiwan Thienthong and Thai 
Ambassador to Israel Kasivat Paruggamanont met December 18 
with some 150 Thai laborers currently working in the Gush 
Katif settlement, in an effort to encourage them to depart 
immediately.  The meeting was an intensification of the GoT's 
four-year-old policy of discouraging laborers from accepting 
employment in Gush Katif, and came on the heels of the third 
killing of a Thai worker in the Gaza Strip since the intifada 
began.  According to Thai Deputy Chief of Mission Chantipha 
Phutrakul, some eighty laborers raised their hands when the 
Labor Minister asked, "Who is ready to leave?"  Phutrakul 
noted that although the Minister cited Israel's planned 
withdrawal from Gaza as one of many incentives for laborers 
to depart, the GoT's concern is for laborers' security, "not 
Israel's political process." 
 
--------------------------------------------- ------------- 
Israeli Immigration Will Deport Illegals, Find Others Jobs 
--------------------------------------------- ------------- 
 
3.  (C) Nearly one third of Gush Katif's Thai workers are 
illegally residing in Israel, and many are "using the 
settlement as a hide-out from the immigration police." 
Phutrakul said the Minister and the Ambassador addressed 
these laborers' fear of deportation by simply asking them to 
come home, stating, "You will find greener pastures 
elsewhere."  Conversely, workers still in legal status can 
expect assistance from Israeli immigration -- Ambassador 
Paruggamanont met with the chief of the immigration police, 
who reportedly agreed to assist those workers whose visas are 
less than two years old in finding jobs inside Green Line 
Israel. 
 
---------------------------------- 
Every Worker Counts in High Season 
---------------------------------- 
 
4.  (SBU) Devorah Rosen, Communications Director for Gush 
Katif, told Econoff that not more than 20 laborers will leave 
the settlement.  "Eighty may have raised their hands at the 
meeting, but they didn't sign any agreement," she said.  The 
settlement leadership is optimistic that Thai anxieties will 
dissipate within "three to four weeks", and that the Thai 
government's calls for depart will have little lasting effect 
on settlement agriculture.  In the short term, however, even 
20 lost laborers will prove problematic, since "every person 
counts" during the "high season" of production which runs 
from December to late February.  She explained that the 
larger farmers -- those with more than 20 dunams of land -- 
will be hit especially hard by the loss of even a few 
laborers since unlike on smaller farms, landowners will be 
unable to fill in for the departed workers themselves. 
 
------------------------------------ 
GOI Hindering Long-Term Replacements 
------------------------------------ 
 
5.  (SBU) While the manpower agency that supplies Gush Katif 
has brought in several Nepalese laborers who can replace 
Thais, settlement farmers are faced with a lengthy 
bureaucratic process within the Ministry of the Interior in 
order to secure permits for new workers.  Since Gush Katif is 
slated for evacuation, the Ministry is reluctant to issue new 
work permits for the settlement.  Rosen noted that farmers 
must ask the Ministry to transfer existing permits by 
canceling those of the Thai workers and reissuing them under 
the names of their Nepalese replacements.  One can "read 
between the lines", she added, to see that the GOI is "making 
this about" disengagement.  With only twenty workers who need 
replacing, Rosen said, the thorny permit process will be 
manageable.  If that number increases, however, farming in 
Gush Katif could suffer a serious and long-term setback. 
 
--------------------------------------------- ---------------- 
Katif Says Workers Satisfied, Thai Embassy Cites Maltreatment 
--------------------------------------------- ---------------- 
 
6.  (SBU) Rosen said that the Thai workers in Gush Katif are 
happy to stay -- they enjoy excellent treatment and high 
salaries, and they get Saturdays off, unlike their 
counterparts in Green Line Israel.  As an example of good 
employer-employee relations she cited the winter coats the 
workers received as holiday gifts from their employers in 
Ganne Tal and Gush Katif.  When it comes to the three Thais 
who were killed, she continued, laborers view themselves as 
"victims of circumstance" rather than specific targets of 
terrorism. 
 
7.  (C) In the view of the Thai Embassy, however, a vast 
majority of the Thai laborers in Gush Katif would prefer to 
work elsewhere.  Relations with employers are bad, explained 
Phutrakul, with some farmers withholding salaries and 
passports in an attempt to prevent laborers from fleeing in 
the face of the ongoing security threat.  She added that 
laborers are also forced to work 15-20 more hours per week 
than their Green Line Israel counterparts.  Along with the 
constant security threat within the Gaza Strip, Thai laborers 
have found themselves in a situation Phutrakul said the GoT 
"cannot abide anymore." 
 
********************************************* ******************** 
Visit Embassy Tel Aviv's Classified Website: 
http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/nea/telaviv 
 
You can also access this site through the State Department's 
Classified SIPRNET website. 
********************************************* ******************** 
KURTZER