Mohammed Mar'i Saudi Gazette RAMALLAH – The Israeli government on Sunday approved the entry of 5,000 new Palestinians for work on Israel. The Israel's Radio said that the government allowed the Israel employers to hire the 5,000 workers in the fields of construction and agriculture. The report said that the government took the decision as a good-will gesture in order to facilitate the resumption of peace talks and “to strengthen (Palestinian President) Mahmoud Abbas.” The number of Palestinian workers Israel gives work permits has drastically dropped following the start of the Second Intifada in 2000 and the building of the separation wall. According to Palestinian statistics, around 25,000 Palestinians work legally in Israel. The estimated 30,000 Palestinians enter Israel for work illegally. The number of Palestinian workers in Israel reached 118,000 on the eve of Second Intifada. Israel says some 32,000 Palestinians earn their living inside the country and another 27,750 Palestinians work for Israeli employers in the West Bank. Hundreds of unemployed Palestinian workers risk their lives by creeping into Israel to look for jobs in the labor market as the rate of joblessness in the Palestinian territory hits 24.9 percent. The two sides held their first direct talks in Washington last July after a three-year breakdown. They have agreed to a nine month timetable in an attempt to solve the final status issues; Jerusalem, refugees, boundaries, settlements and security. However, there is pessimism on both sides as to what they will achieve. On Friday, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas suggested that the Palestinian leadership might renege on its agreements regarding Palestinian territories in case Israel overturns past understandings. “We have presented our views, and the Israelis said they wanted to strike what was agreed on regarding borders and security with (former PM) Ehud Olmert,” the Palestinian president said. Meanwhile, Israeli media reports said that the European Union is to send a team to Israel this week to reassure Israelis who are concerned about the economic harm made by the EU's decision to forbid its member states from cooperating, transferring funds, or giving scholarships or research grants to Israeli institutions operating in West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights. The EU decision in July to issue the guidelines that clarified its policy against providing grants, prizes or loans to Israeli entities, including non-profit and educational institutions, located over the pre-1967 lines, angered Israel, which said it was counterproductive to the peace process. Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu announced that Israel will not accept impositions from political parties outside of Israel's borders. The border between Israel and a future PA Arab state will be determined exclusively in negotiations, he declared. On Saturday, US Secretary of State John Kerry asked EU foreign ministers who met in Vilnius, Lithuania to delay any action on the matter given that direct talks were renewed between Israel and the Palestinian Authority at the end of July. For her part, the member of Palestine Liberation Organization's Executive Committee Hanan Ashrawi expressed concern over Kerry's request to the EU. Ashrawi, also head of the committee's Media and Culture Department, said that “the announcement of the EU guidelines was a very positive step which played a significant role in the decision to resume negotiations. By refusing to extend grants and awards beyond the Green Line, these guidelines reinforce the 1967 border and play a constructive role in reaffirming the two-state solution, something which can only help the cause of peace.” She added that “reports of US lobbying the EU on behalf of Israel are extremely discouraging and cast serious doubts on the US mediation role.” “Once again the US is using the negotiations process to grant Israel immunity and to buy it more time to create facts on the ground, thereby rendering the so-called ‘peace process' a self-defeating exercise.”
