Newspaper Page Text
Unusual Arab
labor shortage
SHOP BIG STAR,
RICHWAY FOODS AND
by David Schwartz
While throughout the world
generally there are complaints of a
lack of jobs, in one area of the
world there is the direct opposite —
a shortage of workers.
Where is this refreshing Utopia?
It is none other than the Middle
East.
It is really an inspiring story—1
mean the idea that there is a spot
where this terrible plague of
unemployment does not exist. But
there is a problem attached to it.
The story of labor shortage was
told the other day in the financial
section of the New York Times by
Youssef M. Ibrahim.
All of the oil countries, he wrote,
have ambitious five-year programs
for quick industrial development,
but they will be lucky, he told us, if
they can implement them in IS not
in five years.
The bottleneck, we were told, is
the shortage of skilled labor “from
the top management level down to
the bricklayer."
The oil countries, we were told
further, have already absorbed two
million foreign laborers, but this is
not enough. “Because of their
limited populations, such
countries as the United Arab
Emirate, Kuwait, and Saudi
Arabia are now requiring that
foreign contractors who bid on
major projects bring their own
labor.”
All of this makes one wonder.
Why, if all the countries complain
of limited populations, can't they
absorb those Palestinian refugees
they all talk so much about.
They are short of bricklayers, we
were told. Certainly they can find
among the Palestinian refugees
people able to be bricklayers.
As a descendant of an old family
in the bricklaying trade I am able
to speak. My ancestors, way back
several thousand years ago in
Egypt, were in the brick business.
They had no difficulty in learning
the craft. Even when Pharaoh
demanded of the Jews that they
make bricks without straw, many
of them filled most of the quota.
Is it possible that Pharaoh
enslaved the Jews because only the
foreigners could be taught to be
brick makers?
According to the newspaper,
our Defense Department, our own
Pentagon, is helping Saudi Arabia
build a six hundred million dollar
military academy.
Wouldn’t it be better for the
United States to help Saudi Arabia
build a school of technology so
that it could get the skilled labor it
needs?
One of the first institutions
erected by the Zionists in Israel
was such a school and it was partly
because of this that many Arabs, as
soon as the Zionists began
working, immigrated into
Palestine because that was the only
place they could get work. The
Haifa Technion helped lay the
ground for this work.
President Carter is also helping
provide arms for Saudi Arabia.
Mr. Carter scoffs at the idea that
these arms are intended to be used
against Israel. Saudi Arabia, he
says, has never been actively
engaged in any aggression against
Israel. The New Republic, in a
recent issue, thinks Mr. Carter is
sadly misinformed and points out
that Saudi Arabia has participated
in three wars against Israel.
Returning to the matter of the
Palestinian refugees, it is time also
to clear up some of the
misinformation on that subject.
We are told of the three and a half
million Palestinian refugees. The
fact is that at the time of Israel's
War for Independence, only some
six hundred thousand were left.
Some put the figure at a million at
most and it should be said also that
many of these had immigrated into
Israel from other Arab lands
because of Zionist economic
development. Also it should be
remembered that about a million
Jews living in Arab countries after
the War for Independence fled
from the Arab countries and
settled in Israel.
l
But we come to our main
point- why can’t Arab countries
suffering from limited population
and needing workers not take in
more of these refugees? Why
should they demand that
contractors bring in foreign
workers? They discriminate
against their own people. That is
no way for a country with a limited
population to grow.
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Page 21 THE SOUTHERN ISRAELITE April 7, l»7g
