Hundreds of Palestinian workers have been left unemployed after the SodaStream factory where they worked moved out of the occupied West Bank and back into Israel following an international boycott campaign.
Daniel Birnbaum, chief executive of SodaStream International, said the last 74 Palestinian workers left on Monday after being denied permits to work inside Israel at the new factory.
“We gave them an opportunity to work,” he told Israel’s Channel 2 TV, calling Palestinians the main victims of the boycott movement while also criticising the Israeli government for not granting them work permits.
“The government of Israel somehow couldn’t overcome their own bureaucracy or hard-headedness and figure out the tremendous challenge of enabling 74 good people … to continue to let them do what they have been doing.”
In all about 500 Palestinians have lost their jobs after the factory moved in 2015 amid a high-profile boycott campaign known as BDS, meaning boycott, divestment and sanctions.
The movement seeks to ostracise Israel by lobbying corporations, artists and academic institutions to sever ties with the Jewish state. Supporters say the boycott is aimed at furthering Palestinian aspirations for independence, and that their efforts are modelled on an earlier campaign against apartheid South Africa.
Critics say the campaign is not aimed at Israeli policies but at delegitimising Israel itself. Some accuse it of antisemitism because it singles out Israel for boycott while ignoring countries with poor human rights records.
Israel occupied the West Bank in 1967 in a move never recognised by the international community.
At a march to protest the government’s decision on Monday, a few hundred SodaStream employees formed a peace sign at the company’s Lehavim factory.
Palestinian employees then boarded buses for the last time to be taken into the West Bank.
Anas Abdul Wadud Ghayth, 25, had worked for SodaStream for four years and wiped tears from behind his glasses.
“We were one family. I am sad because I am leaving my friends who have worked here for a long time,” he said.
“There is no hope in Palestine. There is little work.”
Bassel Salhaya said he had no plan for future employment in the West Bank.
“We were together 12 hours a day, more than I see my wife and son,” he said. “We became like brothers.”
Many Palestinians work in Israeli settlements because of limited job prospects in the West Bank. The Palestinians say the local economy is hobbled by Israeli restrictions.
Mahmoud Nawajaa, the BDS coordinator in the West Bank town of Ramallah, called the loss of the Palestinian jobs at SodaStream “part of the price that should be paid in the process of ending the occupation”. He called on the Palestinian Authority to do more to find jobs for the workers.
SodaStream, which had revenues of $112.9m in the final quarter of 2015, initially threatened to halt production at its factory unless the “essential” workers were given permits. However it later backed down and made them redundant.
Birnbaum said he was “still hopeful” a solution could be found and said the company might move some operations back to the West Bank.
“If the government of Israel does not allow the Palestinians to get their jobs, I will bring those jobs to the Palestinians. That is not a threat. It is a fact.”
Cogat, the defence ministry body responsible for coordinating Israeli government activity in the Palestinian territories, declined to comment on the redundancies but said it had helped facilitate the movement of the factory.
“Cogat has taken many measures to help the factory and provided temporary permits to hundreds of labourers in the past year and a half to enable the transfer [of the factory],” a statement said.
According to Cogat 58,000 Palestinians hold permits to work in Israel, with another 27,000 working for Israeli businesses in West Bank settlements and industrial zones.
SodaStream - which employs around 1,200 people - has called for that number to be increased but it would require a government decision.
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