VOA标准英语2010年-Palestinian Ban on Working in Settleme

Palestinian workers arrive at dawn at the Nilin Israeli checkpoint, between the West Bank and the Jewish settlement of Modiin Illit. (File)

Palestinian leaders recently announced a ban prohibiting Palestinian laborers¹ from working on Jewish settlements in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. The ban has triggered anger and uncertainty² among tens of thousands of West Bank Palestinians who depend on high-paying and more plentiful³ jobs in the settlements.

It is six in the morning and the sun is starting to rise at a checkpoint in the West Bank next to the Israeli settlement of Modi'in Illit.  Lining⁴ up at a fence surrounding the settlement are hundreds of Palestinian men, including 40-year-old Younis Salah from the West Bank town of El-Khader, near Bethlehem. 

Salah lines up here every morning, waiting to cross into the settlement to work his shift as a construction foreman.  His reason for working on the settlement is simple.

He says he works on a settlement because he needs to feed his children.

Salah is one of an estimated 21,000 Palestinian workers whose hands are building new homes in places like Modi'in Illit - Jewish settlements that Palestinian leaders claim are encroaching on West Bank lands, impeding⁵ the creation of a Palestinian state, and creating a major sticking point in the Middle East peace process.

The Palestinian leadership has banned working on settlements, saying that any Palestinian who participates in the building of settlements is helping⁶ the enemy.   

"It's a process. We're moving very fast toward separation from Israel," said Abdel Hafiz Nofel, deputy economy minister of the Palestinian Authority. "We believe that with the settlers and the settlements, there is no way to live together."

Salah, the construction worker, says that morning after morning, he lives a paradox⁷.

He says this is his ironic⁸ fate.  He says the Israelis - in his words - took the land of Palestinians like himself, and he is working on their settlements.  He says that even if he wanted to look for work in Arab countries, Israeli travel restrictions⁹ would prevent him from going there.  He says he has no choice but to work on a settlement.

It is the larger earnings¹⁰ and steady work - which are hard to find in the West Bank - that drive Palestinians like Salah to work on the settlements.

Salah estimates his earnings are double what they would be in the West Bank, if he even found a job there. 

His earnings at the settlement enable him to provide his family with a comfortable life. Their home in El-Khader is spacious¹¹, clean, and well-furnished. 

The family has just welcomed their latest addition, a newborn daughter. 

They also have a five-year-old daughter who is disabled and gets no benefits from the Palestinian Authority.  Salah is able to pay the full cost of expensive therapy for her.

Salah's wife, Ahlam, says she dreams of a Palestinian state free of Israeli occupation.  But she says she must also face reality.

She says her husband is working on a settlement because there is no alternative.  It is, she says, how he brings food to the table. Ahlam says the family wants to be comfortable, and she wants her children to live with dignity and not be humiliated¹².

Palestinian leaders say they hope to provide options for workers, but have so far come up with no concrete alternatives for those who will be unemployed¹³ as a result of the ban.

Putting tens of thousands of people out of work suddenly is cause for concern for the Palestinian Authority, and officials have said they will delay implementation¹⁴ of the ban for several months.

Younis Salah says it will take more than a command from Palestinian leaders to stop him from going to work at a settlement.

He says he will respect the authority, and he knows the leaders can enforce the ban if they want to.  However, he says the only way they will be able to stop him is by force.

Until then, and in the absence of good job opportunities in the West Bank, the morning ritual of lining up to work on the other side of the fence will continue for Salah and thousands of others.

 

1 laborers   

n.体力劳动者，工人( laborer的名词复数 )；（熟练工人的）辅助工

参考例句：

• Laborers were trained to handle 50-ton compactors and giant cranes. 工人们接受操作五十吨压土机和巨型起重机的训练。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• Wage-labour rests exclusively on competition between the laborers. 雇佣劳动完全是建立在工人的自相竞争之上的。 来自英汉非文学 - 共产党宣言

2 uncertainty   

n.易变，靠不住，不确知，不确定的事物

参考例句：

• Her comments will add to the uncertainty of the situation.她的批评将会使局势更加不稳定。
• After six weeks of uncertainty,the strain was beginning to take its toll.6个星期的忐忑不安后，压力开始产生影响了。

3 plentiful   

adj.富裕的，丰富的

参考例句：

• Their family has a plentiful harvest this year.他们家今年又丰收了。
• Rainfall is plentiful in the area.这个地区雨量充足。

4 lining   

n.衬里，衬料

参考例句：

• The lining of my coat is torn.我的外套衬里破了。
• Moss makes an attractive lining to wire baskets.用苔藓垫在铁丝篮里很漂亮。

5 impeding   

a.(尤指坏事)即将发生的，临近的

参考例句：

• Fallen rock is impeding the progress of rescue workers. 坠落的石头阻滞了救援人员的救援进程。
• Is there sufficient room for the kiosk and kiosk traffic without impeding other user traffic? 该环境下是否有足够的空间来摆放信息亭？信息亭是否会妨碍交通或者行走？ 来自About Face 3交互设计精髓

6 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。

7 paradox   

n.似乎矛盾却正确的说法；自相矛盾的人(物)

参考例句：

• The story contains many levels of paradox.这个故事存在多重悖论。
• The paradox is that Japan does need serious education reform.矛盾的地方是日本确实需要教育改革。

8 ironic   

adj.讽刺的，有讽刺意味的，出乎意料的

参考例句：

• That is a summary and ironic end.那是一个具有概括性和讽刺意味的结局。
• People used to call me Mr Popularity at high school,but they were being ironic.人们中学时常把我称作“万人迷先生”，但他们是在挖苦我。

9 restrictions   

约束( restriction的名词复数 )； 管制； 制约因素； 带限制性的条件（或规则）

参考例句：

• I found the restrictions irksome. 我对那些限制感到很烦。
• a snaggle of restrictions 杂乱无章的种种限制

10 earnings   

n.工资收人；利润，利益，所得

参考例句：

• That old man lives on the earnings of his daughter.那个老人靠他女儿的收入维持生活。
• Last year there was a 20% decrease in his earnings.去年他的收入减少了20%。

11 spacious   

adj.广阔的，宽敞的

参考例句：

• Our yard is spacious enough for a swimming pool.我们的院子很宽敞，足够建一座游泳池。
• The room is bright and spacious.这房间很豁亮。

12 humiliated   

感到羞愧的

参考例句：

• Parents are humiliated if their children behave badly when guests are present. 子女在客人面前举止失当，父母也失体面。
• He was ashamed and bitterly humiliated. 他感到羞耻，丢尽了面子。

13 unemployed   

adj.失业的，没有工作的；未动用的，闲置的

参考例句：

• There are now over four million unemployed workers in this country.这个国家现有四百万失业人员。
• The unemployed hunger for jobs.失业者渴望得到工作。

14 implementation   

n.实施，贯彻

参考例句：

• Implementation of the program is now well underway.这一项目的实施现在行情看好。