Employing the Enemy

How would it feel to build homes on land stolen from you? This bitter toil is the daily reality for many Palestinians. Currently, thousands of Palestinians are working in, and building, illegal Israeli settlements. This work entails a rejection of their legal rights, little to no job security, low wages and dangerous working conditions. Through a vivid and moving narrative, based on many conversations with these workers and their families, Matthew Vickery explores the rationale, emotions, thoughts and consequences of such employment. In doing so, he draws attention to a previously neglected aspect of the Palestinian experience and Israeli subjugation. This, coupled with an innovative and ground-breaking analysis of the Israeli government’s role in the settlement employment sector, exposes the true nature of these practices as a new, insidious form of state-sponsored forced labour. Exploring how such practices might be challenged, ‘Employing the Enemy’ paints a powerful picture of how and why people collude with their own oppression, and why a solution to the Israel/Palestine conflict which provides dignity and rights for all is so urgently needed.