From The New Yorker on X:

Israel’s ban on Palestinian workers has left families hungry and parents unable to pay for their children’s school fees. Still, the ban is being justified in the name of security, and shows no signs of abating.

It reminds me of the old joke about the man who murdered his parents and threw himself on the mercy of the court because he’s an orphan.

As Katie Pavlich writes on X:

Israel is a sovereign country and Palestinians from Gaza or the West Bank have zero right to work in that country – especially after Israelis who lived on the border with Gaza invited Palestinians into their homes to work and break bread. Gaza Palestinians returned the favor by taking notes about where safe rooms were, layouts of the homes, if there were dogs, etc. in plans for their ultimate slaughter, pillaging and rape on October 7. Dozens of Americans were murdered at the NOVA peace festival down the road.

So yeah, they’re not allowed to work in Israel anymore. Maybe you should be asking the governments of Gaza and the West Bank to foster economies that benefit their people so they don’t have to go work in the country next door.

However, it’s actually more complicated than that. There were indeed early reports that many Gazan workers spied on the kibbutz residents and helped Hamas with gathering information for the slaughter. But this spying was apparently not as widespread as initially reported – or was it? I’m referring to this report:

According to a Channel 12 report on Wednesday, the Shin Bet has investigated some 3,000 Gazans who had permits to work in Israel to assess if they had provided the terror group with information about the communities it was planning on attacking and has concluded that no such concerted effort was made.

The report noted that the Shin Bet did not completely rule out the possibility that some individual laborers had cooperated with the terror group.

“There’s no concern that the people who were investigated passed information to Hamas as a result of their work in Israel,” Channel 12 quoted the Shin Bet as saying. There was no immediate confirmation of the report from the agency, which rarely responds to inquiries.

What is the political bent of Israel’s Channel 12? I’ve read in that past that it’s on the left, and Google AI seems to think it’s center or center-left. At any rate, the issue is that this is (a) a report about a report, with no confirmation (b) a report based on interviews with 16% of the workforce; but who comprised this 16% and how were they made available for interrogation? (c) a report that there was no “concerted” effort.

What does “concerted” mean in this context – does it mean sheer numbers or does it mean coordination? Were the 16% typical of the group as a whole? How did Shin Bet determine whether they were telling the truth or not? Does the report even exist? If it does, is it being fairly represented? Not only is it not available for reading, but Shin Bet hasn’t even confirmed the story.

I don’t know the answers. What I do know is that Hamas is the government of Gaza and at the time of the attack had the support of the vast majority of the people of Gaza. It’s harder to tell how people in Gaza feel now, but I think it’s safe to say that many continue to harbor an intense hatred of Israel. Hamas itself is dedicated to Israel’s destruction. Israel is under no obligation to employ any of the people of Gaza.

Another response to the New Yorker tweet asks the question: why can’t Egypt employ the unemployed Gazans? After all, they’re next door and many are of Egyptian descent. But we all know why: Palestinians have been a destabilizing element wherever they go.

In other news of Israel and Hamas, it appears that Israel continues to make inroads in Gaza, if this report is true: