Strikes and stones: stone quarries in the Southern Triangle as a site for shaping ethnic segregation, industrial relations, and labor militancy in Israel, 1949-1952

ABSTRACT

In the early years following Israel’s establishment, the country’s stone industry was set to advance key Zionist objectives: supplying construction materials to house Jewish immigrants and creating employment opportunities for them. However, this policy faced a significant challenge when quarry owners preferred to hire cheaper, unorganized Palestinian workers. This was particularly pronounced in the Southern Triangle region, where Palestinians lived in close proximity to Israeli Jewish urban centers. These Palestinian quarry workers, who were compelled to endure harsh working conditions, discrimination, and exploitation, are the focus of this article. By focusing on Palestinian quarry workers in the Southern Triangle between 1949–1952, the article aims to explore the origins of the political and economic inferiority of Palestinians in Israel. It delves into how this inferiority was constructed and the underlying motivations. Furthermore, the article uncovers previously overlooked Palestinian labor mobilization in the face of rigid oppression by employers and the state. This mobilization, it is argued, led to a shift in government and labor union policies towards Palestinians – from establishing and justifying a racial wage gap between Jewish and Palestinian workers to striving for wage standardization.

KEYWORDS:

• Palestinians
• Israel
• labor history
• strikes
• stone quarries

Introduction

In August 1954, Aharon Becker visited Taybeh, a Palestinian village located in the Southern Triangle region (see Figure 1).¹ Becker served as head of the Trade Union Department of the General Federation of Hebrew Workers (henceforth, the Histadrut), Israel’s powerful labor union center, and was soon to be its General Secretary. The visit to Taybeh was part of a tour across different Palestinian localities. It took place two years after the Histadrut decided to change its three-decade-long policy of Jewish exclusivity and opened its affiliated trade unions to Palestinian membership. The purpose of the tour was to ‘learn from up-close about the problems encountered by Palestinian workers after joining the trade union’ (The Histadrut, 1954, p. 1). During his visit to Taybeh, Becker met Palestinian workers and activists from several towns in the Southern Triangle. Participants presented criticisms and complaints regarding the Histadrut’s operations in the region, including the scarcity and low quality of health care services, high unemployment, and the Histadrut’s inability to close the wage gap between Palestinian and Jewish workers. Becker agreed that there was still much to improve in the Histadrut’s services among Palestinians in the Southern Triangle, yet added that regarding wage gaps, wage equality would only be achieved if Palestinian workers were to fight for it more actively. Referring to wage gaps in the stone industry, Becker admitted that these persisted even in Histadrut-owned quarries, yet stated: ‘you too must fight, and not just us’ (ibid., p. 5). The same approach was voiced by Eliyahu Agassi, director of the Histadrut’s Arab Department (henceforth, the Arab Department). Later that day, Agassi explained to Palestinian quarry workers in Nazareth that ‘the Arab worker must help himself first, and then the Histadrut will help him, […] in the quarries or elsewhere’ (ibid., p. 16). Blaming Palestinian workers for being passive and unwilling to fight for improving their living conditions was common among Histadrut officials at the time (Bäuml, 2007; Ozacky-Lazar, 2000).

Figure 1. a: territories annexed to Israel under the 1949 armistice agreement with the Kingdom of Jordan. b: the Southern Triangle and its proximity to Jewish urban centers.

Indeed, during the first years after the establishment of Israel, Palestinians occupied an inferior position in the labor market, and in many cases worked under harsh conditions and for lower wages than their Jewish counterparts (Haidar, 1995; Khalidi, 1988). This was especially true in the stone industry, a prominent employer of Palestinians. High unemployment and scarcity of resources within Palestinian communities, as well as rigid political, social, and economic oppression by the state, provided opportunities for exploitation (Ben Zeev, 2020). Despite these circumstances, Becker’s evaluation of Palestinian workers as passive or oblivious to their working conditions seems more a reflection of his own perception of the place of Palestinians in the Israeli political order than a reliable description of reality. As demonstrated in this article, wage gaps between Jewish and Arab workers in the stone industry, and elsewhere in Israel, did not result from Palestinian passivity, but rather were an outcome of policy. Furthermore, in sharp contrast to the image portrayed by Becker, Palestinian workers, especially stone-industry workers in the Southern Triangle, mobilized, organized, fought for their rights, and eventually had an impact on their lives and on the policies imposed on them.

By focusing on Palestinian stone-industry workers in the Southern Triangle, the article investigates the source of political, social, and economic inferiority of Palestinians in Israel and the ways in which it was constructed, as well as Palestinian reactions and resistance to their inferior status. The study engages with rich, largely untapped archival materials. These include government and Histadrut protocols, reports, and correspondence in Hebrew and Arabic retrieved from several archives, mainly the Histadrut archive and the Israel State Archives, as well as newspaper reports. The article opens with a discussion of one quarry in Kafr Qassem subsequent to the village’s annexation by Israel. This discussion affords a closer look at the logic behind wage gaps between Jewish and Arab workers and at attempts to shape a segregated labor market. The next section delves into reactions of Palestinian quarry workers in the Southern Triangle to these attempts. By uncovering these previously untold labor struggles, the study contributes to the expanding field of labor history in Israel\Palestine and to broader historiographic discussions; the configuration of segregation in Israel; the process of shaping its industrial relations; and the agency exercised by Palestinians.

Labor history and Palestinian agency

The notion expressed in Becker’s answer to the Palestinian residents of the Southern Triangle, suggesting that in the first years following Israel’s establishment Palestinians were passive and had limited impact on their life circumstances, has to some extent been adopted by scholars (Manaa, 2022). It is not that Palestinians were blamed for being passive; rather, their passivity was assumed, both by scholars who espoused the Zionist narrative and by those highly critical of it (Sa’di, 1996). The tendency to regard Palestinians who were able to remain in Israel after 1948 as passive victims is not unfounded. The 1948 war rendered most of the Palestinians refugees in neighboring countries, unable to return to their homes. Meanwhile, those who remained within the territory that became Israel found themselves a minority, living under military rule and enduring ongoing oppression and dispossession (Jiryis, 1968; Manaa, 2022; Robinson, 2013). In this sense, historical and sociological research has reproduced the Zionist perspective on Palestinian citizens of Israel and perpetuated the status of ‘present absentees’ imposed on them by the state. Until recently, it was difficult to find in the research literature any expression of Palestinian agency during the first few years after the establishment of Israel, from daily efforts to cope with the new reality, to acts of resistance. This observation is even more apparent in the realm of labor. With the exception of several recent additions, scholars of labor studies, industrial relations, and labor history focusing on Israel’s early years barely mention any collective action taken by Palestinian workers (De Vries, 2015; Grinberg, 1993; Mundlak, 2007; Shalev, 1992).

The present article contributes to a growing body of literature dedicated to challenging these assumptions and shedding light on ways in which Palestinians coped with the new reality imposed on them in the aftermath of Israel’s establishment. Notably, a subset of these studies has centered on labor (Ben Ze’ev & Amir, 2021; Ben Zeev, 2020; Dallasheh, 2012; Gozansky, 2014). This can be attributed to the tendency of labor historians to retrieve experiences of subordinated and marginalized groups and to identify agency among them (Hobsbawm, 1974). Indeed, the labor market played a pivotal role in shaping Palestinian subordination in Israel. However, beyond being a site of oppression and control, the labor market also emerged as a focal point of collective resistance and struggle. In this context, one of the main contributions of this article is to bring Palestinian industrial action to the forefront of discussion. Unlike studies that examined Palestinian workers’ strikes as local, isolated events (Dallasheh, 2012; Degani, 2018), this article offers an analysis of the previously overlooked trend of Palestinian strikes during the years 1951–1952, placing these strikes in the wider context of industrial relations in Israel and examining their origins and outcomes.

Stone industry in the Southern Triangle

Several factors make the study of the stone industry in the Southern Triangle particularly relevant to this endeavor. Quarries were a site of labor related struggles between Jews and Arabs in Palestine since the 1920s. The main goal of the Zionist movement was to attract Jewish immigrants to Palestine and provide them with conditions that would allow them to stay and settle the land. To accomplish this, the Zionist movement was eager to secure jobs for Jewish settlers. Its ambition to provide settlers with a close-to-European standard of living was challenged by lower wages paid to Palestinian workers. In the face of this fierce competition, Zionist institutions launched the campaign for ‘the conquest of labor’ aimed to convert entire workplaces to employers of exclusively ‘Hebrew Labor’ (Bernstein, 2000; Shafir, 1989). This often led to Arab workers losing their jobs. One site of conflict over jobs was the Migdal Tzedek quarries, located near the Palestinian village of Majdal Yaba; in the region that after 1949 would be known as the Southern Triangle. Solel Boneh, a Histadrut-owned construction company, founded the first quarry on the site in 1924. Until 1948, residents of Majdal Yaba and Jewish settlers were in constant conflict over work (Lockman, 1996). This dynamic, as will be demonstrated, persisted in many ways after the establishment of the state.

Another significant factor is the Triangle’s unique geopolitical circumstances following the establishment of Israel. While most of Israel’s territory was either allocated to the Jewish state by the UN Partition Plan or conquered during the 1948 war by Jewish forces, the Triangle was annexed to Israel as part of the 1949 Rhodes Accords between Israel and the Kingdom of Jordan (Amara, 1999; Morris, 1987). As a result, unlike most Palestinians in those parts of Palestine that became Israel, who were displaced as refugees to neighboring countries and were banned from returning to their homes, Palestinian communities in the Triangle remained largely intact. They were granted Israeli citizenship but placed under strict military rule with stringent restrictions. This created a distinct situation for the newborn state: substantial Palestinian communities mostly not harmed by the war, living under military rule, located in relatively close geographical proximity to Israel’s center and to Jewish cities (Abu Rass, 2002; see Figure 1b).

The proximity of the Southern Triangle to Israel’s center positioned the region’s stone industry as a preferred solution to two crucial needs of the new state: providing jobs for Jewish immigrants and obtaining construction materials for their housing. However, the political and economic oppression of the Triangle’s Palestinian residents turned the region into fertile ground for labor exploitation. Consequently, quarries in the Southern Triangle became a site for shaping racial wage gaps, labor exploitation, and oppression of Palestinians, but also of Palestinian resistance, labor militancy, and industrial action.

Quarrel at the quarry

The signing of the Rhodes Accords in April 1949, which established Israel’s sovereignty over the Triangle, launched a race for the right to exploit the region’s natural resources. First were Jewish owners of the Migdal Tzedek quarries, which had already operated prior to the state’s establishment. With the end of the war, the owners demanded that the quarries be allowed to reopen and return to production. Their repeated appeals to the government and the IDF harnessed two central Zionist claims. The first was that erecting thousands of new buildings and domiciles was necessary to house the waves of newly arriving Jewish immigrants, thus creating a need for raw material for construction, mainly stone and quicklime. The quarries of Migdal Tzedek were, according to their owners, the ideal source for these materials, in terms of both location and quality. The second claim was the need to secure jobs for Jews (Bernstein, 1949; Quarry Owners’ Representative, 1949; Slonim, 1949).

During the summer of 1949 work at Migdal Tzedek resumed, with the operating of multiple stone quarries, gravel crushers, and lime kilns (Sasson, 2019). With the displacement of the Palestinian residents of Majdal Yaba during the 1948 war, and under the authority of the newly established Jewish state, the quarries could finally achieve the goal of Hebrew Labor. Indeed, all of the workers at Migdal Tzedek quarries were Jewish. This was not unique – the stone industry was designated by the Ministry of Labor to become a main source of livelihood for Jewish newcomers (Ben Zeev, 2020).

Yet stone was to be found not only at the Migdal Tzedek site, but also in many other locations in Israel. With the growing need for stone, and for jobs, the state encouraged the establishment of new stone quarries and the reoperation of abandoned Palestinian sites. Franchises to operate quarries were granted to groups of discharged Jewish soldiers, many of them looking for sources of income after the end of the 1948 war (Unattributed, 1950c). One of these was the Vilensky and Co. quarry, founded by a group of veterans headed by Shlomo Vilensky. In June 1949 the Vilensky group applied for a license to mine stone a few kilometers north of Migdal Tzedek, near the Palestinian village of Kafr Qassem (Reich, 1949). Kafr Qassem was one of the Palestinian villages that Israel had annexed under the 1949 Armistice Accords. The village was home to 1,600 Palestinians, most of them farmers. In November 1949 the site saw the establishment of several quarries and two gravel crushers, and the employment of 70–100 daily workers (Shulman, 1949; Vilensky, 1950).

Vilensky was interested not only in the region’s natural resources, but also in the opportunity to increase profit by exploiting Kafr Qassem’s workers. These workers were subordinated to rigid military government restrictions. They could not seek work in other nearby quarries, which hired only Jewish workers, and their potential sources of livelihood were limited. This created a large pool of workers who had no other choice, giving their employer immense power (Fogel, 1950). As the Prime Minister’s Advisor on Arab Affairs Joshua Palmon described: ‘It is not a coincidence that quarries were formed in the Arab sector – here labor is cheaper, they [Palestinian workers] don’t have watches, and work for longer hours’ (Economic Affairs Subcommittee, 1950, p. 14). The Vilensky quarry was notorious for its harsh working conditions. Government officials repeatedly reported breaches of safety regulations, and work accidents were common (Malul, 1950a, 1950d). Vilensky paid his workers about one-third of the wages of organized Jewish workers in the industry, which allowed him to sell his product at a lower price than the Migdal Tzedek quarries (Reich, 1949).

Palestinian workers in the stone industry suffered similar working conditions throughout Israel; yet it seems that those in Kafr Qassem attracted more attention from government officials, trade union personnel, and news reporters. One of the reasons for this enhanced interest in working conditions was geographic proximity: working conditions had a direct effect on the price of the product at the competing Migdal Tzedek quarries and on the salaries of their Jewish workers. The Migdal Tzedek quarries, committed to collective contracts of organized Jewish workers, could not compete with the low prices offered by the Vilensky quarry, made possible by the low salaries of his Palestinian employees. This situation sparked a dispute between several institutions: the Arab Department, the Military Governor, the Ministry of Labor, the Histadrut local branch in the neighboring Jewish city of Petah Tikva, and the quarry’s owner.

The Arab Department became involved in the Kafr Qassem quarry in August 1949. At that point the Histadrut was holding on to its three-decade-long policy of Jewish exclusivity; Palestinians were not allowed to join the Histadrut. Instead, the Arab Department was entrusted with advancing Histadrut interests among Palestinians. Alongside the Arab Department, the Histadrut sponsored the Israel Labor League (henceforth, ILL) – a labor union open to Palestinian membership, which in Histadrut officials’ eyes was meant to advance the organization’s goals among Palestinians in Israel (Degani, 2018; Marck, 2022; Shalev, 1992). The Arab Department’s interest in Kafr Qassem commenced when the Secretary of the Petah Tikvah Workers’ Council, Pinhas Rashish, addressed the director of the Arab Department, Eliyahu Agassi, and updated him that a group of Jewish military veterans had established a quarry in Kafr Qassem. Rashish asked Agassi to organize the Palestinian workers of the quarry in the ILL. Agassi declined and explained that the Arab Department had yet to begin operations in the Triangle. Yet one month later, the interest of the Petah Tikvah Workers’ Council in conditions at Kafr Qassem increased when its officials realized that the low salaries of the Palestinian workers were threatening their Jewish counterparts at Migdal Tzedek. In addition, the cheaper products of the Vilensky quarry brought about the closure of a cooperative quarry established by Jewish workers and sponsored by the Workers’ Council (Agassi, 1950).

In September 1949, the Arab Department sent two officials to visit the quarry, David ʿAyun and Yonah Shulman. The purpose of the visit was to ‘consider the possibility of establishing an ILL branch in the village’ (Shulman, 1949, p. 1). During their visit to Kafr Qassem, the two Arab Department representatives learned of the harsh working conditions at the quarry. They reported that the Vilensky quarry employed roughly 100 daily workers, with the number of workers working each day varying. Of those, a few dozen worked in feeding rocks to the gravel crusher at a very low daily wage, while others worked as contract workers in hammer quarrying. Their wage totaled about half the wage of the Jewish workers in Migdal Tzedek. A workday lasted ‘from dawn to dusk’, and Shulman figured that with the exclusion of one hour for lunch and rest, workers worked ten-hour shifts. Alongside the quarry workers, ‘approximately 100 children and elders [were employed] in collecting rocks from the fields’ (ibid., p. 3). These rocks were sold by the field owners to the quarry for shredding. Rock-pickers, who also worked all day, were paid even less. Shulman and ʿAyun concluded that ‘wretched working conditions and wages in the Kafr Qassem quarry support and justify the demand made by the Petah Tikvah Workers’ Council to organize the quarry’s workers’ (ibid., p. 4).

Soon enough the Arab Department began its operation in Kafr Qassem by attempting to form an ILL branch and a cooperative-owned grocery store, and by drawing up a collective work contract at the quarry (Agassi, 1949b). The contract had two goals. First, to prevent lowering the wages of Jewish workers at Migdal Tzedek and to support quarries owned by the Histadrut or sponsored by the Petah Tikvah Workers’ Council by forcing Vilensky to raise the price of the quarry’s product; and second, to expand the Arab Department’s operations by recruiting Palestinian quarry workers at Kafr Qassem.

At this point it is worth discussing the wage policy of the nascent state of Israel. Following the establishment of the state, both the government and the Histadrut sought to implement a centralized wage system within Israel’s labor market (Bondy, 2018; Mundlak, 2007). This meant that wage scales were, for the most part, to be centrally determined by collective agreements and regulation. This was true not only for state and Histadrut employees but also extended to numerous occupations and trades within the private sector. Imposing a standardized wage system was facilitated by a highly corporatist industrial relations framework. The Histadrut and the government had a close relationship, overarched by the Workers’ Party of the Land of Israel (henceforth, Mapai), the dominant Zionist political party that controlled both institutions from the 1920s until the late 1970s. This wage system was meant to serve Zionist goals by providing employment opportunities for Jewish immigrants, while at the same time preventing the immense influx of immigration from lowering the wages and living standards of the veteran Jewish population. In terms of wage inequality, this system had several outcomes. On the one hand, wage gaps in Israel remained relatively modest, especially when compared with capitalist economies (Bareli & Cohen, 2018). On the other hand, as will be shortly demonstrated, it allowed for overt discrimination.

In accordance with the general wage policy in Israel, it would seem that the proper way to achieve the goal mentioned above, of safeguarding Jewish wages and quarries, was to equalize the wages of Palestinian and Jewish workers in the stone industry. As Agassi noted, the conventional way to force the owners of the Kafr Qassem quarry to sell their product at the prices of those produced by Jewish labor was obviously to demand that the wages of Arab workers be raised to the level of Jewish workers wages’ (Agassi, 1950, p. 1). In accordance with this approach, Histadrut General Secretary Pinhas Lavon stated in April 1949 that equal pay should be set in the stone industry (The Histadrut’s Central Committee, 1949). Yet this statement remained unrealized even with respect to Histadrut-owned quarries.

In early November 1949 the Arab Department drafted a contract and presented it to Vilensky for his signature. The contract addressed the issue of unfair competition between the quarries by stipulating that the price of Vilensky’s product be raised to market-level prices. Yet the increased income deriving from the price raise would not be translated into an increase in workers’ wages. Instead, the surplus would be invested in Histadrut operations: Employers will be required to pay equal wages to those customary in Jewish quarries, however, workers will be persuaded to receive only a small portion of the increase in cash, while the rest will be invested in a grocery store that will sell them Jewish products, and in Histadrut-sponsored funds (Agassi, 1950, p. 1).

The Arab Department’s offer, to raise the product’s price while depositing the added revenue into a fund rather than paying it to the workers, was deeply embedded in a colonialist logic that was at the heart of the Histadrut’s interaction with Palestinian workers. This logic guided the Zionist movement since its first encounter with the Arab residents of Palestine (Ben Zeev, 2020). According to this approach, there was a natural, essential gap between the low living standard of natives, in this case the Palestinians of Kafr Qassem, and the higher living standard of immigrants\settlers, in this case Jews. This gap justified wage gaps, since, supposedly, each community had different needs. Mapai officials and Arabists claimed repeatedly that Palestinians did not need more money, and in some cases even claimed that wage equalization would create discrimination against Jewish workers (Mapai Central Committee, 1948). Moreover, raising Palestinian wages would lead to the accumulation of wealth in Palestinian hands.

Palestinian accumulation of wealth due to an immediate increase in wages stood in contrast with, and threatened to undermine Zionist policies aimed at Palestinians in Israel. One such policy was to secure a Jewish state with as few Palestinians as possible (Manaa, 2022; Robinson, 2013). An upgrade in wages of Palestinians would sabotage this effort; it would encourage Palestinians, who would henceforth enjoy a higher living standard, to stay in Israel rather than emigrate; and it would make Israel more appealing to Palestinian refugees now residing in neighboring countries and entice them to return to their previous homes. ‘Here we are caught between two contradicting considerations’, explained Foreign Minister (and soon to be Prime Minister) Moshe Sharett in a Mapai Secretariat meeting in June 1950. On the one hand,

We made a solemn commitment to equal rights and equal care by the state for the Arab minority; we are interested in eliminating the gap in living standards [between Jews and Arabs] in order to prevent internal competition […]. On the other hand […], if we triple this minority – we are with our own hands digging the hole into which we will fall; if we want to get rid of this difficulty – we must deprive, oppress, and harass this minority, so that its place here will not show kindness, so they will get up and leave. (Mapai Secretariat, 1950, p. 6)

Sharett went on to remind his colleagues that the issue at stake is much larger:

We are not dealing only with this minority residing in Israel, but with the majority of Arabs of the land which are in exile […]. When you treat the Arabs in Israel fairly – the appeal of the land to those Arabs outside of it grows, and when you harass them – Israel’s appeal drops. If it becomes apparent that here you will find suffering, shortage, and discrimination […] – it demotivates infiltration [of refugees into Israel]. (ibid., p. 7)

And yet, it should be noted that later in this discussion Sharett stated that while he objects to an immediate equalization of living standards between Arabs and Jews, he does recommend adopting fairer treatment by the state of its Palestinian citizens.

Another Zionist policy was to control the Palestinian population by creating and fostering Palestinian dependence on the Jewish economy. Economic dependence ‘meant that Arab Israelis have lacked autonomous bases for economic power which could have been used to support dissident political parties or movements’, and ‘also meant that Arabs have generally been extremely vulnerable to noncoercive forms of pressure and reprisal’ (Lustick, 1980, p. 197). Economic hardship was the driving force behind the urgent need for Palestinians to obtain movement and work permits, which were key tools of oppression used by the military government (Robinson, 2013). Economic hardship was also used by security forces to recruit Palestinian collaborators (Cohen, 2010). Keeping Palestinians resource-less, dependent, and poor was at the heart of this policy. An immediate increase in wages and the accumulation of wealth in Palestinian hands would undermine it.

One more concern regarding accumulation of wealth in the hands of Palestinians was the way in which this extra wealth would be used. Military government officials warned of the transfer of funds beyond the borders, possibly to support hostile measures against the Jewish state (Unattributed, 1951d). But the main concern was that Palestinians would not know how to use this extra money in the ‘right’ ways. Jewish officials were worried that Palestinian wealth would not find its way back to the Jewish economy, since Palestinian consumption habits were not yet adjusted to modern society. This money was needed to stimulate the economy of the new state (Bäuml, 2017). As Arab Department official Eliyahu Agassi put it, ‘one problem was how to prevent the flow of capital from the Jewish cycle to the pockets of Arab workers from Kafr Qassem, freezing there or being smuggled across the border’ (Agassi, 1950, p. 1).

In the eyes of high-ranking officials in the government and the military, the stone industry in the Southern Triangle served as a prime example of wealth accumulation by Palestinians. They were convinced, and actively convinced others, that Palestinians in the Triangle had enough farmland to sustain their pre-1948 living standard. This assertion was maintained despite visible poverty and a lack of resources, and despite the fact that Triangle residents lacked access to their own lands, due either to the new borders, confiscation of land by the state, or movement restrictions enforced by the military government. In an attempt to convince members of the Economic Committee of the Knesset that there was no actual lack of jobs in Kafr Qassem, Joshua Palmon, the Prime Minister’s Advisor on Arab Affairs, recalled how he visited the village eight months after the Vilensky quarry opened. Palmon claimed that even though local residents had been hired by the quarry for the past eight months, ‘we did not find any improvements, such as housing extensions or a wardrobe upgrade’. This proved to Palmon that ‘an increase in wages should be constructed in such a way as to require the Arab worker to prove that he uses these funds to improve his living situation and standard’, rather than ‘turning it into gold and hiding it in jugs’ (Economic Affairs Committee, 1950, p. 6).

The principles of the colonialist logic underpinning the wage gap policy can be found in a memorandum published by the head of the economic section in the Arab Department, Emanuel Mohl. Mohl was a veteran Zionist activist. He was born in 1883 in the Russian Empire, and in his youth immigrated with his family to the U.S.A.. In 1921 he settled in Palestine as the representative of the American Zion Commonwealth, a Zionist agency that played a major role in the Jewish settlement of Palestine. He soon became a leading figure in the Jewish and Zionist financial sector as the manager of the Palestine Economic Corporation’s investment bank. During the 1940s Mohl was appointed to various positions in the British colonial government. In February 1949, Mohl was asked by the Histadrut’s General Secretary to establish the economic section of the Arab Department. The section was active in forming producers’ and consumers’ cooperatives among Palestinian communities. Its goals were, according to Mohl, to develop the economic capacities of the Palestinians in Israel and raise their level of consumption ‘so that they become an inseparable part of the Israeli market’s money flow’ (Mohl, 1949, p. 2).

Mohl’s proposals regarding quarry workers in Kafr Qassem, presented in the memorandum, are a clear expression of the outlook described above. These proposals were, according to Mohl, the basis for the contract eventually offered by the Histadrut to the quarry. Mohl described how ‘the Arab Department, which began dealing with the issue [of working conditions at the Kafr Qassem quarry], brought it to my attention and asked for my take on it’. He went on to present his view of the matter:

It is not our concern to affect the stance of the Petah Tikvah Workers’ Council regarding the amount paid as salary to the Kafr Qassem quarry workers. Our concern is the method of payment, it is crucial that the method of payment should not be identical to the method practiced with Jewish workers.

According to Mohl, the method of payment should support the implementation of the principles laid out above, specifically, the prevention of Palestinian wealth accumulation and the incorporation of Palestinians in the Israeli economy as consumers. These principles were made clear when Mohl further discussed the ideal method of payment:

Regarding the method of wage payment to the Arab workers of Kafr Qassem, it should be divided into three; the first part should be paid in cash; the second – in groceries and products which will be sold in a Histadrut sponsored store; the third – in savings.

Mohl stated that the size of each part and the purpose of the savings component were yet to be determined, however, it is important that ‘they find their way into the Israeli money flow’ (Mohl, 1949, p. 5).

As mentioned above, Eliyahu Agassi of the Arab Department presented the proposed contract to Vilensky, the owner of the Kafr Qassem quarry, in early November 1949. Raising wages at the Kafr Qassem quarry met objections from various sides involved. First was the quarry’s owner, who was interested in increasing profit. He stated that ‘we will not raise wages for Arabs; they do not need more’. Vilensky, like other military veterans now involved in the stone industry, expected to enjoy the advantage of hiring cheap labor. He also expected to receive backing from the military government when faced with Histadrut organizing efforts. When asked about working conditions at the quarry, Vilensky replied that ‘in the Kiryah [military headquarters] there is more sympathy to my position than to that of the Histadrut representatives, in case they come and demand a pay raise’ (Reich, 1949).

Indeed, the military government was reluctant to support, or even allow, Histadrut activities in Kafr Qassem. In early November, when the Arab Department tried to establish an ILL branch and an ILL-sponsored cooperative grocery store in the village, the regional military governor, Major Goel Lewicki, ‘refused blatantly’ to allow a tour of a Kafr Qassem delegation to Tel Aviv. His refusal led Agassi to wonder, ‘What is the real intention of the military government regarding Histadrut action in Kafr Qassem?’, implying the military government opposed it (Agassi, 1949b). One possible reason for the military governor’s prevention of the establishment of the co-op was his objection to any attempt to organize the Kafr Qassem workforce, an attempt he regarded as a threat to his control over the local population (Unattributed, 1951d). Another possible reason was his support of Vilensky. According to Arab Department members, this support might have originated from the fact that the owners were military veterans (Shulman, 1949).

Faced with these objections, Agassi warned Vilensky that if he failed to give a reasonable response within five days, ‘the Histadrut will have the right to take measures’. According to Agassi the threat was effective, and after three days Vilensky gave his verbal approval to the contract (Agassi, 1950). At this point, however, objection came from another institution – the Ministry of Labor.

One reason for the objection presented by the Ministry of Labor to the proposed contract was that the Ministry itself was a client of the quarry. A raise in the price of the product would lead to an increase in the Ministry’s expenses (Vilensky, 1950). But the main reason behind the Ministry’s objection was its concern with the employment of Jews. Peretz Harburger, the head of the Arab workers’ section in the Ministry, was told by the regional military governor that Kafr Qassem enjoyed ‘full employment and excellent economic conditions’ (Harburger, 1950). His main concern was to set a quota of Palestinian workers in the Vilensky quarry which would secure jobs for Jews, and to ensure that any new quarry in Kafr Qassem would hire exclusively Jewish workers. It seemed that Ministry of Labor officials, mainly Harburger and the head of the Employment Section, Shalom Cohen, were in the midst of a ‘Conquest of Labor’ campaign at the quarries. In July 1950, Cohen claimed that ‘I am under a growing impression that the people on the ground [the owners of the Kafr Qassem quarry] did not do enough to hire Hebrew workers’ (Cohen, 1950c). Cohen and his colleagues at the Ministry were determined to set maximum quotas of Palestinian workers in all of the Triangle’s quarries and demanded that some quarries be based solely on ‘Hebrew labor’ (Harburger, 1950; Nudelman, 1950). In accordance with this priority, Ministry of Labor officials recommended that Vilensky not accept the Histadrut’s demands, and follow only guidelines issued by the Ministry’s staff (Vilensky, 1950). The Histadrut was furious at the Ministry’s involvement in the negotiations (Agassi, 1949a; Burstein, 1950).

Meanwhile, representatives of the Petah Tikvah Workers’ Council were exerting more pressure on their colleagues from the Arab Department. On December 12, the Council’s secretary, Haim Beily, warned Agassi that if his efforts to reach an agreement did not yield results within a few days, the Council would be compelled to ‘take measures on our own initiative’ (Petah Tikvah Workers’ Council, 1949a). Agassi addressed Vilensky again, demanding that he provide a ‘final and reasonable reply to our proposal’, and warned that failing to do so in three days would allow the Histadrut ‘to take any means we choose in accordance with the law’ (Agassi, 1949c). Vilensky rejected Agassi’s demand, declared that he would not sign the contract, and even questioned the legality of the offer made by the Histadrut (Vilensky, 1949). In response, the Petah Tikvah Workers’ Council carried out its threat. On December 27 the Council placed a picket line on the road leading to the quarry, preventing trucks from entering the site, effectively forcing a lockout (Unattributed, 1950a). In addition, the Council addressed suppliers on behalf of the Histadrut and demanded that they not move any product out of the quarry (Petah Tikvah Workers’ Council, 1949b).

Agassi vigorously opposed the lockout, which he viewed as detrimental to the Arab Department’s attempts to organize the quarry’s workers and establish an ILL branch in Kafr Qassem. He addressed his superiors, explaining that Kafr Qassem is home to 150 unemployed workers, and that the lockout will only raise existing tensions in the village. He further stressed that ‘there is no justification whatsoever to harm ILL organized workers’. Despite his efforts, Agassi was not backed by his superiors and the lockout continued (Agassi, n.d.; Haskin, n.d.).

The financial pressure caused by the lockout was effective. On January 4 the parties met at the negotiating table with the aim of settling the dispute. The negotiating teams, however, did not include all of the various stakeholders. The Histadrut was represented solely by Beily of Petah Tikvah, without representation of the Arab Department or the workers themselves. For the parties involved, the dispute was not about working conditions at the quarry; it was about the price of the product, and its effect on the market and on Jewish workers. In fact, the only article in the contract dealing with the working conditions of Palestinians was the prohibition of employment of women and children at the quarry. The final agreement dealt almost entirely with the price of the product, its marketing, and the employment of Jewish workers in the Kafr Qassem quarry and in future quarries in the region. It concluded that in order to ‘maintain stability of stone prices in the market’ and to prevent competition ‘between quarries employing Hebrew labor’ and ‘those who work with Arabs’, the government’s Department of Public Works would purchase in advance all of the Kafr Qassem quarry product (Cohen, 1950e). The agreement also concluded that a committee would be formed ‘with the aim of dismissing any Arab worker who has other sources of income’ (Agassi, 1950), such as owning land, and that ‘the quarry’s owner commits to gradually hire Jewish workers’ (Cohen, 1950d). Agassi viewed this agreement as an ‘abandonment of the interests of the Arab Department and of Arab workers’ and refused to accept its conclusions (Agassi, 1950, p. 3). In March 1950 twenty Jewish workers were hired by the quarry (Unattributed, 1950d).

Striking workers

It was not long before the discontent of Palestinian quarry workers could not be so blatantly ignored. By October 1952, nearly two years after the events described above took place, the Arab Department secured a new work contract for Kafr Qassem quarry workers. By then, three different Jewish-owned quarries operated in the village, and following a struggle and negotiations, all three complied. This time the work contract included benefits such as health and insurance coverage and a pay raise, with none of the additional funds set aside for any external purpose (Unattributed, 1952c). The next section closely examines this shift in the Arab Department’s policy by focusing on a stone quarry located just 15 kilometers north of Kafr Qassem, in the Palestinian village of Taybeh.

Taybeh was (and still is) the largest town in the Southern Triangle. Like Kafr Qassem, and the entire Triangle region, Taybeh was annexed to Israel in 1949 along with its inhabitants and lands. At the time, it was home to a population of nearly 5,100. Taybeh’s residents lost most of their farmland due to the Israeli policy of dispossession, specifically The Absentees’ Property Law enacted in 1950 which put in force the vast appropriation of Taybeh’s farmland by the state (Schwarz, 1959). Nevertheless, military government officials estimated that an overwhelming majority of the town’s residents made their living from agriculture, either as landowners or as wage workers. Another source of income was the stone industry, which employed 100–200 quarry workers, alongside dozens of unregistered stone pickers (Economic Affairs Subcommittee, 1950).

The stone industry in Taybeh centered on the Bnei Mevatzʿim quarry. Like the Vilensky quarry in Kafr Qassem, the Bnei Mevatzʿim quarry was founded in 1949 by a group of Jewish military veterans who were granted a franchise from the state. They were encouraged by the military government to include a Palestinian partner in the quarry’s ownership, ‘a bank clerk from Nazareth’. According to the regional military governor, Major Matityahu Sarlin, ‘it is important to incorporate an influential Arab, who can safeguard the quarry’ (Economic Affairs Subcommittee, 1950, p. 14). The quarry’s establishment was accompanied by the promise of new high-wage employment opportunities for Palestinians. At the quarry’s inauguration, a feast was held ‘on behalf of the village’, during which ‘village representatives expressed their gratitude to the military government for allowing the operation’ (Unattributed, 1949). The promise of higher wages was soon broken. The owners of the Taybeh quarry took full advantage of the weakness of Palestinian workers. They worked for long hours, under harsh conditions, with no safety measures, and for extremely low wages. Furthermore, the quarry was often accused of child labor (Malul, 1950b; Nudelman, 1952; Sh’hori, 1951; Toubi, 1950b).

The Ministry of Labor regarded the Taybeh quarry as a sore spot, not due to the working conditions of Palestinians but because it did not support the Ministry’s efforts to provide jobs for Jews. Just as in Kafr Qassem, the Ministry argued that ‘there is no lack of jobs in Taybeh. This village is an agricultural village with land, any industrial wage-labor is a supplement’ (Toubi, 1950a). The head of the Ministry’s Employment Section, Shalom Cohen, expressed his opinion that ‘our position regarding this quarry is well known, it does not by any means align with the labor and employment needs of the state’ (Cohen, 1950b). Cohen ordered that the number of Palestinian workers at the quarry be limited to 40–50. He then clarified: ‘If we come to the conclusion that this figure is more than what the village needs, we will reexamine it’. Cohen further demanded that a criterion be set according to which permission to work at the quarry would be granted only to Palestinians who were breadwinners of families of at least five members, and who owned less than five dunams of land (Cohen, 1950a). The quarry was required to submit a list of its workers, detailing the number of family members and the amount of land they owned. These measures led to the dismissal of dozens of Palestinian workers (Malul, 1950c). Later the Ministry of Labor demanded that the quarry hire ‘a Jewish worker for every Arab worker’ (Nudelman, 1951). By the beginning of 1951, nearly two dozen Jewish workers were indeed hired by the quarry, most of them new immigrants residing in transit camps (Unattributed, 1951a).

The harsh working conditions of Palestinians in the Taybeh quarry could not be ignored for long. The issue was publicly brought up by MK Tawfik Toubi of the Israeli Communist Party in March 1950. In a query addressed to the Minister of Labor, Golda Meirson, Toubi described how, despite the initial assertions of excellent working conditions, employees, among them children, were working from dawn to dusk for extremely low wages. Toubi further claimed that the military governor interrupted and outlawed workers’ attempts to unionize. Meirson rejected his arguments (Toubi, 1950b).

Later that month Toubi visited Taybeh and once again addressed the Ministry with similar claims (Toubi, 1950a). His visit raised concerns with the inspector for Arab employment affairs on behalf of the Ministry of Labor, Avraham Malul. Malul reported that following the visit by the MK, Communist influence in the village grew, and that despite restrictions set by the military there were currently hundreds of Communist sympathizers in the village. Malul further described rising ‘agitation among Taybeh’s Arabs’, and linked this agitation to the exploitation of workers at the quarry. To combat this situation, Malul proposed that the Histadrut establish an ILL branch in Taybeh and organize the workers. Such a union could, according to Malul, ‘serve as a buffer’ and help lower ‘tension and agitation, and prevent the use of these elements for unwanted political purposes’ (Malul, 1950c). Toubi visited the village once again in June and was met by violence from some of the residents. He was attacked by several locals, who threw ink and tomatoes at him. A fight soon broke out between the attackers and the MK’s supporters. While this event was celebrated by most Hebrew newspapers as proof that Communist politicians were not welcome among Palestinians (Unattributed, 1950b), the Communist daily newspaper, Kol Ha-ʿAm, insisted that the attack was orchestrated by the authorities in order to discredit the Communist Party (Unattributed, 1950e).

Political and labor mobilization in Taybeh grew in the coming months. In the course of 1951 workers addressed the Ministry of Labor and the military governor time and again, protesting unemployment and low wages and demanding to unionize by joining the Arab Workers Congress (henceforth, AWC) (Petition by 100 workers, 1951; Petition by 150 workers, n.d.; Petition by 200 workers, 1951). The AWC was a Palestinian labor union affiliated with the Communist Party, a harsh rival of the Histadrut and the ILL (Dallasheh, 2012; Gozansky, 2014). The military governor objected to unionization, especially in the Communist-affiliated union. He claimed that the AWC was ‘secretly’ recruiting members and proposed establishing a Labor Ministry branch in the Southern Triangle which would be attentive to workers’ grievances (Mor, 1951; Verbin, 1951). This objection, alongside the quick turnover of workers at the quarry made possible by high unemployment in Taybeh, rendered unionizing extremely difficult.

But the workers’ frustration, supported by the growing organizational abilities of the Communist Party, eventually culminated in action. In late February 1952, fifty Palestinian workers declared a strike, bringing work at the Taybeh quarry to a halt. They were soon joined by ten Jewish colleagues. The strikers demanded payment for the previous four months which had been denied them, a pay raise, improvement of working conditions, job security, and union recognition. The quarry owners tried to crush the strike by recruiting unemployed workers as strikebreakers. Nevertheless, the strikers stood strong. The workers’ persistence proved effective, and after a twenty-five-day-long strike, they prevailed. The strike ended with most of their demands fulfilled (Unattributed, 1952g, 1952f, 1952d).

The twenty-five-day strike of March 1952 in the Taybeh quarry should be placed in the context of general industrial relations and labor militancy in Israel. The years 1949–52 witnessed intense labor unrest in Israel. Groups of workers from various trades in the public and private sectors went on strike, often initiating wildcat strikes, in an attempt to improve working conditions and wages. However, many of these labor disputes addressed more than bread-and-butter issues. Pivotal to these struggles was the drive to increase worker autonomy and gain independence from the Histadrut’s central leadership. A prime example of this trend is the notable 1951 Seamen’s Rebellion (De Vries, 2015).

This trend did not pass over Palestinian workers. They had been striking since the turn of the twentieth century, and strikes were an integral part of the Palestinian national struggle during the 1930s and 1940s (De Vries, 2015; Lockman, 1996). The 1948 war and the establishment of the state drastically reduced Palestinian strikes within the territory that became Israel. This can be attributed to the destruction of the Palestinian social and economic infrastructure and to heavy political oppression by the Israeli state. During the first three years after Israel’s establishment strikes and labor disputes involving Palestinian workers did break out occasionally, but they were of a sporadic and local nature. Most, if not all, occurred in Nazareth. Nazareth was a vibrant site of Palestinian labor mobilization since the late British Mandate period, and the only Palestinian city to survive the 1948 war intact, which made it the center of Palestinian political activism in Israel (Dallasheh, 2012).

During the second half of 1951, strikes and labor disputes involving Palestinian workers became more frequent, more intense, and more widespread, to the point that by the middle of 1952 a Palestinian strike wave could be identified (Vashitz, 1952). The hub of this strike wave was still Nazareth. At the end of April 1951, municipal sanitation workers in the city declared a strike that lasted for two months, ending with most of their demands met (Dallasheh, 2012; Degani, 2018). In the coming months demands to equalize wages with Jewish workers of the same trade came from various labor unions and groups of workers in the city, including teachers, construction workers, and government relief-work employees (Bishara, 1951; Habushi, 1951; Secretary of Nazareth employment bureau, 1951). In 1952 Nazareth witnessed strikes by cigarette factory workers, Public Works Department employees, municipal sanitation workers and clerks, and workers of the local employment bureau (Habushi, 1952; ILL and AWC, 1952; Levin, 1952). But the strike trend went well beyond the city to become a widespread phenomenon. It involved workplaces with a shared Jewish and Arab workforce, as well as strictly Palestinian ones. Striking workers ranged from organized permanent workers, such as teachers or municipal bureaucrats, to unorganized temporary workers such as citrus orchard workers and olive pickers (Unattributed, 1951f, 1952a, 1952b, 1952b, 1952a, 1952g, 1952i). Similarly to strikes by Jewish workers, most of these were wildcat, bottom-up strikes. They were usually called without union approval, and one of their goals was to achieve union recognition. This trend of widespread industrial action by Palestinian workers is even more remarkable when considering the devastation of the Nakba and repression attempts by the state.

One prominent industry where Palestinian collective action took place was the stone industry. In this sense, the 1952 Taybeh strike was not a singular event. Palestinian quarry workers in Israel had begun organizing, striking, and fighting for better working conditions as early as 1951. In January of that year, Palestinian workers of a Jewish-owned quarry in the village of Bi’na, supported by the AWC, organized and tried to establish their own cooperative quarry with the hope that it would ‘provide an alternative to the poor pay and harsh conditions’ offered by their current workplace (Ben Zeev, 2020, p. 175). While this attempt failed, the coming months witnessed growing mobilization of Palestinian quarry workers throughout the country. By the end of 1951 strikes broke out in quarries in Dir al-Assad and Nazareth (Unattributed, 1951e, 1951d, 1951c). In March 1952, while the Taybeh quarry strike was in effect, Palestinian workers in three different quarries in the Haifa Bay area went on strike as well (Unattributed, 1952e).

One possible factor leading to the 1951–52 wave of Palestinian labor unrest was the growing presence of Palestinians in, and their increasing dependency on the wage-labor market. This was the result of the loss of agriculture as a source of livelihood, caused by dispossession of land and by movement restrictions (Zureik, 1979). When these wage-laborers encountered harsh working conditions, low salaries, and blatant discrimination, as demonstrated in the Kafr Qassem and Taybeh quarries, discontent soon erupted.

Another factor was the general atmosphere in Israeli industrial relations. As described above, the period discussed witnessed multiple labor struggles across occupations. Despite labor market segregation and the isolation of Palestinians, Palestinian workers and labor activists were aware of these developments. In some cases, Palestinians participated in notable strikes and labor disputes, such as those in the railway system or the oil industry (Marck, 2023). Palestinian MKs referred to the landmark Seamen’s Rebellion when protesting government oppression (Garfinkel, 2020: 68–69). According to Kol Ha-ʿAm, the AWC sent a solidarity delegation to support the striking seamen, and even launched a fundraising campaign to support their cause (Unattributed, 1951b).

Yet the main factor leading to greater Palestinian industrial action seems to have been an increase in political and organizational capacities. Palestinian strikes and labor struggles took place in tandem with, were an expression of, and fueled a trend of increasing Palestinian political mobilization. The main manifestation of this political mobilization was the growing power of the Communist Party. As can be seen in Taybeh, the party was gaining traction in Palestinian localities, establishing branches and recruiting supporters. Industrial action was a prominent platform for the expansion of political activity, as well as a driving force behind it. Labor-related issues such as unemployment, low salaries, harsh working conditions, and denial of work permits were at the heart of the Communist ideology of class struggle, as well as a prime concern for Palestinian citizens of Israel. Indeed, the Communist Party placed itself at the forefront of Palestinian labor struggles. Communist representatives often raised labor-related issues in the Knesset, as well as in public gatherings and protests. The Communist press frequently engaged with this topic as well. Party members and leadership were persistent in initiating collective labor struggles or in joining or supporting existing ones. They were also persistent in demanding the opening of the Histadrut to Palestinian members. The AWC, the Communist-affiliated labor union, spearheaded this effort. Its branches and locals spread throughout the country and in many cases were the only civil politically affiliated institution operating within Palestinian communities. The relationship between the Communist Party and Palestinian labor struggles should be viewed as a symbiotic relationship. While the party supported struggles, these struggles were a platform for its expansion (Dallasheh, 2012; Gozansky, 2014; Manaa, 2022).

The coupling of Palestinian political mobilization with organized labor could also be found among the ranks of the ILL, the Histadrut-affiliated labor organization operating among Palestinians. While Histadrut officials expected the ILL to adhere to the organization’s needs and guidelines, ILL leadership and local activists developed their own expectations from this relationship. Competition with the AWC, alongside aspirations for enhanced autonomy, pushed the ILL to adopt an increasingly militant approach when facing employers, the Histadrut’s central leadership, or government officials. In some instances, the ILL and the AWC cooperated in shared struggles for the rights of Palestinians, mainly, but not exclusively labor-related. Between 1950 and 1952, The ILL’s central leadership repeatedly published statements criticizing the military government and calling for its end, statements that caused discomfort among government officials. During the second half of 1952 ILL officials recognized their influential role as the bridge connecting the Palestinian population with the Histadrut and Mapai. They strategically employed this position to enhance their autonomy and advance their demands. This culminated in an alleged rebellion among ILL leadership against the authority of the Arab Department; ILL activists demanded additional funds and power, and their ‘minimal right – an elected representation’. They threatened to independently collect dues and operate the organization’s branches autonomously. In addition, ILL activists publicly demanded that the Histadrut be opened to Palestinian members (Marck, 2022).

The Histadrut and its Arab Department could not overlook the apex of Palestinian political mobilization reached in mid-1952, manifested by heightened competition from the Communist-affiliated AWC, an escalating demand from ILL activists for greater autonomy, and an upsurge in Palestinian rank-and-file labor militancy. This was particularly pronounced in face of the widespread labor unrest discussed earlier, which compelled the Histadrut to be more attentive to worker factions striving for autonomy. In early August 1952, the Mapai political committee convened to discuss ‘the Arab question’. Meir Argov, the committee’s chair, opened the meeting by stating that ‘matters in the Arab terrain […] have reached maximal tension’. One of the sources of this tension, according to Argov, was ‘an attempt to motivate the Arabs to enter the Histadrut’. Argov warned that as a result of this tension, ‘several party members demanded an inquiry, and some of them even came to support opening the Histadrut’s gates to Arabs’ (Mapai Political Committee, 1952, p. 1). Also present at the meeting was Reuven Barkat, a prominent Mapai member and head of the Histadrut’s Arab Department. After giving an overview of the ‘Arab problem’, Barkat reached ‘the main point – the Arabs and the Histadrut’. Barkat identified Palestinian labor discontent as the main issue to be addressed by the party. He claimed that ‘if we analyze the situation thoroughly, we have to come to the conclusion that the only way to solve the problem of the bitterness that has accumulated among the Arab workers is to open the gates of the Histadrut to them’. Despite this analysis, Barkat went on to reject the solution he himself proposed. Palestinian inclusion in the Histadrut, according to Barkat, might jeopardize the Mapai majority among its members. Therefore, ‘the Arabs should not be included in the Histadrut at present’ (ibid., p. 10). In line with this notion, the committee decided to postpone any decision on the matter, effectively leaving the Palestinian exclusion policy in place. When Agassi of the Arab Department learned of this decision, he warned that it would lead to further radicalization among Palestinian labor activists – a process that could only be stopped by inclusion in the Histadrut (Agassi, 1952a).

Against this backdrop, mobilization of quarry workers in Taybeh caught the Histadrut’s attention and caused it to become much more involved in their struggle. According to the Communist newspaper Kol Ha-ʿAm, during the March 1952 strike in the Taybeh quarry Yaakov Cohen of the Arab Department visited Taybeh and conversed with the strikers. He tried to convince them to join the ILL by claiming that such a step would enable them to achieve their goals (Unattributed, 1952f). The workers declined, but it seems that in the coming months the Histadrut and the ILL were able to gain a foothold in the quarries. Starting in April 1952, the Arab Department signed labor contracts with quarry owners in Kafr Qassem and Taybeh that included a pay raise, job security, and insurance coverage. In October, after the Taybeh quarry contract was breached by its owner, workers went on a two-hour warning strike backed by the Histadrut. Another, longer strike was called a few weeks later following the owner’s refusal to meet the workers’ demands. The weeklong strike ended with the workers achieving their goals (Unattributed, 1952h).

Conclusion

Similar events took place in Kafr Qassem. In October 1952 the Arab Department approached the Jewish owners of three Kafr Qassem quarries and warned them that due to their non-compliance with the contracts signed earlier that year, their workers would go on strike (ʿayun, 1952). In contrast to negotiations which took place during January 1950 (presented earlier in this article), this time the Arab Department was much more committed to improving working conditions at the quarries. Furthermore, this time local representatives, as well as the workers themselves, were involved in the process. On the eve of the strike a workers’ assembly was held at the Kafr Qassem ILL branch with the presence of ‘most of the quarries’ workers’. The branch secretary, Saleh Baransi, briefed the members in preparation for the strike. He appointed several workers to ‘stop anyone looking to break the strike and remove them, by force if not in gentle ways’. The next speaker was David ʿAyun of the Arab Department. He assured the workers that the Histadrut would pay for their lost workdays during the strike and urged the workers that ‘in order for the strike to succeed, we must unite and be wary of the employers and their mercenaries’ (ILL Kafr Qassem, 1952). That night a meeting between officials from the Arab Department and the ILL and the quarry owners ended with no results, and a strike was declared in all three quarries. It was over in four days, with what Agassi described as ‘full success, the signing of a new contract according to all of our demands, and payment for strike days’ (Agassi, 1952b).

The events surveyed throughout this study can be viewed as local, isolated occurrences. However, this article suggests identifying and analyzing them as ‘diagnostic events’, a concept coined by anthropologist Sally Falk Moore (1987) to ‘describe moments when established explanations and collective mythologies can no longer function smoothly’ (Ram, 2020, p. 99). In accordance with this approach, the article argues that the shift described in Kafr Qassem – from blatantly justifying a racial wage gap to attempts to improve working conditions and earnings of quarry workers – is indicative of a broader shift regarding wage inequality in Israel. During the period under discussion, some in the Histadrut and in the government considered abandoning the institutionalization of a racial wage gap as a way of tackling the problem of competition posed by cheap labor, seeking instead to adopt wage equalization between Jewish and Arab workers within the same trade. This is not to claim that wage gaps vanished – in fact, in many cases they persist to this day. However, by late 1952 equal wage became a widespread demand of Palestinian workers, as well as a desirable tactic for Arab Department officials and others in the Zionist establishment. It was during this period that the Israeli government decided on equal pay scales for all workers employed by the state, whether Jewish or Arab. In October 1952 the Histadrut opened its trade unions to Palestinian membership; a decision that, on the one hand, provided Palestinian workers with collective bargaining coverage and inclusion in wage standardization, but on the other hand denied them voting and representation rights in the organization (Degani, 2018). Two months later the Histadrut declared equal pay for Jewish and Arab workers in the stone industry (Becker, 1953).

Furthermore, the article argues that a significant driving force behind this shift was the unwillingness of Palestinian workers to comply. Contrary to assertions made by Jewish Histadrut officials and a commonly portrayed narrative in research, Palestinian workers were far from being mere passive victims. Their resilience, political mobilization, and engagement in industrial action played a pivotal role in instigating changes in both Histadrut and governmental policies aimed at Palestinian laborers. Opening the Histadrut’s trade unions to Palestinian membership and official resolutions regarding wage equalization were by no means an end point, nor were they steps in a gradual linear process of accepting Palestinians into Israeli society. They were part of a struggle for recognition and equality. While each of these steps was initially intended by Zionist institutions to lower the struggle’s intensity, they inadvertently resulted in heightened expectations, improved capacities, and enhanced legitimacy.

Acknowledgments

This article is based on research conducted during my PhD studies at BGU, under the devoted mentoring of Haggai Ram and Orit Ouaknine-Yekutieli. I would like to thank Nimrod Ben Zeev for his good advice and comments on earlier versions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Oded Marck

Oded Marck is a PhD student at the Department of Middle East Studies, Ben-Gurion University.

Notes

1. The term ‘Southern Triangle’ refers to the southern part of the territory that came under Israel’s control after the 1949 armistice agreement with the Kingdom of Jordan (see Figure 1a). It includes the Palestinian cities, towns, and villages of Taybeh, Kafr Qassem, Qalansawe, Jaljulia, Tira, and Kafr Bara. These localities were annexed to Israel, and their residents became Israeli citizens under military rule.