A Chinese lesson

‘WE’RE eager to work with you,” said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the heads of Chinese corporations during his visit to China in March. This week Netanyahu had an opportunity to demonstrate just how eager we are. On Sunday the cabinet formally yielded to a condition placed by China on recruiting Chinese workers to Israel’s labour market. This condition stipulates that Chinese construction workers who come here to work will not be employed in the West Bank or in East Jerusalem. By ratifying this agreement, the cabinet gave its de facto acquiescence to a boycott of the settlements.

Negotiations between Israel and China have been going on for two years, due to China’s insistence that these workers not be sent to settlements and Israel’s unwillingness to sign an agreement in which it expressly upholds a boycott. After two years of efforts to circumvent this problem, the Foreign Ministry managed to come up with some clever formula that allows such a boycott without calling it such by name.

“The two sides agree that Chinese workers recruited within the framework of this agreement will work in agreed-upon areas that are designated for this purpose from time to time.” The agreement contains an appendix which specifies which communities are included in the consensus – not one of them lies beyond the 1967 border, the Green Line.

China says it “is opposed to construction of Jewish settlements on occupied Palestinian land. The UN defines clear guidelines in this matter.”

In recent years Netanyahu has often boasted about the new diplomatic and economic ties Israel is forging in the Far East. If China succeeds where Europe and the US have failed, helping Israel find the economic motivation to end the occupation, it may turn out that Netanyahu is right, and that China is a true friend of Israel.