Constructing Boundaries: Jewish and Arab Workers in Mandatory Palestine

Chapter 5. The Haifa Port-Entering the Gateway

Chapter 5 The Haifa PortEntering the Gateway The government sector created new dilemmas for Jewish labor and led to new strategies in the competition of Jewish and Arab workers. Both the dilemmas and the strategies were clearly demonstrated in the labor market of Haifa. Haifa's strategic position led the British to select it as the site for several enterprises that linked Palestine to the rest of the British Empire. The most important of these were the Haifa port and the Palestine Railways. Our main concern in the two following chapters is with the employment policy of the government in these two large enterprises, and the strategies pursued by Jewish labor to enhance its chances of employment. As with the other industries, the issue of employment at the port and the railways reflected the intricate interplay of the political and economic interests in Palestine. Both Jews and Arabs expected the government employment policy to take their interests into account. The Zionist leadership expected the government administration to employ Jewish workers as part of its support for the establishment of a Jewish National Home. The Arabs expected to be preferred as they were the "sons of the land" (Ibna al-Balad) and the vast majority of its population. The British, in developing their employment policy, tried to take into account their overall political interests, their specific strategies concerning Arab-Jewish relations, and their economic priorities. Competition between Jewish and Arab labor in the government sector was unavoidable. Jewish labor had to deal with the problem of gaining access to the market in the face of much cheaper readily available Arab The Haifa Port-Entering the Gateway labor. They could not implement the strategy that had worked so successfully in other industries-the closure of the market to cheap Arab labor. There were no grounds for expecting the government, as employer , to close the labor market to Arab workers. This chapter and the next study the ways in which Jewish labor entered the government sector in two industries, both located in Haifa. Chapter 5 deals with the Haifa port and Chapter 6 with the Palestine Railway (PR). Jewish labor pursued very different strategies in these two industries. I shall argue that the different strategies account for the different working relationships that developed between Jewish and Arab workers in each of these workplaces-separation in the Haifa port and cooperation in the PR. THE HAIFA PORT AND THE ISSUE OF JEWISH LABOR The Haifa port with its deep-water harbor guarded the gateway of the empire to the east, as well as the approach to the Suez Canal from the north. It also served to link Europe with Palestine and the Middle East, and was the major channel for the movement of both people and cargo.! Into its quiet waters, a protected area of some 300 acres between its two new breakwaters, entered the steamers bringing the new Jewish immigrants and their luggage, as well as foodstuffs and manufactured articles.2 Boats bearing the raw materials needed for the economic development of Palestine, among them coal, wood, and seeds for expressing oil, anchored at its quays.3 The railways transported the large citrus export from the coastal valley and the potash from the Dead Sea Works to the wharves from where they were loaded onto the ships. Petroleum was shipped to Europe from the terminal of the long Iraqi pipeline and its oil storage installations. The ships of the Royal Navy frequented the harbor. The port was the hub of the life of the city. Adjacent to the harbor was a reclaimed area of land created by the filling in of a stretch of the sea, while deepening the harbor to the depth of the approximately 10 meters necessary for the use of large modem vessels. On the reclaimed area large roads were paved to facilitate the approach to the port and the activity surrounding it. The railway, extending into the port, ran through the new railway station, Haifa Central, also located on the reclaimed area. Importers and exporters, customs agents, storehouses and bonded warehouses, as well as banks, travel agents, offices, and shops all crowded onto the newly created stretch of land that would soon be an integral part of downtown Haifa. In 1933, the improved deep-water port opened with a breakwater and sea wall, quays, transit sheds, and lighter moorings. The deep-water IN THE LABOR MARKET quays...