Mishor Adumim () is an

industrial park An industrial park, also known as industrial estate or trading estate, is an area zoned and planned for the purpose of industrial development. An industrial park can be thought of as a more heavyweight version of a business park or office par ...

located in the industrial zone of the

Israeli settlement Israeli settlements, also called Israeli colonies, are the civilian communities built by Israel throughout the Israeli-occupied territories. They are populated by Israeli citizens, almost exclusively of Israeli Jews, Jewish identity or ethni ...

Ma'ale Adumim Ma'ale Adumim (; ) is an urban Israeli settlement organized as a city council in the West Bank, seven kilometers () east of Jerusalem. Ma'ale Adumim achieved city status in 1991. In 2015, its population was . It is located along Highway 1, whi ...

, about 10 minutes' drive from

Jerusalem Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...

, in the

West Bank The West Bank is located on the western bank of the Jordan River and is the larger of the two Palestinian territories (the other being the Gaza Strip) that make up the State of Palestine. A landlocked territory near the coast of the Mediter ...

. The international community considers Israeli settlements in the West Bank illegal under international law, but the Israeli government disputes this.

History

According to ARIJ, Israel confiscated land from the following

Palestinian Palestinians () are an Arab ethnonational group native to the Levantine region of Palestine. *: "Palestine was part of the first wave of conquest following Muhammad's death in 632 CE; Jerusalem fell to the Caliph Umar in 638. The indigenous p ...

villages in order to construct Mishor Adumim: * 2,749

dunams A dunam (Ottoman Turkish, Arabic: ; ; ; ), also known as a donum or dunum and as the old, Turkish, or Ottoman stremma, was the Ottoman unit of area analogous in role (but not equal) to the Greek stremma or English acre, representing the amount ...

from

al-Eizariya Bethany (,Murphy-O'Connor, 2008, p152/ref> Syriac: ܒܝܬ ܥܢܝܐ ''Bēṯ ʿAnyā''), locally called in Arabic Al-Eizariya or al-Aizariya (, " laceof Lazarus"), is a Palestinian town in the Jerusalem Governorate of Palestine, bordering ...

, *248 dunams from

Isawiya Al-Issawiya (, , also spelled ''Isawiya'' or ''Isawiyah'') is a Palestinian neighborhood in East Jerusalem. It is located on the eastern slopes of the Mount Scopus ridge. To the east and north, it is bordered by Road 1, which connects Jerusal ...

, *138 dunams from az-Za'ayyem.Az Za'ayyem Village Profile
ARIJ, p. 16 Since 1998, the park has been managed by the Ma'aleh Adumim Economic Development Company Ltd. Stretching over , it includes businesses and factories, as well as a busy commercial center. In 2014, the park housed 300 factories and small businesses, a bowling alley, two large supermarkets, an art museum and several

kosher (also or , ) is a set of dietary laws dealing with the foods that Jewish people are permitted to eat and how those foods must be prepared according to Jewish law. Food that may be consumed is deemed kosher ( in English, ), from the Ashke ...

wineries A winery is a building or property that produces wine, or a business involved in the cultivation and production of wine, such as a wine company. Some wine companies own many wineries. Besides wine making equipment, larger wineries may also feat ...

. These businesses are entitled to special tax breaks under Israeli law. A few, like the Shweiki glass factory, established in 1936, is Arab-owned: the Shweiki products are boycotted by Palestinian consumers, while the IDF refuses to give its seal of approval for the shatterproof glass it produces.Judy Maltz
'Down the Road From SodaStream, a Complicated Coexistence,'

Haaretz ''Haaretz'' (; originally ''Ḥadshot Haaretz'' – , , ) is an List of newspapers in Israel, Israeli newspaper. It was founded in 1918, making it the longest running newspaper currently in print in Israel. The paper is published in Hebrew lan ...

30 January 2014 One of the big draws is a Rami Levy supermarket. Adumim Food Ingredients is a food additives company that manufactures

nutraceutical Nutraceutical is a terminology evolved scientifically & also through marketing which is used to imply a pharmaceutical effect from plant extracts, compounds, food products which have efficacy and therapeutic influence on clinical outcomes and patien ...

s in collaboration with the

Hebrew University of Jerusalem The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI; ) is an Israeli public university, public research university based in Jerusalem. Co-founded by Albert Einstein and Chaim Weizmann in July 1918, the public university officially opened on 1 April 1925. ...

. Most of the businesses rely heavily on Palestinian labour. The

SodaStream SodaStream International Ltd. () is an Israel-based manufacturing company best known as the maker of the consumer home carbonation product of the same name. The company's soda machines, in the style of soda siphons, add carbon dioxide to wate ...

factory in Mishor Adumim provided employment for 1,300 workers: 950 Arabs (450 Israeli and 500 Palestinian) and 350 Israeli Jews. The SodaStream plant was established in Mishor Adumim by the company founder Peter Weissburgh in the 1990s, before SodaStream was taken over by the Fortismo Capital Fund in 2007. In 2014, Daniel Birnbaum, the current CEO said that he would not have opened the factory at this site, but its presence there was a reality and he would not bow to political pressure to close it, even after the inauguration of a new plant under construction in

Lehavim Lehavim () is an affluent hamlet in southern Israel. Founded in 1983 and located in the northern Negev around 15 km north of Beersheba, it is a Local council (Israel), local council. In it had a population of . History Lehavim, originall ...

in the northern

Negev The Negev ( ; ) or Naqab (), is a desert and semidesert region of southern Israel. The region's largest city and administrative capital is Beersheba (pop. ), in the north. At its southern end is the Gulf of Aqaba and the resort town, resort city ...

. According to Birnbaum, he would not consider closing the plant out of loyalty to its hundreds of Palestinian workers, noting that he could not see how it would help the Palestinian cause if they were fired. Nevertheless, the closure of the Mishor Adumim factory was announced in October 2015.Last Palestinian employees at SodaStream lose their jobs
/ref>

Israeli-Palestinian conflict

Many Palestinians are employed at Mishor Adumim where they can make between double to triple the common wages in the Palestinian territories. One Palestinian worker said "I can bring a million people who want to work here". According to a report by ''

'' in 2017, the Palestinians working in one of Mishor Adumim's factories, the ''Hayei Adam'' (Life of Man) carpentry shop which crafts furniture for synagogues, labour in

sweatshop A sweatshop or sweat factory is a cramped workplace with very poor and/or illegal working conditions, including little to no breaks, inadequate work space, insufficient lighting and ventilation, or uncomfortably or dangerously high or low temperat ...

conditions. The Rami Levy supermarket in Mishor Adumim is widely patronized by Palestinians, although Palestinian Authority Economy Minister Hassan Abu Libdeh warned them in 2010 not to make purchases there. Many of the employees are also Palestinian. On December 3, 2014, a Palestinian teenager entered the supermarket and stabbed two Israeli shoppers.

References

{{reflist

External links

Official website of the industrial park
Economy of Israel Industrial parks in Israeli-occupied territories Israeli industrial parks in the West Bank Ma'ale Adumim Words and phrases in Modern Hebrew

History

Israeli-Palestinian conflict

See also

References

External links