by Osama Shabaneh

About the author: Osama Shabaneh is a Palestinian-American who works and lives in Redmond, Washington.

During a recent trip to the West Bank, I happened to share a taxi ride from Bethlehem to my hometown of Hebron with a few Palestinian laborers. Throughout the hour-long trip, the laborers discussed their day at work and their plans for the next day. As I understood from the discussion, these men were construction workers who had just finished their day shift in the Israeli settlement of Har Homa, or Jabal Abu Ghneim in Arabic.

When the Israeli government in 1997 approved building in this settlement, there was not only a Palestinian but also an international outcry since the settlement was construed as changing the status quo of the boundaries of Jerusalem. Three years later, the Palestinians...