"Don't turn workers into fighters"

Maher Moshtaha wanders around his silent warehouse, muttering as much to himself as to his vistors or the anxious aides trailing behind.

Maher (in photo) walks past the stacks of tables waiting to be shipped into Israel. He walks past the piles of unfinished chairs. He walks through the silent halls like some Shakespearean figure who is losing his mind.

"This is worse than a tragedy," says Maher. "It is a disaster."

Maher is the owner of Abdelfattah Moshtaha Company for Trade and Industry, one of dozens of factories at the Karni border crossing, Gaza's main economic lifeline to the world.

Karni has been closed now for nearly two months, ever since Hamas took control of Gaza.

Israel has made sure that essential supplies (flour, produce, even cigarettes at times) are getting in. But nothing is getting out. And the Gaza businesses like Maher's furniture company are quickly sliding towards collapse.

If the closure continues, the United Nations estimates that 120,000 Palestinians will soon be without work. Only 10 percent of Gaza's industries are working. Eighty percent of the workers in Gaza's furniture industry have been laid off. In the most recent UN report,, losses since mid-June are estimated to be $35 million. Gaza's industries are losing a half million dollars a day.

"Look," Maher says. "The grounds are empty. Is it possible that this is a working factory?"

Maher usually has 75 to 100 workers. Now, there are a handful.

So far, the various groups trying to work out a deal to get Karni reopened have failed. They have floated the idea of having a private security company take over. Or maybe an international force like the one set up at Gaza's southern border crossing with Egypt.

But nothing is coming together.

Most of Maher's clients are in Israel. His furniture is in showrooms across the country. Maher dispatches an assistant to get the number of an Israeli furniture company to prove that his factory is reliable and respected.

"It is a very, very very bad situation," said Najib Nasalha with Diwan Furniture in Israel, which works with Maher. "We have a lot of unsatisfied and angry customers and most of the showrooms don't want to work with us anyway."

Maher is ready to send the angry customers his orders. Maher is losing money every day. The contracts call for Maher to be fined about $250 a day for each piece of furniture that is delayed.

On the phone, Najib tells me that his company is likely to stop working with Maher because of the uncertainty, something I think it's best not to tell Maher.

"There is no chance to build a good business relationship with Gaza," said Najib.

Even without knowing this, or perhaps because he knows this in his heart, Maher is in an emotional frenzy. He hands over numbers of Israeli companies to prove that he is a solid businessman. He rages against Israel, the U.S. and all the Palestinian factions for dragging businesses into the political turmoil.

Like most other factories in Gaza, Maher relies on an import of raw materials from Israel. None of the wood he needs to keep the factory running is getting in.

Before heading back to his quiet offices, Maher delivers a final warning to all: "Don't turn workers into fighters," he says. "If these workers don't have hope, they will turn to fight."

Comments

[Edie]

Maher is exactly right. And when one more son or daughter watches his father slip into a deep depression because he can't provide basic needs for his family and the son or daughter watches his brothers and sisters grow up with no opportunity for a better future and he or she goes out and strikes back the only way they know how, watch the media talk about the event as if the Palestinians are inherently violent, unreasonably hate filled or just plain anti-semitic.

The media won't mention any of the factors that may have lead up to the explosion because it will probably come after a period of 'relative calm' and Israel has nothing to do with why Palestinians may feel the urge towards violence.

Do you know if El Hayek Tile Factory is still up and running in Gaza City? I stayed with Mohammed El Hayek back in 1987 a few times when visiting Gaza and haven't been able to keep in touch to see how they're doing.