Palestine's 'Jerusalem Stone' Funds Israeli Settlements, Al-Monitor Forgets
Al-Monitor recently highlighted Faraj al-Atrash's Beit Fajjar quarry, near Hebron, as a 'main source of revenue' in the occupied West Bank. They laud its success selling 'Jerusalem stone' quarries despite the 'catastrophic state of the Palestinian economy.' What Al-Monitor conveniently sidesteps is that this lauded 'Jerusalem stone' is often dug from Palestinian land to literally build Israeli
settlements or furnish Israeli homes, with Palestinian labor often dependent on permits granted by the military occupation. The 'economic woes' are not an external force; they are a direct consequence of the occupation that paradoxically allows this specific industry to exist in a state of controlled profitability. The article’s silence on who precisely profits most from this arrangement, or the
geopolitical infrastructure allowing it, is deafening. 'Resilience' often looks like complicity when you're forced to help your occupier build on your confiscated land. One might wonder if the stone's enduring sales truly benefit the broader Palestinian economy, or just a select few navigating a deliberately strangled system designed to extract resources and labor, not foster genuine economic
freedom.