The Israel ‘problem’ you haven’t heard about
Does Israel have an immigration problem?
The figures are fuzzy and politically contested, but the most reliable estimates place the number of such workers around 300,000. There are an additional 20,000 Africans — primarily Eritreans and Sudanese — who claim to be refugees from persecution. The overwhelming majority of foreign workers are like James: economic migrants from China, India, Nepal, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and elsewhere who arrived in Israel on temporary visas to take jobs in the agriculture and construction industries or as caregivers for the elderly. According to the Israeli government, 30 percent of foreign workers are in the country illegally. Eighty percent of the foreign population lives in south Tel Aviv, crammed into slouching tenements near the central bus station.
Israel is dealing with a dual dilemma here. On the one hand, foreigners are expressing confidence in the Israeli economy by seeking employment in Israel. For this, Israelis should be proud. At the same time, Israel needs foreign laborers. Whether its Chinese construction workers, Filipino caregivers, Thai agricultural workers, or Eritrean clean-up crews (interestingly each nationality of immigrants to Israel seems to have entered a specific sector), the Israeli economy needs them. Among other reasons, the Israeli workforce is no longer as open to Palestinian laborers as it once was.
By 1987, the year the Intifada began, Palestinians comprised nearly 8 percent of the Israeli labor force. The uprising, which prevented Palestinians from traveling back and forth to jobs inside Israel, threw the economy into crisis. In response, the Israeli government began to import workers from abroad. By 2000, foreign workers comprised 12 percent of the Israeli workforce.
But with a country of only 7.5 million citizens, Israel is worried over a “demographic threat.” Israel fears losing its Jewish identity to immigrants. Israelis once labeled the Arabs as the “demographic threat.” Now with its economy in high gear, a new “demographic threat” has arrived: those wanting to improve their lot.
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[...] consequence of Israel’s impressive economic development has been an influx of immigrants, both legal and not. Some have come to escape the disaster that is Darfur, while others have come [...]
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