Israel's Abuse of Migrant Workers

I am here not singling out Israel. I have written about abuse of migrant workers in Arab countries numerous times. In facts, in the dozens of pieces on abuse of workers only one of them even mentioned Israel and even then only in context of abuse in Arab nations.

Lebanon is one of the worst offenders and most of posts have condemned Lebanon in that rightful regard. But Israel is not immune. And its ignoble record deserved to be highlighted. The New York Times recently wrote:

At least 250,000 foreign laborers, about half of them illegal, are living in the country, according to the Israeli government. They include Chinese construction workers, Filipino home health care aides and Thai farmhands, as well as other Asians, and Africans and Eastern Europeans, working as maids, cooks and nannies.

Those who overstay their visas and try to remain in Israel live in fear of the Oz Unit, a recently created division of immigration police officers who hunt down illegal migrants and assist in their deportation.

The Chinese end up in the most desperate straits here partly because they are recruited through a murky network of manpower companies that rights groups say operate like human trafficking rings.

The Chinese must work for an average of two years just to repay the money they borrow to afford those fees. Unaware of their rights and unable to speak Hebrew or English, many fall victim to a minefield of abuse like squalid living conditions, withheld wages and the early termination of work permits, which make them liable for deportation before they have repaid the recruitment fees or saved money for themselves.

And just as Gulf Arabs and Lebanese abuse workers in their midst due to racism, Israeli abuse is also moved by racism: Zionist Racism.

Israel recently deported hundreds of workers due to demographic concerns:

"On the one hand, this problem is a humanitarian problem," Netanyahu said during a meeting Sunday of the Cabinet, which had debated the move for nearly a year. "We all feel and understand the hearts of children. But on the other hand, there are Zionist considerations and ensuring the Jewish character of the state of Israel.

"We don't want to create an incentive for the inflow of hundreds of thousands of illegal migrant workers," he said.

Critics, including some government officials, said the decision would punish children by sending them to impoverished or insecure nations that their parents had left in search of better lives in Israel.

The new policy is aimed at children of foreign workers who arrived legally and then started families. Under Israeli law, the children are not automatically granted residency status.

About 400 children and their parents are expected to leave Israel over the next month. An additional 800 children may qualify to stay and receive residency status if they meet certain requirements such as having lived for the last five years in Israel and attended grade school.

"Zionist consideration"?! Look at the apartheid rhetoric of this state. This is like the United States deporting illegal Mexican workers and their American-born children and openly citing "White considerations". And, note well, that these children, as the article notes and as is the whole purpose of the Israeli deportation, being targeted were born in Israel from parents who came legally to the nation. There sole "crime" for eviction is that they are non-Jews. Yes, Virginia, Israel is an apartheid state. They do not even seek to mask their apartheid. Only a Zionist hoodlum who never sees wrong with Israel no matter how vile Israel's conduct and crimes are would deny that true nature of this state.

Anyway:

While much media attention is focused on Israel's treatment of the Palestinian population, and rightfully so, most English-speakers don't know about Israel's asylum seekers and foreign workers, two other marginalized groups that are constantly being harassed and threatened with deportation.

Many of them are refugees of armed conflicts in Africa -- conflicts that the Israeli government indirectly contributes to by selling weapons on the continent. But instead of granting these people status, it considers them a 'demographic threat' and orders its immigration people to round them up for expulsion.

After Israel began to phase out the use of Palestinian laborers, deeming them a security risk, the government began to 'import' foreign workers, mainly from East Asia, to do dirty work. But these people are relegated to serf status, and are deported and replaced if they try to form families, a basic human right.

This 4-minute video puts a human face on the people of color that have migrated to Israel over the last few years. Israelis of conscience are starting to rally for their right to stay in the country, but the government is determined to grant that privilege to Jews only. Israel: if you are not apartheid state, then start proving it!