As Interior Minister Eli Yishai incites against African asylum seekers–leading to outbreaks of violence against Africans–his ministry issues visas to foreigners who pay tremendous amounts of money to come to Israel.
Interior Minister Eli Yishai has called African asylum seekers “infiltrators” who threaten “the Zionist dream,” adding, “Jobs will root them here.”
But if foreigners are such a threat and jobs will root them here, then why does Yishai’s ministry continue to issue work visas to migrants?
It could have something to do with the fact that the manpower agencies—the companies that turn huge profits by importing foreign workers—have a strong lobby in both the Knesset and Ministry of the Interior.
But, wait, what does the MOI have to do with manpower agencies? Doesn’t the MOI just issue the visas and handle deportations?
In 2009, there was a major governmental restructuring that changed the supervision of both migrants and the manpower agencies that recruit them.
Rivka Makover was once the manager of the registration department in the Ministry of Trade, Industry, and Labor. From 2004 to 2009, Makover supervised the licensing of manpower agencies, shutting down hundreds of those agencies over shady business dealings.
While Israeli labor law stipulates that agencies can charge approximately 1,000 US dollars for arranging jobs and visas, many charge far more. Chinese laborers have reported paying as much as $30,000 in fees. Indian workers usually pay upwards of $10,000; Filipinos between $5000 and $10,000.
In 2009, Makover’s position was eliminated, her responsibilities transferred to a body under the umbrella of the Ministry of Interior—putting all the power related to migrants in the hands of the MOI.
Since the restructuring, employees at both Kav LaOved and the Hotline for Migrant Workers say that enforcement of labor laws regarding manpower agencies has become noticeably lax, with some complaints against manpower agencies going completely ignored.
Maybe that’s because the MOI has been too busy issuing work visas. In 2009—the year that Israel announced it would deport children of migrant workers; the year that the government began inciting against African asylum seekers; the year that the Oz Unit attempted to take Africans out of South Tel Aviv—27,000 new migrant laborers entered Israel on state-issued work visas.
In 2010, the state embarked on a campaign against asylum seekers, including advertisements in which actors claimed that foreigners had taken their jobs. But, in 2010, Israel actually issued more work visas to bring more foreigners than it had in 2009, granting 32,000 new migrants work permits.
According to MOI spokeswoman Sabine Hadad, an additional 11,000 legal migrant workers arrived in Israel in 2011 on state-issued work visas. 2012 has seen the state bring 2300 new workers. While both 2011 and this year have seen significant drops in the number of new workers, the question remains—why bring them at all? Why not allow Eritrean and Sudanese asylum seekers—groups that cannot be deported and that are forced into unemployment and homelessness—to work?
Further, the current number of legal migrant workers stands at nearly 75,000. As migrants typically get 63-month work visas, it’s safe to say that most of these 75,000 have arrived in the past five years—the same time the country saw an influx of African asylum seekers. There are now between 45,000 and 60,000 African asylum seekers here. If the state wasn’t so intent on bringing new workers, if the state would draw from the existing labor pool, each and every one of those asylum seekers could have jobs. They wouldn’t be sitting around in parks in South Tel Aviv.
The big difference between those Israel gives work visas to and those that don’t? Those that pay the manpower agencies, a powerful group that has close ties to the MOI, get work visas. Those who don’t pay don’t get work visas. It’s that simple.
For additional original analysis and breaking news, visit +972 Magazine's Facebook page or follow us on Twitter. Our newsletter features a comprehensive round-up of the week's events. Sign up here.
Rowan Berkeley
Since it was Eli Yishai who kicked off this latest round of racism, perhaps we should recall some of R Ovadia Yosef’s celebrated pronouncements of Oct 2010, which must have aroused hopes among the poorer classes that they too could afford household servants:
“The sole purpose of non-Jews is to serve Jews. Why are Gentiles needed? They will work, they will plow, they will reap. We will sit like an effendi and eat. That is why Gentiles were created. In Israel, death has no dominion over them. With gentiles, it will be like any person: they need to die, but Hashem will give them longevity. Why? Imagine that one’s donkey would die, they’d lose their money. This is his servant. That’s why he gets a long life, to work well for this Jew. Gentiles were born only to serve us. Without that, they have no place in the world, only to serve the People of Israel.”
Piotr Berman
Incitement against asylum seekers is definitely not an Israeli invention. Still, from the point of view of politics, this is “bottom feeding”. Immigrants bring diseases, snatch purses, rape, perhaps even date impressionable young Haredi girls (this idea is already there, but not in this particular combination yet).
Shas politicians guarding against “shady practices”, hm.
max
Piotr, are you right? Is the right in Europe softer?
On the positive side, it looks like the Israeli society is a strong one, since so far we haven’t seen the type of violence often seen in Europe in this context. I just read today of an 11-years old in the UK on trial for murdering a 15-years old refugee.
Jonathan
I agree that if these poor immigrants are taking jobs from Israelis, how many of the poor Shas voters or Rav Ovadia’s followers want to do the back breaking work these poor souls are willing to do for at best minimum wage! Are Rav Ovadia’s supporters willing to dig ditches, clean public parks, wash the floors/clean toilets at hotels etc. If they were, rather than sitting at home and collecting a governement check there would not be a need for the foreign worker, legal or otherwise! It brings back memories from my past in Southern California! In the 80′s there was a regional INS commissioner, called Ezel who advocated expelling all of the ondocumented mexicans…Anglos went into the strawberry fields in Ornage County in S. Cal and after an hour or two walked out cause they were unwilling and unable to do the back breaking work!Get rid of all of the foreign workers and watch food prices rise cause there are no Thais to harvest fruit and veggies, send the Chinese home and watch housing construction grind to a halt and/or costs rise, no Filipinas who will clean and care for the thousands of “seudi” elderly Israelis…I could go on! Years a go it was the new Sefardi immigrants who did the grunt work, then came the Russians, then Palestinians were allowed to do the dirty work…now for security reasons replaced by Africans…sooner or later, when there’s no one left to do the dirty jobs and prices rise on all fronts, we’ll see all of these leaders face the ire of the classes cause they realize that we are facing the Perfect storm! Every Israeli mother thinks her son is a hi-tech genius…Get their hands dirty, chas vi’chalila!
Ilan
@ Rowan: Oh come on – that has nothing to so with it. Ovadiya Yosef’s stupid remarks have nothing to do with migrant labor problems. So if he hadn’t said that, Israel wouldn’t have a problem with migrant Africans? Which is proved by the fact that no other countries face similar issues?
If you want to analyze the issue, stop being silly and deal with the issue like a grown-up, not by demagoguery.
max
Ilan, RB is a very interesting person (as long as you don’t expect reasoning about a topic) and should be left to impress us with his – not Jewish, no Hebrew knowledge, by his own repeated disclaimers – knowledge of Hebrew terms (biblical to modern), esoteric religious pronouncements, as well as Zionist literature.
It’s really fun to read, once you get to it!
He’s an avid conspiracy theorist, and conspiracy for him is everything that succeeded, so I guess Zionism should feel comfortable.
I highly recommend for those who’re not afraid of stereotyped discourses
ilan
So if he is clearly an “avid conspiracy theorist” (I wouldn’t know since I visit this site rarely) why are his comments permitted? Conspiracy theories have no place on a site that values intellectual honesty, genuine debate, and that screens comments.
Rowan Berkeley
See? not only are the trolls omnipresent, but they feed each other lines, like cops do.
Ilan
Why is this insane bigot allowed to comment on this site? Is the comments section for rational discussion or not? Why permit stupid, racist comments that in no way contribute to debate and the sum of human knowledge?
Rowan Berkeley
If anybody’s familiar with the books of Shaul Magid (e.g. “From Metaphysics to Midrash”), they might find this interview with him about the current state of Iz interesting:
http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/what-if-the-left-abandoned-israel/
Ilan
Again, why is this presumed journal of repute allowing comments from someone credibly accused of being a “Neo-Nazi”?
http://umkahlillies.blogspot.com/2006/04/noted-neo-nazi-rowan-berkeley-tells.html
Come on, people
Rowan Berkeley
It’s irritating enough when people lift comments out of context from one thread to another, but to lift a six-year-old paste-up from a blog I’ve never heard of which purports to report something else I said on a blog I’ve now forgotten, is just silly. I suppose it tells me something about your search engine, though: that it can’t even find my own blog, on which just about everything under the sun has been discussed quite openly to this day.
Ilan
It’s irritating when people attribute sheer racism to Judaism and then complain when people point that out.
Piotr Berman
Max:
Europe is a large region, but the type of right wing parties that whip emotions of crowds at anti-immigrant or anti-refugee rallies usually get much less that 74% of the vote, it is more like 10-30%. Prime ministers usually try to sound more responsibly than Netanyahu and his spokesman.
Ilan: if you try to get a “neo-nazi” banned you must provide better arguments than the fact that that person was accused of being neo-nazi somewhere. Plus, what is wrong with being neo-nazi? Many of them support Israel and are invited by similarly-thinking parties in Israel to visit Knesset etc. Of course, radical Israeli parties have no heroes who were fighting the scourge of Bolshevism by volunteering to SS. But as they had less fun in the past, they want more fun in the future. “More Nakbas!”
The views of Ovadia Joseph are important because he is the spriritual leader of a coalition member that has a number of key cabinet portfolios.
Rowan Berkeley
Thank you, Piotr. As I said before, you seem to me about the most intelligent person here. I like the way Ilan calls it a “credible” accusation: it says I’m a “noted neo-Nazi” — noted by whom, I’d like to know? Perhaps the shape-shifting lizards in the fifth dimension that David Icke talks about have noted it, but I’m not aware of anybody on planet Earth who has done so. If they had, you would know about it from a lot more sources that some obscure blog which appears to have been created solely to discredit yet another person, “Um Khalil,” who again I have no idea about. This is the undergrowth of the web, Ilan; you burrow around down there, you will find all kinds of strange little insects.
Alan
Ilan– Here’s everything you need to know in order to understand Rowan Berkeley: he’s a self-hating English Jew who changed his last name from Berkowitz to Berkeley. I pointed out his website to an English friend, and my friend immediately recognized him as a classmate from Hebrew School. According to my friend, Berkowitz was the most zealous Zionist among his crowd. Now his zealousness is turned in the other direction. He refuses to admit to his Jewishness, but you can see evidence of his split Jewish psyche in the way he is both repulsed by Jews and weirdly drawn to them.