In amongst the new years madness, on Sunday we had another educational seminar, this time on immigrants and refugees in Israel. Coming from Australia, immigrants, asylum seekers and refugees are constantly front page news (well they used to be until Tony thought that transparency regarding asylum seekers arriving by boat wasn't required), but in Israel you don't hear anywhere near as much about the issue.
We started the day with a talk from a lady who works in the immigrant / human rights sphere in Israel and she spoke to us about the different types of immigration in Israel. First and foremost, immigration is split into two very clear categories: Jewish and non-Jewish. Jewish means you can immigrate to Israel under the Law of Return. It's fairly easy as long as you can prove you're Jewish and then you get a lot of assistance from the Government to make the move here. However, if you're not Jewish, moving to Israel is extremely difficult.
One of the biggest types of non-Jewish "immigration" to Israel is migrant workers. Historically migrant workers were Palestinians but following tensions in the mid-90's, international migrant workers were preferred. The first wave of migrant workers was in the early 000's from Ghana and Nigeria. Apparently groups of Christian tourists would come from these countries and then stay illegally to work. These groups built small communities in Israel however in the preceding years were deported.
Israel has a legal framework for migrant workers whereby they come to Israel on a working permit however these permits attach specifically to a job and an employer, not to the worker, making the worker vulnerable as:
- If their job ends (for instance if you are a caregiver and the individual you are caring for dies or if you are working in agriculture and it is the off season for the produce you are working with) you must leave Israel. This means the continuity of these jobs fluctuates;
- It is difficult to enforce your rights as a migrant worker because your visa is not personal. This is seen commonly with Thai workers who work in the agricultural industry. There are documented cases of them working 12 hour days, 30 days a month. They are unlikely to report this because if they infuriate their boss, they will be fired and required to go home;
- If you have children while you are working in Israel, these children are deemed to be illegal and can a) not access social services and b) could also be deported with you even if they attend an Israeli school.
The lady spoke to us about xenophobia in Israel - a phrase new to me coming from multicultural Australia. She stated that in Israel, there is no discourse on diversity and multiculturalism; this I have picked up on myself. It is a fairly homogenous society with everyone being Jewish and Middle Eastern or of European decent (not counting Ethiopian-Israelis who are Jewish but they suffer from a whole other bag of issues that I will discuss in another post). Because Israel is homogeneous society, and a Jewish state with the objective of keeping a strong Jewish majority, (my opinion here) Israel is not interested in being multicultural. In turn, the government isn't interested in introducing a discourse against xenophobia and I think this is a real shame. To me, Australia is a fantastic country because it is multicultural and I feel like Israel is really missing out. It's also a bit of an oxymoron seeing as Israel is this big Jewish melting pot combining Jews from hundreds of different countries and cultures.
We then moved onto the part of the day where we discussed asylum seekers in Israel. The majority of the asylum seekers in Israel come from North Africa, the two most common countries being Sudan and Eritrea. These individuals come on foot through the Sinai Desert usually with the assistance of Bedouin Smugglers. The route is very dangerous and extremely difficult, so difficult that it is more often than not only done by men. Egyptian border guards are also ordered to shoot on sight if they see an asylum seeker on foot, making the journey to Israel even harder.
Once these asylum seekers arrive in Israel though it isn't all milk and honey. For asylum seekers who have arrived in the last two or so years, they are detained in detention centres in the South of Israel for the purposes of assessing their asylum seeker application but because of systematic refusals to grant people asylum, are usually then deported. I should note that the High Court keeps striking down the laws that allow for these detention centres but the Knesset keeps tweaking the law so that they don't get closed (the beautiful circle of democracy I guess).
However, there is a substantial group of asylum seekers living in Israel on temporary residence visas (usually for only a month at a time). These are those from Sudan and Eritrea. Israel does not have diplomatic relations with Sudan and there are various international agreement prohibiting countries from deporting asylum seekers back to Eritrea so Israel has to let them stay. We were told that there are about 47,000 asylum seekers currently living in Tel Aviv, mostly in the South of Tel Aviv near the central bus station. South Tel Aviv is known as probably the sketchiest neighbourhood in Israel even though it has the central bus station. We were advised by our program not to visit the central bus station alone at night. The living standards there are very low with a lot of males loitering in public spaces during the day and night.
We spoke to an Eritrean asylum seeker who made this dangerous journey 7 years ago. He spoke of the people smugglers and how thankful he was to make it to Israel where the soldiers at the border gave him clothing and food. He has been in Israel for 7 years and lives on a month to month visa working as a caregiver at night. He told us about how he hopes for peace in his country and that as soon as that happens, he will go back home. He also spoke about how he wishes to see his mother again before she dies but doesn't know if that will happen. It was a really moving story.
To end the day we visited a school in Southern Tel Aviv that caters to migrant worker's children and asylum seekers (kids described as "survivors"). The school has students from nearly every country and religion throughout the world, a really rare occurrence in Israel. The school does a lot of cool things with project based learning and alternate teaching techniques because of the issues that these kids face. They also assist families with Hebrew and parenting classes to help them acclimate to Israel. It was a really inspiring place to visit.
It was a really interesting day that taught me a lot about the asylum seeker and immigration issue in Israel but like all education days, created a billion more questions I need to sit and think about. For me though, when it comes to asylum seekers, it shouldn't matter whether they are Jewish or not. They are fleeing their country of origin for their life. We are all humans and our number one priority should be to take care of each other, irrelevant of religion and race.
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| Basically how I felt after the seminar |
MM x
