Israel proposes work camps for illegal migrants
Proposed plan would have asylum seekers perform manual labor outside the camps in exchange for food, shelter.
By Dana Weiler-Polak Tags: Israel news NegevThe government is considering establishing work camps in the south of the country, where illegal migrant workers will receive shelter, food and medical care, Army Radio reported Wednesday. In exchange, illegal migrants would perform manual labor outside the camps, but would not earn a salary.
They would stay at the camp until their asylum claims are decided, which could take months or years.
The proposal, part of the effort to address the problems posed by illegal migrants, would place asylum seekers at jobs in communities in the Negev and Arava. Their salaries would go to the state, in order to fund the camps.
The issue of illegal foreign migrants and refugees has made the headlines due to the efforts by human rights organizations to block the deportation of 1,200 foreign workers' children. One of the main arguments by deportation advocates, including Interior Minister Eli Yishai (Shas), is that allowing them to stay would bring hundreds of thousands more illegal migrants.
They would bring in "a range of diseases such as hepatitis, measles, tuberculosis and AIDS [as well as] drugs," said Yishai.
"I fear how far we have fallen," said MK Dov Khenin (Hadash) in reaction to the work camp proposal, adding that he thinks the plan would encourage many more asylum seekers to try to enter Israel.
"The plan [would] induce refugees to come to Israel. A bed is an incentive compared to where they come from. Israel has the right to close its borders, but when someone comes here, you cannot fight with him. This shows that we haven't learned a thing, as people living in a country established by refugees for refugees," Khenin added.
In addition to the opposition of human rights groups, communities in the south may also not respond favorably to the plan. In April 2008, during a court hearing on the government's policy of putting asylum seekers in the northern and southern peripheries, north of Hadera and south of Gedera, an affidavit was presented to the court on the migrants' employment prospects. In the document, Sigal Rosen of the Hotline for Migrant Workers declared that kibbutzim in the south had not shown an interest in hiring the migrants.
"We contacted many kibbutzim in an effort to have Sudanese asylum seekers released for farm work," she said. "Despite the argument they desperately needed workers, most of the coordinators at the kibbutzim rejected my request after they learned they would have to pay the asylum seekers at least minimum wage, as provided by law, [and] could not make deductions from their salaries beyond what the law on foreign workers requires."
Rosen contacted hundreds of potential employers at kibbutzim and moshav cooperative farming communities, but very few were interested. In the end, only 14 moshavim and two kibbutzim agreed to hire Sudanese migrants as agricultural workers.
Amnesty International also criticized the proposal yesterday. The group's Israel director, Itay Epstein, said: "The crazy idea of housing refugees in work camps in the south by force is contrary to international law and to every international treaty to which Israel is a party."
He added, "Israel is obligated to grant refugees and asylum seekers who come knocking on its door a safe haven [as well as certain rights], which include the right to live in dignity and to work and earn a living. They certainly should not be employed by force, as we profit from the distress of survivors of genocide and persecution."
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send them to a third countrie: us,australia
What's most shocking to me is why the refugees voluntarily subject themselves to such inhumane treatment. Considering Sudan is not adjacent to Israel, why go there specifically instead of one of the many countries that will welcome them with open arms? Are they just gluttons for punishment? Please help me understand.
i take it thats simply a disgusting joke, this cannot be true.
history repeats itself as farce!
If any other nation did this, nobody would be surprised; but for Israel to do this is ghastly.
we had work camps in Germany, too, it shows a specific idea of man. Sarcasm aside: Having a significant percentage of population who have been the object of historically unprecedenced terror, de-humanization and industrialized murder obviously does not safe a country from implementing a similar perspective on humankind that lead to the holocaust. I'm trying to at least as if I learned from my grandparents devastating story of life, do you?
I think it's a great idea to provide basic needs of the illegal immigrants in exchange for work, like on farms...or kibbutzim. I think that would be extremely generous of Israel.
Slaves also worked for free in exchange for a bed and food.Shows again that Israelis have not the foggiest idea what their actions look like to the world outside their blinkered vision. David
This is absurd... does the current government think at all before it speaks? In the course of a few months, Israel looks worse than ever.
Working camps? No wages? God, they are out of mind!
So what is your proposal to the problem? Come on, step up to the podium.
just when I thought there was absolutely nothing that could possibly make Israel's image any worse at this point, this thing comes along... illegal immigration is a problem that all industrialized countries face and you certainly don't have to like it but maybe it might be worth just biting the bullet on this one before headlines start popping up of "israelis force impoverished african refugees seeking asylum into forced slave labor camps"?... please?!?! as if goldstone and war crimes allegations weren't enough to have to deal with.
Perhaps they should wear some insignia to show how enthusiastic they are to become Israeli citizens. A six-pointed star, perhaps, in a nice bright colour like yellow?
A camp where they are provided with food & shelter but they work for free is not right and could be seen as servitude also whats to stop these illegals just disapearing into the community as they have been doing since they got picked up? If you were an illegal would you want to go back to the camp where you will be given food & shelter till they decide to deport you or would you get an illegal job find your own food & shelter outside the camp and stay on the run to avoid chances of deportation? They will also end up putting the government want to take things slow with their applications because whilst they are there the farmers & construction companies don't even have to pay them any kind of sallary not just less than minimum wage. Israel should build these camps but they should be detention camps where they are held until deportation. Clean & some kind of voucher system they can earn within the camp for certain luxuries they want which will be brought in for them.
The uniform that this government is designing for itself is one we have seen before, although not in the Middle East. Mr. Yishai is a lot of things, but original he isn't.
We have to learn to deal with illegal immigrants just the way other rich normal countries do. Illegal immigration has not to do with the Holocaust or why the State of Israel was founded: it is illegal immigrants looking for a better life in a rich country, that simple! The word "camp'made me shiver! Deportatons would diencourage newcomers who enter the country illegally as anywhere elese.
"work" camps ? A shiver goes down my back.
It is not slavery if they are allowed into Israel and given shelter, but on the condition that they are willing to work for the help given. I dont agree that their wages should be given to the state, but rather directly to the immigrants, and they in turn will have to pay for board and services. This is fair. If they dont want to work and linger doing nothing , dont let them in. Naturally the sick and too young and elderly should be allowed without condition
to discourage illegal immigration or it will be overwhelmed by millions of 3rd World people. These illegals come to Israel and the West even though they are not wanted there. They should improve their own countries instead of moving to the West.
disgusting
Are Israelis comfortable with a government which believes in the same policies as Adolf Hitler? The belief that the Master Race has the right to take the property and land of inferior races? The idea that the weak and unpopular should be forced into slave labor camps to serve the enrichment of the master race? Netanyahu has made it clear to the entire world what he believes in, what his goals are, and that he will submit to no moral standards. Netanyahu is the chosen Prime Minister of Israel as Hitler was the chosen of Germany. Is it possible to divorce the man chosen to rule, from the nation which chose him? Is it possible to distinguish between racial arrogance and slave labor and racial arrogance and slave labor? Is it possible to distinguish between those who approve of racial arrogance, the policy of taking of desired lands, and the willingness to round up despised people and force them into slave labor - and those who do that? How has Israel become depraved?
This is involuntary servitude, which means slavery. I don't want all these illegal immigrants, but you can't make people slaves.
Israel is a small country with enough problems and ill equipped to handle a refugee community of African Muslims. There should be a deal to send them to Egypt where there is already a large Sudanese population, or to the US, which has more resources to handle an immigrant group such as this.
Israel will look even worse that it already does.