Message from the master race: “You are welcome to work for us, but not to join us.”:
16,000 Indian construction workers replace banned Palestinians in Israel – India Today
‘Modern slavery’: How foreign caregivers in Israel have been extorted for decades – Times of Israel
Israel has always treated migrant workers as second-class residents — the hostage crisis is no different – Forward
“Israel’s migrant workforce has been systematically cut off from opportunities and privileges within Israeli society.”
“Migrant workers are generally ineligible for Israeli citizenship and military participation. They have neither ballots nor bullets, rendering them particularly vulnerable during exigent times. Yet the Israeli government has sought to strengthen residency and citizenship requirements to make it harder for those workers to make a permanent home.
“These workers’ presence in Israel reflects one of the major causes of today’s war: the effort to sustain the Israeli economy while restricting access to Israeli society. Until the 1990s, much of this work was performed by Palestinian workers, who traveled into Israel from the West Bank and Gaza. But in the wake of the First Intifada, ongoing conflict and security concerns rendered such labor mobility untenable. In that decade, the percentage of Gazans employed within Israel fell to 15 percent. Overseas workers began to take their place…
“Israel’s message to these workers, on whom it relies to perform demanding and often low-paying jobs, has always been clear: You are welcome to work for us, but not to join us. In recent years, Israel deported caregiver mothers, arguing that they violated their visas by having children, in a clear effort to avoid granting those children citizenship. Those deportations persisted despite concerns raised by Israel’s then-president in 2019 and express denunciations by Knesset members.
“These restrictive labor programs are part of the current Israeli government’s commitment to a “Jewish” character for the state. That commitment culminated with the 2018 Basic Law, which took steps toward establishing second-class citizenship for non-Jewish people, including by limiting the role of the Arabic language, and the more recent subordination of a Supreme Court perceived as too solicitous to Palestinian and secular rights.”