Influx of Foreign Workers Is Cause for Concern in Israel

TEL AVIV —  Inside a cave-like bar near the old central bus station here, more than a dozen Romanian men drink beer and gaze listlessly at the pornography playing on a flickering television.

A few blocks away, up a trash-strewn stairwell, a pristine, whitewashed church awaits the arrival of its Nigerian and Ghanaian faithful for evening prayers.

Outside, among the peep shows and cheap shoe stores lining the Neveh Shaana pedestrian walkway, pay-per-minute telephone shops display their rates for India, Jamaica, Chile, Turkey, Tajikistan.

To many Israelis, the international face of this seedy section of south Tel Aviv represents a social and economic problem potentially more dangerous than the two small bombs that exploded here last month, injuring several people.

“If we continue in this way, allowing foreigners in without any controls, this will be a disaster for Israel,” said Yigal Ben-Shalom, director general of the Labor Ministry. “We have to stop.”

Thousands of foreigners have been allowed into Israel since 1993 as a substitute for Palestinian laborers kept out by the closures of the West Bank and Gaza Strip that were a response to attacks against Israelis. Many entered on short-term contracts; others arrived as tourists or Christian pilgrims, then stayed illegally.

The unease of many Israelis today over the foreigners in their midst represents a sea change from the relief that greeted the workers’ arrival. The solution to one problem has created several others, Israelis are discovering.

With progress in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations and growing anxiety over the flood of foreigners, Israel is taking steps to slash their numbers as well as to ease the closure of the territories.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, speaking recently at an international conference in Switzerland, said his government plans to reduce by half the number of foreign workers in Israel and increase the number of Palestinian laborers.

Palestinian officials said they welcomed the change but noted that the vast majority of the 2 million residents of the West Bank and Gaza Strip are still not allowed to visit or work in Israel. The closure has created economic hardship, with unemployment in Gaza at about 60%, according to Palestinian and United Nations officials.

In recent months, the number of Palestinians permitted to work in Israel has risen slowly, from about 32,000 in August to 50,000 today. Those granted entrance--married workers over the age of 35 who have clean security records--are considered least likely to carry out a terrorist attack. But the figure is far below the 160,000 Palestinians employed in Israel before the ban.

“The most important thing is that the closure is still in force,” said Nabil abu Rudaineh, a spokesman for Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat. “Israeli leaders are making these statements, but on the ground nothing is being done.”

For the most part, Israelis supported the security measures and applauded when the government also announced a short-term policy of replacing Arabs with foreigners, mostly Eastern Europeans and Asians. For farmers and contractors, the newcomers provided a reliable labor source, unaffected by the closure. For the public, shaken by knifings and shootings that left 15 Israelis dead in March 1993, they spelled a release from fear.

But nearly four years later, foreign enclaves are mushrooming in many neighborhoods, particularly in the poorer areas of south Tel Aviv, and along with the excessive drinking and prostitution sometimes observable in areas frequented by foreign workers, Israelis lately have become uncomfortably aware of the inhumane living and working conditions forced on many of the workers by their Israeli employers.

Many, like Stoyan Yonel, a Romanian with a broad, open face who knows a smattering of Hebrew, are housed six or more to a single room, with no bathing facilities, a hot plate for cooking and clotheslines draped on the walls.

“When there is no food on the table at home, what choice do you have?” asked Yonel, 37, who arrived legally in Israel last July and sends money home each month to his wife and two young sons.

Some employers take away the workers’ passports and, toward the end of one-year or six-month contracts, have them deported without paying their final wages. Confiscating passports is illegal but common, workers and advocates say.

“They are like slaves,” said Simcha Yishai, a coordinator with the Workers’ Hotline, an advocacy group that tries to help foreign and Palestinian workers.

Some religious and political leaders here warn that the influx of foreigners--virtually all of them non-Jewish--threatens the very fabric of the nation.

Concern that many of the foreigners may decide to stay, marry Israelis or bring their spouses and children from abroad has become a theme of the newly influential religious parties that came to power last June as members of Netanyahu’s coalition.

“We are a very young country, and sometimes we are all mixed up about who we are,” said Rabbi Avraham Ravitz, a member of parliament from the United Torah Judaism party. “We are building our country and we want to stay Jewish, but the foreign workers are now a big percentage of our population.

“They are not a part of us,” he added. “They are not Jewish, and they are not a part of our culture or our security problems. This is not what we want.”

Soon after the election last May, Netanyahu’s government formed several committees to find ways to reduce the number of foreign workers.

Ben-Shalom, the Labor Ministry official, said their recommendations, which are scheduled to be presented to the Cabinet in the next few weeks, include slashing the number of legal work permits for foreigners from about 100,000 to 25,000 within four years.

In addition, the government plans to locate and deport as many as possible of the 100,000 illegal workers believed to be in the country, he said.

Other measures include a carrot-and-stick approach of bonuses and fines to persuade employers to hire Palestinians instead of foreigners, and incentives to entice young Israelis to enter unpopular fields such as construction.

The construction industry, which relies heavily on foreign workers, is expected to employ its considerable political clout to fight the new policies. One reason, according to workers’ advocates, is that foreigners are willing to work for as much as 40% less than their Arab counterparts.

Hanna Zohar, a founder of the Workers’ Hotline, said the foreigners generally receive no overtime, sick leave or paid holidays. But she blames not only the unethical employers and agencies that exploit the workers but also the regulations that create a system rife with the potential for abuse.

For instance, under conditions set by the Interior Ministry, a worker’s visa is linked to employment by a specific company or individual. The employer must sign a guarantee and deposit the equivalent of about $1,500 to ensure that the worker fulfills the terms of the visa. The worker is not allowed to change employers, regardless of the working conditions. If the worker does, he or she instantly becomes an illegal.

“This leads to a lot of abuse,” Zohar said. “If they cannot move freely, the employer can treat them however he wants.” And with little knowledge of the language or applicable laws, many feel that they are without recourse, she said.

Ben-Shalom said he hopes that the one-employer rule will be changed, enabling the workers to leave employers who exploit them.

But that is not the case now.

Yonel lives in a former Tel Aviv restaurant now crowded with seven men, four sets of bunk beds, a table and plastic chairs. All said they had no choice but to remain in Israel until their contracts expire; not only have their passports been taken, but the average wage of $500 a month is five times what they could make at home.

Constantine Ferestrewaru, 43, a heavily bearded man wearing a T-shirt, sweatpants and slippers, said he was on his second stint in Israel but found it so difficult the first time that he debated for 18 months before returning.

Of 17 friends who arrived with him last October, only two remain, he said. The rest returned to Romania, unable to endure the long hours and difficult conditions.

“We came here to make money and support our families so our children have a chance for a better future,” Yonel said. “But they treat us like animals, and now they want us to leave.”

Zohar and others at the Workers’ Hotline, which has filed hundreds of complaints on behalf of foreign workers, said they do not disagree with plans to reduce work permits to foreigners and allow Palestinians to return. But they say the reductions should be accomplished gradually, with humanity.

“We have to ask ourselves how so many of these people came to be here,” she said. “The government needed and wanted to create a source of cheap labor, but now it has changed its policy and wants to get rid of them. This is a brutal way of treating them.”