U.S. Committee for Refugees World Refugee Survey 1997 - Israel

Israel has no refugee law or asylum procedure. Jews are eligible to immigrate and become Israeli citizens under the Law of Return. This welcome applies regardless of their reasons for leaving their countries of origin, and Israel declines to categorize any Jewish immigrants as refugees. In 1996, Israel admitted 70,600 new immigrants. Former Soviets A total of 56,000 new immigrants arrived in Israel from the former Soviet Union in 1996, 83 percent of all immigrants to the country during the year. This represented a 10.6 percent decrease from the number of former Soviets admitted in 1995, and continued a downward trend in former Soviet admissions numbers of several years running. The Jewish Agency for Israel, a quasi-governmental organization that encourages Jewish immigration, said, however, that the number represents five percent of the current population of Jews in the former Soviet Union, a percentage immigrating to Israel that has held steady for the past three years. Since the latest wave of immigration began in 1989, about 666,000 Jews have immigrated from the former Soviet Union, and former Soviet Jews now represent about one tenth of Israel's total population. Although former Soviets are widely referred to by Israelis as "Russians," in fact more have arrived from the Ukraine than from Russia in each of the past three years, and Jews from Russia represented less than a third of former Soviet immigrants. The Ukrainian percentage of the total of former Soviet immigrants has continued to increase, from 21 to 35 percent from 1992 to 1995. In 1996, Ukrainian Jews climbed to 39.5 percent of new immigrants. On the other hand, Russian Jews have continued to drop as a percentage of the total. In 1994, Russian Jews represented 37 percent of former Soviet arrivals; in 1996, they represented only 29.5 percent of the total. Through the first eleven months of the year, 20,737 immigrants had arrived from the Ukraine, 15,500 from Russia, 5,876 from Central Asia, mainly from Uzbekistan, 3,995 from Belarus, 3,707 from the Caucasus region, mostly Azerbaijan, 1,804 from Moldova, and 1,059 from the Baltic republics. Although relatively small in absolute numbers, as compared to the previous year, the number of Jews immigrating from the Baltics – Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia – was up 29 percent from the previous year. Immigration from Belarus was also up eight percent. In the May elections, the Russian immigrant party, Israel Be'aliya, led by former Soviet dissident Natan Sharansky, won seven seats in the Knesset, the 120-seat Israeli parliament, and joined the new ruling right-wing Likud coalition. The "Russian" vote in the elections reflected widespread reflection of discontent and frustration among the immigrants with Labor Party rule. They faulted the ruling party for their difficulties in finding jobs appropriate to their skills, and for inadequate housing. The "Russian" vote also reflected a hardening of attitude toward further concessions to the Palestinians and Arab parties in the peace process. Israel Be'aliya's party platform asserts Israel's "inalienable right" to the West Bank, and opposed ceding any more territory in the West Bank to the Palestinians as well as the return of the Golan Heights to Syria. Ethiopians Ethiopian Jews represent another significant immigrant group with a history of persecution in its country of origin. Numbering about 56,000, most of Israel's immigrants from Ethiopia arrived in dramatic airlifts in 1984 and 1991. In 1996, about 1,400 Ethiopian Jews immigrated to Israel. While the former Soviet immigrants are generally secular in orientation and immigrated for practical rather than ideological reasons, the Ethiopian Jews generally immigrated to Israel for specifically religious reasons. It is ironic, therefore, that much of the controversy involving the integration of Ethiopian immigrants has centered on religious issues. The established Orthodox rabbinate maintains tight control over matters of religion, and has not been willing to recognize much of the Ethiopians' practice of Judaism, which developed on a separate course from the two main streams of Jewish tradition, Ashkenazic and Sephardic. On January 28, the anger and frustration of Ethiopian Jewish immigrants boiled over in a demonstration outside the prime minister's office that turned violent, injuring 60 protesters and police officers. Although the Ethiopian immigrants have complained about discrimination for years, the incident that touched off the violence was the discovery that Ethiopian blood donations had been dumped for fear that they were infected with the AIDS virus. There has been much finger pointing regarding the issue of housing for Ethiopian immigrants. Some Israelis, both native and from other immigrant groups, have complained that the Ethiopians have been given housing preferences and preferential mortgage terms, even better than those granted to immigrants from the former Soviet Union. This has allowed Ethiopian immigrants to settle in the center of the country, whereas most new immigrants are settled in "development towns" in the country's periphery. Ethiopians, on the other hand, say they have been housed in crowded and rundown refugee-camp-like trailer parks, lacking basic amenities. Israeli officials countered that charge in February by reporting that 85 percent of the 3,720 families living in trailer parks had moved into other public or private housing before 1996 began. Temporary Internal Displacement In April, 20,000 to 30,000 Israelis became temporarily displaced from their homes in response to Katyusha rocket fire from southern Lebanon, which touched off Operation Grapes of Wrath, causing about ten times that number of Lebanese civilians to flee northward. About 15,000 fled the Israeli border town of Metulla, and about 10,000 more from Kiryat Shimona, another northern town. By the end of April, virtually all had returned to their homes. Long-Term Palestinian Displacement Israel's Arabs represent 18 percent of the country's population. The internal displacement of a small group of Israeli Arabs from 1948 had still not been resolved in 1996. During the 1948 War, the Israeli army ordered the evacuation of two Christian villages on the border with Lebanon, Iqrit and Biram, telling the residents, who never opposed the Israelis, that they would be able to return in two weeks. They were taken to another Arab village within Israel and eventually became Israeli citizens, but were never permitted to return. The issue remains controversial in Israel. Although the Israeli Supreme Court has ruled that there is no justification for not allowing them to return, their homes have long since been razed and the area converted into a national park, and some Jewish settlements have been allowed to expand into the disputed land. Guest Workers Israel employs about 200,000 foreign workers from Asia and Eastern Europe who are not eligible for permanent residence or citizenship. The employment of foreign workers was part of a conscious government policy to reduce the number of Palestinian workers who used to commute daily from the Gaza Strip and West Bank into Israel. Israeli human rights groups have protested the treatment of the foreign workers, who have few legal rights and have been summarily deported when involved in labor disputes. No mechanism exists for identifying and adjudicating refugee claims among this group.