United States Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, U.S. Committee for Refugees World Refugee Survey 1998 - Israel, 1 January 1998, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/3ae6a8bd8.html [accessed 17 September 2023]
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Israel has no refugee law or asylum procedure, but 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 1997, Israel admitted 67,190 new immigrants, a 5 percent drop from those admitted in 1996. Former Soviets In 1997, 54,335 new immigrants arrived in Israel from the former Soviet Union, 81 percent of all immigrants to Israel during the year. This represented a slight decrease (3 percent) from the number of former Soviets admitted in 1996, continuing a downward trend in former Soviet arrivals for several years running. Since the latest wave of immigration began in 1989, about 720,000 Jews have immigrated from the former Soviet Union, and former Soviet Jews now represent about one-seventh of Israel's total population. Although Israelis widely refer to former Soviets 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 former Soviet immigrants increases from 21 to 40 percent from 1992 to 1996. In 1997, Ukrainian Jews climbed to 44 percent of new immigrants. Russian Jews have continued to drop as a percentage of the total. In 1994, Russian Jews represented 37 percent of former Soviet arrivals; in 1997, they represented only 29 percent. During 1997, 24,055 immigrants arrived from the Ukraine, 15,708 from Russia, 5,728 from Central Asia, 3,363 from Belarus, 1,876 from Azerbaijan, 1,404 from Moldova, 1,093 from Georgia, and 1,021 from the Baltic republics. Ethiopians Ethiopian Jews represent another significant immigrant group with a history of persecution in its country of origin. Numbering about 60,000, most of Israel's immigrants from Ethiopia arrived in dramatic airlifts in 1984 and 1991. In 1997, 1,711 Ethiopians immigrated to Israel, a 22 percent increase from the 1,400 in 1996. In June 1997, Israel approved the entry of an estimated 3,500 "Falashmura"Jews and descendants of Jews who had been forced to convert to Christianitywho lived in a transit housing compound in Addis Ababa since 1991. The compound's residents, most with family members living in Israel, were left behind in the 1991 airlift. The decision to allow these Ethiopians to immigrate reversed a seven-year Israeli government policy that denied them entry on the grounds that they were not Jewish and therefore not eligible for immigration under the Law of Return. Ethiopian Jews in Israel charged that the past policy was racist, arguing that the Falashmura were, in fact, practicing Jews subjected to a stricter immigration standard than the vast numbers of former Soviet arrivals in Israel during the past decade. 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 the controversy involving the integration of Ethiopian immigrants has largely centered on religious issues. The established Orthodox rabbinate, which tightly controls religious matters, has not been willing to recognize much of the Ethiopians' practice of Judaism, which developed separately from the two main streams of Jewish tradition, Ashkenazic and Sephardic. There has been much finger pointing regarding housing for Ethiopian immigrants. Some Israelis, both native and from other immigrant groups, have complained that the Ethiopians have received preferential housing and mortgage terms, even better than those granted to former Soviet immigrants. However, most Ethiopians, wishing to live near family and friends, have settled in the poorest areas of some of Israel's most impoverished towns and cities, frequently paying exorbitant prices for substandard apartments. This has segregated the Ethiopian population from the rest of Israeli society. Some advocacy groups have faulted the government for failing to provide adequate counseling on housing options and not intervening to prevent segregation. Members of the Ethiopian community also have complained that Ethiopian children have been segregated into the country's poorest schools. Internal Displacement Israel's Arabs represent 19 percent of the country's population. The internal displacement of a small group of Israeli Arabs from 1948 remained unresolved in 1997. 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 Israel has allowed some Jewish settlements 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.
