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 1998, Israel admitted 56,693 new immigrants, a 14.4 percent drop from the 66,221 admitted in 1997.

Former Soviets

In 1998, 46,020 new immigrants arrived in Israel from the former Soviet Union, 81 percent of all immigrants to Israel during the year. This represented a 16 percent decrease from the number of former Soviets admitted in 1997, continuing a downward trend in former Soviet arrivals for several years running.

Since the latest wave of immigration began in 1989, about 770,000 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 four years, and Jews from Russia represented less than a third of former Soviet immigrants. The Ukrainian percentage of former Soviet immigrants increased from 21 to 46 percent from 1992 to 1998. Nevertheless, the percentage of Russian Jews among total former Soviet arrivals in Israel increased to 38 percent in 1998 from 29 percent the previous year. Some observers credited the Russian economic crisis as the reason for the jump in Jewish immigration from Russia.

Ethiopians

Ethiopian Jews represent another significant immigrant group with a history of persecution in its country of origin. Numbering about 65,000, most of Israel's immigrants from Ethiopia arrived in dramatic airlifts in 1984 and 1991. In 1998, 3,110 Ethiopians immigrated to Israel, an 83 percent increase from the 1,700 in 1997.

Most of the Ethiopians who immigrated to Israel in 1998 belonged to a group of about 3,500 "Falashmura" – Jews and descendants of Jews who had been forced to convert to Christianity – who had 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.

Israel decided to admit the Falashmura in June 1997, reversing 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.

With a final airlift in June 1998, Israel completed the resettlement of the Falashmura from the Addis Ababa compound. Israeli officials said they would continue to accept Ethiopian immigrants on a case-by-case basis.

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 specifically for 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 main streams of Jewish tradition.

Ethiopian immigrants also have faced difficulties integrating into Israeli society in other areas. Despite having received preferential housing and mortgage terms, most Ethiopians have settled in 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. Members of the Ethiopian community also have complained that Ethiopian children have been segregated into the country's poorest schools.

Internal Displacement

Arabs represent 20 percent of Israel's population. The internal displacement of a small group of Israeli Arabs from 1948 remained unresolved in 1998. 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.

The Badil Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights reported that as many as 200,000 long-term displaced Palestinians resided in Israel in 1998, their situation similar to the residents of Iqrit and Biram.

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. 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.

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