The Israeli Police and Border Control recently apprehended ten Palestinians residing illegally near the Israeli town of Lod. The ten were living in a scorching-hot caravan, nine feet long by nine feet wide, in impossible living conditions. “I came here to work,” one of the Palestinians told a reporter who witnessed the clampdown. “I have no choice, I will come back again.” After a short interrogation by the Shin Bet, Israel’s security agency, the Palestinians were sent back to their homes in the Palestinian territories.
Although considered a success story, this case is a microscopic indication of a much wider trend in Israel. Thousands of Palestinians are entering Israel illegally on a daily basis, residing in the country and exploiting its welfare services. Those caught by Israeli authorities are merely the tip of the iceberg.
Although there are no figures as to the number of illegal Palestinians currently in Israel, estimates put it at tens of thousands. Arnon Sofer, a professor of geography at Haifa University, claims 170,000 Palestinians have entered east Jerusalem and pre-1967 Israeli territories just since the beginning of 2003.
The Muslim Palestinian population has an average birthrate of 3.5-4 percent per year, the highest birthrate in the world. They will double in number within 20-23 years. In comparison, the Jewish population in Israel has an average birthrate of 1%. Consequently, Israel may be facing a predicament more severe and menacing than any conceivable security threat: by the year 2020 Jews may be a minority in their own state.
The problem is by no means new, nor is it unique to Israel. (To read a recent article on the subject of undocumented immigration in Texas and Israel, click here [1]). Palestinians have been entering the country illegally from the West Bank and Gaza Strip since Israel took control of these areas in 1967. Most of these Palestinians do not pose a security threat. Rather, they want to circumvent the Israeli law to obtain Israeli residency or citizenship and benefit from Israel’s welfare and employment system, medical care, national security and the right to vote.
The controversial and much discussed security fence currently being built around the West Bank and Jerusalem to prevent infiltration of terrorists is not yet effective in keeping out illegal Palestinians. If anything, its construction is an incentive for Palestinians to get on the ‘right side’ of the fence before it is too late.
The ineffectiveness of the authorities in clamping down on illegal dwellers may be due to the fact that no ministry is quite sure who is supposed to be dealing with the issue. Illegal dwellers are in fact under the jurisdiction of all security forces, but instead of that resulting in a blanket effect, there is a lack of coordination between the various forces, creating gaping holes.
Police spokesman Gil Kleiman told The Media Line (TML) that Palestinians do enter Israel illegally, but the purpose of the police is to guarantee security, therefore police forces are “less perturbed” by Palestinians who enter Israel for motives other than crime or terror. Only if there is reason to believe a Palestinian is involved in such deeds will they be detained for interrogation. A file may be opened against the Israeli employer who erred by hiring someone illegally.
More often than not, those caught are sent back to the Palestinian territories. Israel has neither money nor space in its overcrowded prisons to hold all the illegal dwellers. Many of those expelled will later return and try their luck once again. These recidivists, if caught once more, may be detained, or may simply be sent back yet again.
Israel’s Border Control is deployed across the Green Line dividing Israel and the West Bank and is also responsible for apprehending illegal infiltrators. The Border Control spokeswoman told TML they are neither authorized nor capable of estimating the extent of illegal dwellers in Israel. However, she did mention that from January to June 2003, the Border Control apprehended 143,000 illegal dwellers across the line. Taking into account the gaping holes across the line, which lack security forces and a fence, this figure provides a rough idea as to the extent of the total number of Palestinians who actually succeeded in entering Israel.
Entering pre-1967 Israel from the West Bank can be accomplished with relative ease. Palestinians skim past security personnel unseen and hook up with a relative or acquaintance within the Green Line, often from eastern Jerusalem. These illegal dwellers will sometimes live with another 30 people in a room and in appalling living conditions.
Once within the Green Line, Palestinians can easily find a job on the black market, frequently in construction or agriculture. They are often employed by Israelis, not necessarily Arabs, who pay them the legal minimum wage ($4.30 per hour), or even less. Both parties gain from this arrangement – the employer is not obligated to provide welfare benefits for his employees, he is not taxed for their work and can maintain a cheap workforce with minimum expenditure. The Palestinian employee will, in return, have bread on the table at the end of the day while avoiding the Israeli authorities.
If the employee indeed succeeds in dodging the authorities for long enough, he will finally settle down somewhere within the Green Line, perhaps marry an Israeli citizen and might himself become an official Israeli resident or citizen. His children will be born in Israel and will automatically be Israeli citizens, thus tilting the demographic line in favor of the Arab population in Israel.
A disturbing ramification of Palestinians settling in Israel is that children of illegal Palestinian dwellers are likely to be instilled with pro-Palestinian and perhaps anti-Israeli views. In a way, by failing to contend with the issue of infiltration from the territories, Israel is paradoxically harboring its own enemies.
The Bedouins, a nomadic Muslim Arab minority residing in the Negev desert in southern Israel, also play an important part in tilting the demographic make-up of the state in favor of Arabs. Some Bedouins “import” girls from the West Bank, marry them and acquire Israeli citizenship for them. The Israeli Hebrew daily Ma’ariv recently reported that there are tens of thousands of such cases in the Negev. Bedouins circumvent the Israeli law prohibiting polygamy by divorcing officially through both the Israeli authorities and the Muslim court. The allegedly divorced wife will then return to her former husband’s house and continue bearing his children while living off a single-mother state allowance.
The exceedingly high birthrate among Bedouins (approximately 5% per year) increases their demographic advantage tremendously vis-a-vis the Jewish population. Some Bedouins have up to ten wives and even 100 children. A governmental official told Ma’ariv that Bedouins consider “importing” women from the Palestinian territories the first step in implementing the right of return to Israel.
Once in Israel, Palestinian illegal dwellers can make use of Israel’s welfare systems, such as medical care, even when the hospital is aware of their illegal status.
Both Sha’arei Tzedeq and Hadassah hospitals in Jerusalem claim that if a person in need of medical care arrives at the emergency room, whether an illegal Palestinian or a foreign worker, the hospital is obligated to treat that person. However, they do not provide these people with follow-ups or treat them in non-life-threatening situations.
A Sha’arei Tzedeq spokesperson said the number of illegal Palestinians hospitalized there since January 2003 is over a dozen and the number of babies born in the hospital to at least one Palestinian parent is similar. However, when asked about the number of illegal Palestinians treated in the emergency room, she estimated the number as being well over a hundred, adding there is no official documentation of this.
Hadassah Ein Karem Hospital in Jerusalem could give no numerical estimation, but said their policy was similar.
Exactly how many illegal Palestinians are there in Israel? No-one quite knows.
Sofer estimates that 300,000 have entered pre-1967 Israel since 1967, a figure that does not take offspring into account. As to the incredible 170,000 he claims have entered Israel since January 2003, he attributes this figure to “security sources.”
There are a number of possible solutions to the problem. One is the security fence currently being built between Israel and the West Bank. The fence is expected to provide an effective method of keeping out unwanted visitors, but according to Gil Kleiman, even when its construction is complete, the fence will not entirely stop infiltration of Palestinians into Israel and will definitely not replace other methods of maintaining security, such as routine patrols.
The Israeli parliament (Knesset) passed a law last month that will prohibit Palestinians (though not other foreigners) from acquiring residency or citizenship in Israel through their Israeli spouse. The law has been in effect de facto for a year already and was characterized as “a war-time law,” by Member of Knesset Yuri Stern.
This amendment clearly plays a role in limiting the demographic upheaval bound to create an Arab majority in the Jewish state.
The Palestinians have vocalized strong opposition towards both the security fence and the new law amendment, claiming they are both racist and discriminatory measures. However, Israeli advocates of these measures defend them, not so much for their demographic benefits, but rather because they are anti-terrorist measures.
The demographic aspect seems to have been overlooked, perhaps because the potential disastrous results, given adequate circumstances, will not be felt imminently, but only in the long run.
Sofer’s solution to the problem is very much in line with the security fence. “Israel should build a wall [between the Israelis and Palestinians] so high that eagles won’t be able to fly over it,” says the professor.
Sofer has long been considered a raging prophet in Israel, anticipating demographic catastrophes for over ten years.
The demographic threat, Sofer argues, is already starting to materialize, and more rapidly than anticipated. “If a separation between Jews and Arabs isn’t applied right away, it is clear that an Arab majority will reduce the Jewish landscape of the state,” says Sofer.