Israel’s increasing reliance on exploiting immigrant labor has meant growing unrest as migrant workers protest unbearable conditions. More than a million foreign workers have migrated to Israel, mostly from Asian and Eastern European countries.
After the 1987 to 1993 Intifada, Israel began recruiting hundreds of thousands of migrants to replace the exploited labor of indigenous Palestinians. Many have arrived as indentured servants and then have had their passports held by their employers, who refuse to pay them promised wages.
The presence of these workers—while a necessity for the apartheid state challenged by the continued resistance of the Palestinian people—itself presents a challenge to the racist Zionist ideology.
Both documented and undocumented migrant workers, who are actively recruited to provide super-cheap labor, live in constant fear of the “Oz” unit. The aggressive unit of the immigration police is charged with deporting and harassing Israel’s migrant communities. This month, Israel will deport about 1,200 children of foreign workers in order to secure the Jewish exclusivity of Israel.
