Immigration Laws: July, 2002 - Number #19

The Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics reports that the Israeli population is 81 percent Jewish and 19 percent non-Jewish. However, Dr Asher Cohen of Bar-Ilan University has a different estimate the Jews are only 72 percent of the residents by his count. Cohen says there are five million Jews as defined by traditional Jewish law, or halakha. Another 270,000 Israeli residents are non-Jewish immigrants granted citizenship under the Law of Return, 1.25 million Arab citizens of Israel, 150,00 Palestinians illegally living in Israel, and 280,000 foreigner workers.

If current trends continue, Jews will be 45 percent of the 15 million residents of Israel, West Bank, and Gaza Strip by 2020.

Nearly 50,000 new immigrants entered Israel in 2002, a 28 percent drop from 2000 levels. About 40,000 of the new immigrants were Russian. There are an estimated one million Russian newcomers in Israel. A suicide bombing at Tel Aviv's Dolphinarium disco in 2001 killed 21 people; all but one was from the former Soviet Union. Tensions between native-born Israelis and recent Russian arrivals rose after religious authorities questioned whether three of the disco bombing victims could be buried in Jewish cemeteries because their mothers were not Jewish.

Guest Workers. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon approved an emergency airlift of 6,000 Thai agricultural workers to work in Israel's citrus industry. A February cabinet decision to increase the number of foreign agricultural workers to 24,000 had been held up by two former ministers. The agricultural sector has been badly hit by the Palestinian violence and the subsequent loss of Palestinian workers. Thais are about 12 percent of Israel's work force and Sharon employs Thai workers on his Negev ranch.

A suicide bomber appeared to have targeted foreign workers who gather on Neve Sha'anan Street in Tel Aviv. Some observers say the foreign workers were targeted by Palestinians who lost their jobs to imported workers.