In an unprecedented move, the government has approved thousands of slots for Palestinian workers in Israel's high-tech field.
Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook and Twitter
To date, the state has largely approved work permits for Palestinians in the construction, agricultural, industrial, and service fields. With the approval of the pilot program, Israel's high-tech sector, which suffers from a severe shortage of skilled workers in recent years, will benefit from the addition of thousands of Palestinian workers in the coming years.
The move is an initiative of the Regional Cooperation and Economy and Industry Ministries, in cooperation with the Defense, Finance, and Science and Technology Ministries.
The pilot program will be split up into three separate phases, within the framework of which hundreds of permits will be issued: Up to 200 Palestinian workers will receive permits by 2022, followed by another 200 in 2023, and another 100 permits in 2024. In total, Israel will issue 500 such permits in the pilot stage.
The permits will not exceed those of the general cap on Palestinian work permits.
According to the framework, the salary of a Palestinian employed in the high-tech industry will be no less than 150% that of the average Israeli salary to allow Israeli companies to directly hire Palestinian workers with advanced training. The average national salary in August was 11,799 shekels (around $3,730), according to Central Bureau of Statistics data.
This initiative is meant to provide an alternative to hiring employees from overseas and Eastern Europe and India in particular. This move will also prevent harm from being done to Israeli employers in the field. Likewise, the government also approved a proposal to increase the caps on the service and industry fields to 8,550 Palestinian workers and increase the cap for the Atarot Industrial Area in Jerusalem to 3,600 Palestinian workers.
Regional Cooperation Minister Esawi Frej said, "The Israelis and the Palestinians live in a common geographic space, and we must bolster cooperation and reciprocity between the citizens and economies. The absorption of high-tech workers expresses this desire to connect in all fields, and it opens gates not only to low-wage service and industry workers but also to white-collar workers in a leading field that suffers from a severe shortage of manpower. We hope the move bolsters the high-tech industry in the Palestinian Authority."
The move nevertheless sparked criticism, in particular among right-wing circles, where claims were made bringing in additional Palestinian workers would put lives at risk.
"This is a security threat to the State of Israel," Matan Peleg, the CEO of the right-wing Im Tirzu organization, said. "Who will guarantee these same Palestinians don't use the intelligence they acquire in high-tech and transfer it to Hamas? Instead of promoting employment in the Haredi and Druze sectors, they are hiring Palestinians at the core of our knowledge and progress. It's not even blindness, it's unprecedented foolishness."
Subscribe to Israel Hayom's daily newsletter and never miss our top stories!
