In a reversal of recent trends, more new immigrants to Israel have arrived in the country than refugees over the last few days.
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In the first weeks of the Ukraine conflict, images of new immigrants from Ukraine landing at Ben-Gurion Airport were plastered across the country's newspapers despite the fact that very few were arriving in practice. Israel's gates were open to refugees fleeing the war but almost entirely shuttered to the tens of thousands seeking to make aliyah. By March 17th, Israel had taken in twice as many refugees as those seeking to immigrate: Just 3,685 new immigrants from Ukraine had landed in the country while 7,437 refugees ineligible for immigration in accordance with the Law of Return were authorized entry on tourist visas.
In countries bordering Ukraine, and Moldova in particular, some 10,000 refugees eligible to make aliyah in accordance with the Law of Return, have been left to wait. Many of them cannot afford a plane ticket to Israel, and as a result, have been waiting for many days for free tickets on organized aliyah flights.
Under the pretense of humanity then, Israel opened its gates to more well-established refugees while leaving the poorer Jewish refugees to wait out in the Moldovan cold for approval.
Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked said, "Thanks to the authorization mechanism from Europe, which prevents Ukrainian citizens from boarding a flight to Israel without preapproval, we are seeing a positive reversal in trends this week. So, for example, last Wednesday 507 immigrants and those eligible in accordance with the Law of Return arrived from Ukraine compared to 364 Ukrainian citizens on tourist visas."
Since the outbreak of the war, 8,978 Ukrainian citizens have entered Israel on tourist visas compared to 6,223 new immigrants or those eligible to immigrate in accordance with the Law of Return.
In addition to the wave of immigration from Ukraine, there is also sizeable immigration from Russia and Belarus. In total, Israel has taken in 7,880 new immigrants from those three countries since Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Nevertheless, Israel has failed to properly carry out its mission of bringing new immigrants into the country, including in times of humanitarian crisis.
The Prime Minister's Office's Nativ bureau, which serves as a liaison to Jewish communities in the former Soviet Union, currently has 12,060 aliyah applications from those claiming eligibility to immigrate from Eastern Europe in accordance with the Law of Return. In the Moldovan capital of Chisinau, the bottleneck has yet to be released despite the Jewish Agency's launch of its "Aliyah Express" program and the fact that four consulates are operating at the site.
Jewish refugees looking to make aliyah are forced to wait at least one week for an appointment with the consulate in Moldova and are then made to stand for hours in line. Unsurprisingly, the option of carrying on to Germany, where the government offers free housing for a year, instead of continuing to wait and deal with Israeli bureaucracy is becoming an increasingly tempting choice for many refugees.
"We are trying to handle people as quickly as possible while also avoiding harming the quality of the eligibility checks," Neta Briskin-Peleg, the director of Nativ explained. "We have a shortage of manpower. We opened a course to train an additional 12 consulates. We are working around the clock. We have enlisted 30 of our retirees as a 'reserve' force,' and we are now opening an expedited course that will last for about a month at dormitory conditions to train another 40 consulates. We estimate we will ultimately get to 50,000 immigrants."
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