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By Ira Sharkansky
 JERUSALEM—Sound familiar?
Recent headlines describe the government's fumbling on the issue of illegal immigrants. The prime minister intervened with the Immigrant police and ordered a delay of 30 days in an operation to locate and deport illegals and their families. The problem: children born in Israel, with the rights of citizens. Could Israel deport the parents but not the children? Or overlook the children's citizenship and put them all on a plane? Not in the face of protests that spread from the immigrants' neighborhoods of Tel Aviv to the media, and then to the neighborhoods of the well educated and politically connected.
Large numbers come legally to work for a fixed period as care providers for the elderly (Philippines), in construction (China, Romania, Turkey) or agriculture (Thailand). Their transportation, medical care, wages, working conditions, and housing are defined in government-to-government agreements, administered by licensed companies that provide employees to those who qualify. Palestinians who came daily from Gaza or the West Bank used to do the hard work in agriculture and construction, but that stopped with the intifada. Philippine care givers began coming when the numbers of aged Israelis corresponded with increasing national wealth. Now the term "Filipino" is the equivalent of "care giver for the elderly," even if a goodly number of "Filipinos" are from India or Nepal.
Most of these people come, work for a specified number of years, send money to their families, and return home. Others serve out their time, skip to other employers, and stay on as illegals. They establish relationships and produce children.
Some overstay tourist visas, or come as deckhands and stay behind when their ships leave port. The largest number of illegals come over the Sinai from Egypt. They include Africans who end up as dishwashers, gardeners, cleaners, gas station attendants and other menials, and Eastern European women who do in Israel what their sisters do in Western Europe.
A few of the Africans may come from Darfur, but a lot of them claim they do and gain sympathy from those who believe them. Eritrea, Ghana, and Nigeria are common places of origin.
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Israel presses the Egyptians to do more in order to stop this traffic before it reaches the Israeli border, and occasionally the Egyptians comply by shooting and killing migrants. That does not play any better in Israeli media than images of the Immigrant police rounding up families with attractive children who are citizens and speak Hebrew. The media also rouse support in behalf of long serving, well behaved, and uninsured illegals who encounter serious medical problems. Those who do the dirty, dangerous, and demeaning also get attention when something happens at a construction site, and authorities take a look at compliance with safety regulations.
We hear the same debates in Hebrew that others hear in English, German, Spanish, French, and Italian.
The immigrants work for less than the minimum wage and take jobs from citizens.
Israel must enforce its laws.
Immigrants who are technically illegal take jobs that citizens do not want, work for low wages, stay out of trouble in order to avoid the police, and are good workers.
How can we accept those who are here, work hard, behave themselves, and have children who are citizens, without encouraging the illegal immigration of additional thousands?
Must we educate and care for these people? They do not pay taxes.
Israel is wealthy. Illegal immigration comes along with the status.
Children born in Israel qualify for public schooling and medical care, but parents might not register them in order to avoid the police.
For the most part, the Immigration police are inactive or restrained by politicians who listen to employers and humanitarians. There have been several waves of roundups and deportation, spurred by a surge of "they are taking jobs from Israelis" or "we must enforce our laws."
Israel and Western Europe are as close to Africa as the United States is to Mexico and Central America. Promised Lands offer the dregs of opportunities not wanted by locals. Better speaking citizens may raise their voices in behalf of the tired and poor, who are also the people they need to staff their restaurants and clean their houses. Nowhere do those citizens persist in creating a Paradise. Justice also eludes them.
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