Israel rolls out plan to help incoming waves of new immigrants

The cabinet approved a series of measures on Monday to assist new immigrants reaching Israel from Ukraine and the surrounding countries, allocating additional funds and resources toward housing and providing basic services to the newcomers.

As of Monday, nearly 2,500 immigrants from Ukraine had arrived in Israel since the start of the Russian invasion on February 24. Thousands more have already begun the immigration process, and Israeli ministries were instructed to prepare for the possibility that tens of thousands of people — not only from Ukraine, but also from nearby countries — will ultimately immigrate to Israel in the wake of the war.

The government and a number of Israeli organizations have sent representatives to the countries bordering Ukraine to help facilitate the immigration of the waves of refugees fleeing the area. Israel on Monday also further eased its initial entry requirements for those applying for citizenship as more and more refugees reach these holding areas, effectively allowing anyone with a reasonable request into Israel without having to wait, but withholding citizenship until their paperwork can be fully reviewed.

More than 200,000 Ukrainians are estimated to be eligible for citizenship under Israel’s Law of Return, either because they are Jewish according to Jewish law or because they have at least one Jewish grandparent.

The new measures approved by the government on Monday were meant to address the issue of how to provide housing and other basic social services to the far greater numbers of immigrants reaching Israel’s shores than normal.

The plan included short-term, medium-term, and long-term housing provisions, as well as plans to address education, welfare, and other communal issues.

In the short term, the government planned to provide additional housing stipends to new immigrants, renovate existing government-owned buildings that can be used to accommodate immigrants and locate additional housing units that could be used “in the event of a shortage of available housing solutions for absorbing immigrants,” the government said.

In the medium term, the government planned to locate sites where apartment buildings could be constructed, notably empty army bases; to purchase mobile homes; and to consider allowing more people to subdivide houses and apartments to create more spaces where immigrants can live.

In the long term, the proposal called for the government to consider more generally increasing the supply of housing in Israel.

The measures were approved by the government following a stormy session of the cabinet, in which Immigration and Absorption Minister Pnina Tamano-Shata lambasted her colleagues for failing to offer the same degree of sympathy and support for Ethiopians eligible for Israeli citizenship — seeking to flee their war-torn country — as are now being shown to such Ukrainian refugees.

“This is the hypocrisy of the white man. We must also work to advance the immigration of Jews from Ethiopia who are also fleeing a war,” she said during the cabinet meeting, according to those present.

Economy Minister Orna Barbivai rejected the charge, responding, “How can you say such a thing? How would you react if someone said that Black people are hypocrites?”

During the same session, Finance Minister Avigdor Liberman made an off-color comment about Ukrainian female refugees.

In the meeting, Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked noted that many mayors across the country were volunteering to take in Ukrainian refugees. Liberman joked in response: “Some of them only want Ukrainian women.”

After his comment was leaked, Liberman asked that it be wiped from the official minutes of the meeting.

Transportation Minister Merav Michaeli criticized the remark, calling it “outrageous.”

“There are some things that are not a joke. The finance minister asked to delete from the minutes of the meeting his outrageous statement about Ukrainian women. I hope this is the last time such things are said about women, who have always paid the price of war that men decided on,” Michaeli wrote in a tweet.

Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.