News:

It's a bad decade to be bipedal, soft and unarmed.

Main Menu

Israel starving refugees to death at its border

Started by Verbal Mike, September 05, 2012, 04:13:18 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

Cain

I think you undestimate the risk a starving refugee could pose.  I mean, he is starving, right?  What if he ate an Israeli soldier?

Yeah, didn't think of that, did you libtards?

Verbal Mike

I was about to say that in other news, 2,500 new Thai laborers are officially being flown into the country, but now I can't find a source for that. While searching, I found pretty amazing positive news in this area – that the state is refusing to bring in more Chinese workers because of complaints of abusive mediation fees and the refusal of China to allow international supervision. Instead a new load of 600 trained and certified builders are being brought in from Bulgaria and Romania, with clear contracts, having been informed of their rights.

It's still absurd that cheap labor is being imported while even cheaper labor is being dragged kicking and screaming across the border to die, but the fact that the uproar about the abused Chinese laborers made this kind of difference, in fact that the state of Israel is doing anything at all for any workers to have clear contracts and know their rights, makes me both hopeful and very suspicious.
Unless stated otherwise, feel free to copy or reproduce any text I post anywhere and any way you like. I will never throw a hissy-fit over it, promise.

Cain

Didn't Israel have a pretty big unemployment problem a couple of years back?  I seem to recall a tent city, mock guillotine executions of political figures and so on.

I can't imagine importing foreign workers is helping that situation or the resentment to foreigners issue, though no doubt it is helping to line the pockets of Israeli businessmen and women.

Verbal Mike

Oh, the claim on FB was about 2350 Thai agricultural workers by the end of this year (to help the Ministry of Agriculture – and net the manpower industry approximately US$1.8bln), whereas the Bulgarian and Romanian laborers are for construction.

Estimates of the number of African asylum seekers are between 50 and 100 thousand, almost all of them not allowed to legally work.

Of course, regardless of which group is given this kind of underpaid work, they will basically be abused by their employers, and play a key part in keeping salaries down for the whole country.

Which is all kinda noise compared with the moral aspects of what the state is doing to asylum seekers, of course. As are the legal implications (dragging the Africans across the border is apparently in violation of two separate international treaties.)

Added after seeing Cain's post:
The source of the info about the Thais and the profit to manpower companies is from an "official" FB page of the social protest movement that started last summer. The problem is more underpayment and overworking than underemployment, and mainly just overall gross inequality. On average-heavy economic metrics, Israel is doing great. On metrics which show inequality, it's an unmitigated disaster.
Unless stated otherwise, feel free to copy or reproduce any text I post anywhere and any way you like. I will never throw a hissy-fit over it, promise.

Cain

Ah, now you say it, that does sound more familiar, yes.  They were living in the tent city because they couldn't afford rent, not due to joblessness.

Verbal Mike

In some cases, yeah. But the biggest, most famous tent city was in the center of Tel-Aviv and housed mainly be people who had somewhere else to live but were protesting how ridiculously expensive it is to do so. That tent city (on Rothschild Blvd, the most expensive street in Tel-Aviv, and a very long one at that) also developed a pretty cool life of its own, and a lot of people joined just to be part of what was going on.

Eventually, it dwindled down, and then the people who really had nowhere to go were violently evicted by the city.

In some other places, smaller tent cities have been held up continuously since then, housing people who actually need them, but because they're not in walking distance from most media companies' offices, most people don't really know or care.
Unless stated otherwise, feel free to copy or reproduce any text I post anywhere and any way you like. I will never throw a hissy-fit over it, promise.

Verbal Mike

Oh, and I just read that the 2350 Thai workers isn't just some general thing, it's a government decision from today. Those bastards.
Unless stated otherwise, feel free to copy or reproduce any text I post anywhere and any way you like. I will never throw a hissy-fit over it, promise.