Vision to Reality: The Reut Blog

The announcement that the Ministry of Health intends to import Georgian doctors exemplifies one of the most outstanding and obvious gaps in Israeli policy – the lack of a coherent strategy regarding migration.

In a world of international competition over human capital, Israel participates only as an exporter of human capital without having formulated a coherent ‘import’ concept.
Israel’s current mindset is that immigration is solely for Jews under the Law of Return. However, in practice, Israel imports human capital on an ad-hoc level – Thais according to the agriculture needs, Philipinos according to nursing needs, Chinese according to construction and catering needs and Georgians according to the needs of the health system.
In other words, Israel’s immigration policy is developed de-facto by stake holders with economic rather than national interests. In this way long term policy consequences on foreign workers, as well as on Israel’s future character and labor market are not taken into proper consideration.