Debate in Israel continues over Ukrainian refugees

Tel Aviv District Court Judge Michal Agmon-Gonen ruled May 17 that Israel must grant work permits to Ukrainians seeking refuge from Russia’s invasion of their country. The court was responding to an appeal filed by Ukrainian nationals Vitali Smirnov and Jonina Smernova, both in Israel since 2018. While the ruling was issued for the petitioners who arrived to Israel before the war, it is expected to be applied to other Ukrainian asylum seekers in Israel as well.

Agmon-Gonen criticized the Interior Ministry for its policies toward Ukrainian refugees, accusing Israel of violating their human rights by not allowing them to work. The judge noted, “These rights violations directly impact the ability to live in dignity.”

In her ruling, Agmon-Gonen quoted a response to the appeal by the Population and Immigration Authority: “Ukrainian nationals who can’t work and support themselves in Israel are free to leave for another country.” She called protection from deportation mere “lip service and toward the outside world" that "effectively maintains its policy of ‘constructive deportation’ — it allows Ukrainian nationals to remain, but doesn’t enable them to support themselves, effectively forcing them to leave, albeit not by actual deportation.”

Israel’s Law of Return enables anyone with a Jewish parent to enter Israel and become a citizen. About 5,000 Ukrainians arrived to Israel in the framework of that law at the beginning of May. A report prepared for the Knesset’s education committee in mid-April said that 17,000 other Ukrainians had arrived to Israel as refugees, 5,400 of them children.