Interior Ministry Director General Ram Belinkov announced
last Monday a more lenient visa policy for relatives of
immigrants from the former Soviet Union who came to Israel
based on the Law of Return. Most of these relatives,
numbering in the thousands, are not Jewish according to
anyone's definition. They would like to enter Israel as
"tourists," but tourist visas are only valid for three
years.
Now the Interior Ministry, in a move that undermines the Jewish nature
of Israeli society, has decided to grant ten-year visas
to tourists from these countries and to stop requiring a bond
of NIS 15,000 ($3,500), except in special cases. The new
regulations are already set to take effect.
The new policy was revealed during a special meeting of the
Knesset Immigration, Absorption and Diaspora Affairs
Committee headed by MK Michael Nudelman (Yisrael Beiteinu)
attended by Belinkov to discuss obstacles encountered by new
immigrants from Russia and the Ukraine. Nudelman called the
new policy "a real success for the Immigration, Absorption
and Diaspora Committee. This is a significant contribution
toward fostering aliya."
Interior Minister Roni Bar-On said the loosening of
restrictions would have a significant impact on the number of
entry permits to Israel, calling the policy shift "a
continuation of the Ministry's policy of assisting in cases
where a specific segment of the population encounters special
difficulties. We will use the best of the tools at our
disposal to provide solutions in these cases."
The Interior Ministry also declared that it would follow
procedures to facilitate the arrival of tourists in Israel,
such as a uniform evaluation process for all tourists,
whether they arrive as individuals or groups, and having bond
requirements approved by the Population Administration and
only in unusual cases. At present bond requirements are
approved at the bureau level and in practice 3 percent of
tourists are required to present bonds.
Chareidi public figures stated their objections to these
regulations by the Interior Ministry Director General that
would allow tens of thousands of non-Jews to enter Eretz
Yisroel and to stay, in effect, permanently on the
pretext of merely visiting relatives and without having to
face financial sanctions for not meeting the visa
requirements. "This is a scandal on an enormous scale," they
said. "Tens of thousands of non-Jews will join the hundreds
of thousands of non-Jews who made aliyah based on the Law of
Return and brought many cases of intermarriage, undermining
the status of the State of Israel as a Jewish state."
MK Rabbi Avrohom Ravitz also spoke, making strident remarks.
"This is a case of foreign citizens taking over a country. If
every non-Jewish immigrant invites five non-Jewish relatives
in Russia who could not enter [Israel] until now, soon there
will be a non-Jewish majority in Eretz Yisroel. Clearly it
would be very difficult to send off someone who has been in
Eretz Yisroel for ten years, especially since there is
no monetary guarantee that gets forfeited out at the end of
the visa period.
"If all this is true this is an attempt by the government to
turn the State of Israel from a Jewish state to an
international state of all of its citizens. This is an
extremely grave issue and a strategy must by devised to wage
battle against the new regulations. Really this is an ongoing
policy by the Interior Ministry, which seeks to increase the
presence of non-Jews in Eretz Yisroel and already
thousands of children of foreign workers and their family
members have been granted citizenship. Based on this set of
circumstances wide-scale intermarriage is not far down the
road."
