Israel’s agricultural industry is in trouble and the remedy may be giving up this fundamental part of the natioal ethos. A strike by farmers has left stores begging for fruits and vegetables. The farmers are fighting with the government over the importation of foreign workers from Thailand to do the back breaking labor to tend the fields. And a Jerusalem Post editorial asks whether giving up the Zionist dream of reclaiming the homeland of the Jews and returning it to a land of millk and honey is the rational national choice.
One aspect of the discussion, however, is applicable to the United States. As the editorial argues, “the government should ignore farmers’ demands for more Thai workers and stick to its original decision, from last year, calling to gradually reduce foreign workers while in parallel offering subsidies to introduce labor-saving technologies. The government should also subsidize Israeli labor for farmers and offer Israelis special economic incentives to work in agriculture. Perhaps young Israelis should be enlisted for shorts stints of picking and harvesting in the name of Zionist solidarity.” The United States also has a problem with foreign workers that it is doing nothing to resolve. American farmers and growers cannot bring in as many foreign workers as they would like because of increased regulation of visas. An illegal workforce has developed as a result with the resultant social and political problems along with it. Perhaps young Americans should be enlistes for short stints of picking and harvesting in the name of American solidarity? Or maybe, really, the problem here in America isn’t one of national ethos but of immigration rules and if the government would just get behind a raion immigration program of employment-based visas, we could look at the Israeli case with only benign interest.