Yishai absent from Knesset session with foreign children

Interior Minister Eli Yishai was absent from a sub-committee session on the struggle against women trafficking Wednesday, which was meant to revolve around the State's immigration policies.

Yishai decided to boycott the meeting because of the presence of children of illegal labor immigrants brought to the session. His absence caused a storm in the Knesset, and his office said this was an "attempt to turn the Knesset into an absurd theater."

Yishai requested the committee's chairperson hold a discussion in the matter at the Interior Ministry.

The committee's chairwoman MK Orit Zuaretz (Kadima) expressed her disappointment with Yishai's absence. Meretz MK Nitzan Horowitz, who brought with him the foreign workers' children, claimed that the minister was absent from the session due to their presence.

A confrontation broke out between Horowitz and Shas MK Nissim Zeev. "As far as you are concerned it's okay to put them in jail and throw the kids away. But the interior minister and Shas are afraid of two children sitting in the room. How terrible that they came here," Horowitz said.

Foreign workers' kids at committee session (Photo: Gil Yohanan)

In response MK Yitzhak Vaknin (Shas) said, "Enough with your show. You brought children here for show. The show is over." Vaknin's fellow party member Zeev added, "This is an attempt to display the good, the bad and the ugly, with the Interior Ministry being the ugly. This is wrong and unjust."

MK Zuaretz said that the children were brought to the meeting without her knowledge. "There was supposed to be a session after our meeting with the children," she said. "This is a welcome session. We cannot evade failures that we are responsible for. The matter of the foreign workers' children is touching.

"Most of the children were born in Israel. The purpose of the meeting with the interior minister was to reach an agreement."

'Prime minister must intervene'

At the end of the session, another session was held by the committee on labor immigrants in which MK Horowitz and MK Dov Khenin's bill proposal on the detention of children and youths arriving in Israel illegally was discussed.

MK Khenin said, "In two weeks, each member of Knesset will have to undergo an ethical test – will he be willing to see children younger than 14-year-old in prison? The interior minister chose not to show up, and this is outrageous, and insensitive. The children did only one thing wrong – they were born here."

Rotem Ilan, of the Israeli Children organization added, "The interior minister speaks of the children's honor and yet he chose not to show up at the committee where the children are and look them in the eyes. It is much easier to make decisions from the height of his ivory tower, but the moment he has to see and meet the children, he chooses not to show. I am convinced that if he really gets to know them and sees how Israeli they are, he will not be able to move forward with the deportation."

The committee's chairman MK Yaakov Katz (National Union) told Ynet he demanded the prime minister intervene to resolve not only the specific problem of hundreds of children, but the general problem which includes the absence of immigration policies in Israel.

"The State of Israel's main problem is that a matter of hundreds of thousands of people is not dealt with by the prime minister directly. The children of foreign workers that are slated to be deported is such a small problem that can be resolved very quickly and easily. I demand the prime minister appoint a minister to formulate a plan with clear goals regarding the hundreds of thousands of foreigners and infiltrators in Israel."

Following the incident, the Shas faction filed an official complaint against Horowitz for bringing the children into the committee's session.

In the complaint, Shas faction Chairman MK Avraham Michaeli said, "Minister Eli Yishai was summoned to a session in Knesset today, headed by MK Orit Zuaretz titled: The Interior Ministry and Oz enforcement unit's policy on victims of human trafficking.

"He noticed that MK Horowitz planned to make a mockery of the Knesset and the law," and therefore chose not to attend the session, "That was aimed at the media."

He requested Knesset Ethics Committee Chairwoman Shelly Yacimovich convene the committee as soon as possible to discuss the complaint.