Barak orders another discussion of foreign children issue
Defense minister announces that he is initiating another cabinet discussion on the deportation of 400 foreign workers' children after being absent from previous one, calls decision 'outrageous, irreparable damage.' Yishai: Barak seeks ratings
Foreign children receive another glimmer of hope. Defense Minister Ehud Barak announced that he is initiating a re-discussion in the cabinet on Sunday on the deportation of foreign workers' children. Barak, who was absent from the previous discussion due to a trip abroad, failed to leave a note expressing his opposition to their deportation.
"The decision to arrest and deport 400 children is outrageous," said Barak.
In response to Barak's comments, Interior Minister Eli Yishai said, "It's a shame people are making cynical use of the foreign migrants' children for ratings."
Estimates are that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu intends to hold another discussion on the matter, but his office said cabinet is not expected to debate the issue during its next meeting on Sunday.
Barak said, "The images of policemen raiding the homes of migrant workers and forcibly dragging out their children, the images of wardens holding families in prison facilities, and the images of Interior Ministry inspectors leading Hebrew-speaking children onto planes will cause all of us irreparable damage, both inside and out."
With this, the defense minister called for a clear immigration policy to be drafted that will limit the entrance of additional migrant workers.
"The government must adopt the recommendations of the inter-ministerial team regarding granting legal status to all the children in Israel, and not just some of them," Barak said.
"The rest of the recommendations should be applied from here on in so that it will be ensured that Israel will maintain the right to decide who comes through its gates. In the history of the country, we have never expelled Hebrew-speaking children with a forcible hand just because their parents were here unlawfully."
Barak contacted Netanyahu earlier and asked him to reconsider the deportation of the children. The defense minister was intensely criticized for not leaving a note indicating how he wished to vote on the matter.
The Interior Ministry announced this week that new data indicate that there are 20,000 foreign children in Israel illegally, of which 6,000 are below the age of 5 and 14,000 are between the ages of 6 and 17. Foreign workers' aid organizations said, however, that this is "one of the known scare tactics of the Interior Ministry."
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