Lapid Says Israel Must Open Gates Wider to Ukrainian Refugees

Foreign Minister Yair Lapid has proclaimed Israel’s “moral duty” to expand the number of Ukrainian refugees to be allowed into the country.

“We won’t close our gates and our hearts to those who lost everything,” said Lapid during a visit on Sunday at the Siret border crossing on Romania’s border with Ukraine.

Lapid did not say how wide the gates should be opened to those fleeing the war, but he said that “in Israel there are nine millions residents and our Jewish identity won’t be harmed by a few more thousand refugees.”

He exhorted Israelis to be much “much more generous” in taking in the refugees, though he did admit that “it’s impossible to allow in refugees without limit. The government will find this balance.”

The foreign minister also decries the “mistakes that were made in dealing with refugees who already arrived in Israel… The pictures of an old woman and her daughter sleeping on the floor at Ben Gurion Airport can’t be repeated.”

The remarks come after Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked set an entry limit for those who do not qualify under the Law of Return to 25,000, including the nearly 20,000 such Ukrainians who are already in Israel illegally.

Later on Sunday, Shaked announced that any Ukrainian who has a relative in Israel will be able to enter the country. A separate quota will be established for Ukrainian refugees who do not have a relative in Israel. It was not immediately clear whether the statement came in response to Lapid or had been prepared beforehand.

The above figures are in addition to a potential 100,000 Ukrainians who may flee to Israel under the Law of Return, which allows anyone with at least one Jewish grandparent to immigrate to Israel.

Shaked has been criticized for her decision, and Ukrainian Ambassador to Israel Yevgen Korniychuk said that he intends to petition the Israeli High Court to lift the quota, N12 reported.

“The Interior Ministry’s new policy violates agreements between Ukraine and Israel regarding visa waivers for Ukrainian citizens,” Korniychuk wrote in a statement.

Lawyer Tomer Varsha, who is representing Ukraine in the matter, told N12:

“We found that this is not only about a violation of an international agreement but also that Shaked was not authorized to make such a decision – it should have been a government decision or at least, made after consultation with the Knesset’s interior committee. We are sure that the High Court will sort this out.”

The Ukrainian embassy in Israel later put out a statement online clarifying that the petition was not submitted by it but that it agrees with the contents of it and trusts the court to come to the right decision.

On Motzei Shabbos, dozens of protesters gathered outside of Shaked’s house in Tel Aviv to protest her policy. The protestors waved signs with slogans such as “a Jew does not turn away a refugee,” The Jerusalem Post reported.

Meanwhile, over 600 new immigrants from Ukraine were expected to land in Israel on Sunday, the largest number on a single day since the start of the Russian invasion, the government said.

As of Sunday morning, 2,007 new immigrants from Ukraine have arrived since the start of the Russian invasion on February 24. In all of 2021, just over 3,100 people immigrated to Israel from Ukraine, making it one of the largest sources of new immigrants to Israel even before the war.

Lapid on Sunday met with Jewish refugees from Ukraine at a Jewish-agency run immigration center in the Romanian capital of Bucharest, ahead of their flight to Israel this evening.

According to a government statement, Lapid heard from the immigrants about “their touching personal stories of fleeing Ukraine” and was briefed by Jewish Agency COO Yehuda Setton on the organization’s efforts to assist refugees looking to move to Israel following the Russian invasion.

The debate within Israel over the number of refugees to accept is ongoing. While Israelis, who historically suffered from immigration quotas, are sensitive to the plight of wartime refugees, there is a widespread recognition that for multiple reasons the influx has to be regulated.

Israel is a small country with limited resources, making it extremely difficult to resettle masses of migrants, even on a temporary basis. In addition, the various religions, culture and languages of foreign nationals pose a threat to the Jewish character of the state, which is in any case struggling to maintain its integrity.

With that, as Shaked has pointed out, Israel’s efforts to take in Ukrainians in the crisis has surpassed that, per capita, of any other country.