Israel today is confronting a contradiction that cuts to the core of its identity not only as a sovereign state, but as a moral project shaped by history. On one hand, the government signals an intention to remove Ethiopian non-Jewish migrants, many from the Amhara and Ethiopian Orthodox communities, invoking the language of legality, border control, and national security. On the other hand, the same Israel faces a deep and growing dependence on foreign labor caregivers who sustain the dignity of the elderly, agricultural workers who sustain the land, and service providers who sustain daily life.
I say this not as an outside observer, but as an African and Ethiopian Jew someone who comes from that region, from an ancient Jewish community that preserved its identity for generations. I know the people, the culture, the religious texture, and the political realities on the ground. I understand both the deep connections and the real tensions. That is precisely why this moment demands clarity rather than slogans. No serious nation can afford to ignore border control, and Israel least of all. Security is not theoretical; it is existential. But what is unfolding is not a disciplined immigration policy grounded in national interest, it is reactive governance shaped more by political signaling than strategic thinking. Ethiopian migrants are being treated as a single undifferentiated category of “illegal entrants,” without distinction between those who arrived for economic survival, those who have built lives over years, and those who fled credible and targeted violence. Reports from Ethiopia, particularly concerning the Ethiopian Orthodox Christians and Amhara population, describe systematic persecution and ethnic brutality. For many, migration is not opportunism; it is escape.
To treat all of them as deportable units is not strength. It is administrative convenience presented as policy. This contradiction reveals a deeper failure not of values, but of political imagination. Israel’s leadership is caught between two competing realities: the need to demonstrate control over immigration and the quiet, structural reliance on foreign labor. Instead of integrating these realities into a coherent framework, policy swings between toughness and necessity. If Israel needs tens of thousands of foreign workers, why is the legal process to bring them so slow, expensive, and restrictive that it effectively produces irregular migration? If certain communities such as Ethiopian Orthodox Christians with deep biblical traditions possess cultural proximity to Jewish life, why are they absent from any structured pathway of regulated integration? And if individuals face credible threats in their regions of origin, what obligations does a state founded in response to persecution carry toward them?
There is also a moral dimension that cannot be ignored without consequence. As Jonathan Sacks taught, the true test of a society is how it treats the vulnerable. The Jewish people understand, perhaps more than any other nation, what it means to be displaced, to be refused, to be told that suffering elsewhere is not their problem. To return individuals to conditions where they may face violence or death is not merely an administrative decision. It is a moral act with historical echoes and a dangerous one, because it suggests that memory itself can be selectively applied.
At the same time, reality presses in from another direction. Israel cannot function without foreign labor. The demand for caregivers is rising with an aging population. Agriculture depends heavily on external manpower. Families rely on these workers not as a luxury, but as a necessity. Yet the legal mechanisms designed to bring such workers into the country remain costly, slow, and often exploitative. Recruitment pipelines are inefficient, and bureaucratic barriers are high. The predictable result is that informal labor fills the vacuum. The system, in other words, generates the very irregularity it later seeks to punish. This is not an immigration crisis. It is a policy design failure.
A serious approach would begin by acknowledging complexity rather than erasing it. It would enforce borders with clarity while differentiating between categories of migrants. It would create regulated pathways for vetted individuals already present in the country to enter sectors where Israel has clear labor shortages, reducing both exploitation and dependency on costly recruitment systems. It would consider temporary protection for populations facing credible threats, aligning policy with both security and moral responsibility. And it would work with international partners to support stability in countries of origin, so that return when it happens is safe and sustainable.
Ultimately, this is a question of leadership. Israel does not lack the capacity to resolve this contradiction; it lacks the political discipline to confront it honestly. There have been moments when pragmatic leadership figures such as Naftali Bennett has shown that security and economic reality can be aligned rather than opposed. What is required now is not a new slogan, but a renewed clarity: the ability to protect borders without abandoning values.
Because Israel was not created to be like every other nation. It was created because history showed what happens when vulnerable people are turned away and called someone else’s problem. If Israel begins to act in that same way deporting those it depends on, ignoring the risks they face it risks losing more than policy coherence. It risks losing part of its moral memory.
I am a Black Ethiopian Israeli Jew, a scholar, diplomat, and upcoming author of Moral Diplomacy for a Broken World. I am calling on CNN, BBC, Sky News, Fox News, SBN, and Piers Morgan to host a public debate that includes the voices they have consistently ignored: Black/African/Ethiopian Jews/Israelis. The world hears endless commentary about Israel but almost never from those of us who represent Israel’s true diversity. It is time for an honest, global, moral debate about Israel’s identity, the nature of Zionism, the plight of Jewish communities worldwide, and the truth about who the Jewish people really are.
For too long, media panels have portrayed Israel through a narrow racial and political lens. I challenge the international networks to include me in a live debate not as a token voice, but as a representative of millions of Jews of color whose story refutes the false accusations of colonialism and exposes the real moral complexity of this conflict. This is not a political manifesto but a moral movement: a call for peaceful, educational debate grounded in respect, evidence, and human dignity. Please contact me for peaceful, educational debate: educatordrshmuel@gmail.com With wisdom inspired by Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, Dr. Legesse reminds readers that Judaism is not a religion of division, but of unity; not of power, but of purpose.
Dr. Shmuel Legesse is an international educator, community activist, and diplomacy expert. He has served in the Israeli police force and worked as a detective for the Supreme Court of New York. He represented Israel’s Knesset in international public affairs and holds a master’s in community leadership and philanthropy from Hebrew University and a doctorate in international Educational Leadership and Administration from Yeshiva University, NY. educatordrshmuel@gmail.com