Israel Facing $35-Billion Tab to Settle Soviets

With record numbers of Soviet Jewish immigrants streaming in, Israel faces enormous costs in absorbing them and will have to ask other countries and institutions for financial help, a top immigration official warned here Friday.

Simcha Dinitz, executive chairman of the Jewish Agency and a former ambassador to Washington, said at a news conference that a staggering $35 billion will be needed to pay the costs of absorbing the immigrants--providing housing and jobs for 1 million Soviet Jews expected to join the current Israeli population of about 4.5 million in the next three years.

Dinitz said Israel must take “drastic steps” to handle the unprecedented number of immigrants. Other countries and institutions, such as the United States, Germany, the European Community and the World Bank, will have to be asked for “humanitarian” help to finance the immigration.

But that will not be enough, he warned, adding that during the next three years Israelis will have to tighten their belts, reducing their own living standard by as much as 25%.

The United States has already responded to an earlier plea from Israel, agreeing in October to provide $400 million in loan guarantees for housing Soviet Jewish immigrants.

The quasi-governmental Jewish Agency is in charge of organizing Jewish immigration to Israel.

This year, Israel has received the largest number of immigrants in one year since 1949, the year after Israeli independence, with the number expected to reach 200,000 around the end of this month. In 1949, 239,964 Jews arrived in Israel--most of them Ashkenazic Jews from Europe in the aftermath of the Holocaust and World War II, but many of them Sephardic Jews from elsewhere in the Middle East.

In recent years, the tide has swung heavily toward the Soviet Union as the main source of immigrants to Israel. With Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s easing of emigration restrictions, what was once a trickle has turned into a flood.

This month is proving to be the largest in the history of Jewish immigration--with 35,000 Jews expected from the Soviet Union, Dinitz said.

Sometime next week, the 200,000th Jewish immigrant since Jan. 1 will arrive, he said, pointing out that in one 24-hour period this week, 5,000 Jews landed at Tel Aviv’s Ben-Gurion International Airport via two flights hourly from Budapest, Hungary; Bucharest, Romania, and Warsaw.

And there is no letup in sight: The Jewish Agency is saying that at least 400,000 immigrants are expected next year, most of them from the Soviet Union.

The task of housing the immigrants and finding jobs for them falls to the Immigrant Absorption Ministry, a Cabinet office. Dinitz suggested that the Immigrant Absorption Ministry has failed to keep up with the enormous task of housing the new arrivals.

The view of the Jewish Agency’s executive chairman squares with the common judgment here that housing and employing Soviet immigrants is the most pressing domestic issue facing Israel.

Dinitz, formerly a professional diplomat, said the government’s housing plan calls for building 45,000 apartments, 15,000 prefab units, 15,000 trailer homes and 33,000 mini-trailers.

“But the execution of the plan was slow,” Dinitz said, with only 27,000 apartment units being built, only prefab infrastructure installed (water, electricity and ground preparation) and only 950 of the larger trailer homes in hand.

The construction issue is a volatile one in Israel. Housing Minister Ariel Sharon is engaged in a political fight with Immigrant Absorption Minister Yitzhak Peretz and the powerful trade unions over Sharon’s argument that Israel should import trailers and even foreign construction workers to meet the demand for new housing.

Dinitz said that Israel is “paying for lost months” in creating housing, and he proposed that the government reverse the recent trend toward privatization and take over housing construction from private industry, even though it would not be “popular.”

Until proper housing is available, he said, the immigrants will be housed in army camps, hostels and hotels. He denied reports that some may have to be housed in tents.

The housing shortage has led to some visible protests. A group of Soviet immigrants with no place to live demonstrated by setting up tents for a few days earlier this month in the southern city of Beersheba.

As to whether the immigration rate should be slowed to permit a proper absorption of the newcomers, Dinitz declared: “I will never urge the postponement of a single immigrant.”

“I don’t know what will happen tomorrow,” he said of Moscow’s current policy of allowing Jews to emigrate from the Soviet Union after decades of emigration restrictions.

The Soviet Jews are leaving, Dinitz said, because of the opportunity and the “worsening” of their nation’s economic and political conditions, which could lead to increased anti-Semitism and other dangers to minorities.

Dinitz said the rise of Islamic fundamentalism in Soviet Asian republics might also be turned against Jews.

Some immigrants from Azerbaijan, he said, had been warned by local Muslims before leaving: “After the (Christian) Armenians, you Jews come next.”

The bright side of the immigration picture, Dinitz said, is the high proportion of professionals among the Soviet Jewish arrivals.

He denied that incoming Soviet Jews are being funneled to the Israeli-occupied territories, a charge made by some Arab countries and a concern to the United States. The U.S. pledge of $400 million in loan guarantees was made contingent on a promise by Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir’s government that none of the money would be spent in the West Bank or Gaza Strip.

Once Palestinians get used to the idea that the Jewish state, bolstered by 1 million new immigrants, cannot be “driven into the sea,” Dinitz said, then “that could create a situation where meaningful negotiations can take place.”