Being a Migrant Worker in Israel is a NIGHTMARE

Added: 2026-05-27

[00:00:00]Thai workers in the Middle East are largely staying put, citing their own debt and the lucrative ongoing employment. Thai labor officials said the majority of Thai workers in Middle Eastern countries confirmed, "Hey, we feel safe enough amid escalating regional tensions." The report estimated about 70,000 to 80,000 legal Thai workers in the region with the largest group in Israel and another significant number in the UAE. Videos like this are going around on social media, apparently showing foreigners like this Ukrainian woman being turned away from bomb shelters in Israel.

[00:00:37]These ones claim Thai workers were denied entry to bomb shelters due to quote unquote limited space or alleged discriminatory practices, forced to take cover under trucks or in open fields.

[00:00:56]Many Thai workers are attracted to Israel for higher wages, seeking to alleviate debt common in Thailand's rural northeast. The money talks, right?

[00:01:05]Like they're going to get paid a lot more than they would whatever doing whatever they're doing here in Thailand, particularly in the rural areas of Thailand. So, I made a video a couple weeks back about Israeli tourists and why so many countries are having problems with them, why so many countries ban them, and how Israeli tourists are often creating these enclaves in various different islands in Thailand. And today, I want to talk about that, but the reverse situation. I want to talk about Thai migrant labor to Israel itself. Now, originally this was going to be part of a video about migrant labor in Israel generally, but you guys might have seen part one. I wanted to combine Indian and Thai migrants into one. But I feel like they both serve different purposes and they're kind of different. Like they are very similar. They are done to basically try and push out Palestinian laborers.

[00:01:54]got the Thai migrant community and Thai migrants being used in agriculture has gone on for a lot longer than this massive new influx of Indians which has been agreed by by the Israeli Indian government. But I want to talk about that today because it's still just reflective of Israeli society in general because Indians have come back from Israel and some have sent messages home saying they like working in Israel because they're paid pretty well as construction workers and they're also treated pretty well. And when they compare it to working in like Dubai or Saudi Arabia, they feel like they're more respected. They feel like they have better rights. Like I said, they're better paid. And they generally enjoy living in Israel more than working in places, you know, in the Gulf regions.

[00:02:36]But for ties, it's a lot different. High migrant laborers have been there, like I said, for longer, and they've been treated really bad by Israelis generally. So, I want to talk about all of this today as just a hopefully a quicker follow-up to my video about Indian migration to Israel or Indian migrant labor in Israel. So, all of that coming up for you today. But if you like this video, please give it a like. If you want to follow me on social media at the Cabernacle on Blue Sky and also on Instagram. And if you want to support my work, please check out my Patreon page and check out my YouTube memberships.

[00:03:08]So, I know these videos at the moment are getting lots of new viewers who wouldn't have watched any other video I've made. So, let me just give you a quick rundown of the Thai and Israeli relationship going the other way. So, Israeli migration and tourism to Thailand. So, there's been lots and lots of drama recently because there's been so many news stories coming out of Thailand of Israeli tourists acting really terrible to the locals and this has caused like a massive backlash.

[00:03:35]You've seen lots of viral clips on social media about Israeli tourists like either abusing Thai workers or just being disrespectful.

[00:03:43]>> Israeli embassy in Thailand has warned its citizens in Phuket to strictly follow Thai laws as authorities intensify enforcement against foreign offenders on the island.

[00:03:55]>> Bruce, you're the manager, right?

[00:03:57]>> Yeah.

[00:03:57]>> Which nationality is the most difficult tourist?

[00:04:01]Oh, mostly Israeli.

[00:04:05]>> Difficult.

[00:04:06]>> They they want everything for free.

[00:04:08]>> Free your friend. Thank you.

[00:04:11]>> You are not welcome here.

[00:04:12]>> That's enough. That's enough.

[00:04:13]>> I'm sorry, but your money but my money.

[00:04:17]Okay. Build your country.

[00:04:21]>> Wow. Okay.

[00:04:23]And I guess in terms of a society that have two different reputations, you couldn't pick two more different peoples because even in videos that I made talking about Israeli cultures, Israelis themselves would say, you know, Israeli culture is blunt. It's pretty rude. It's pretty aggressive. And I made that video where this guy was talking about all his problems living in Israel, like an Israeli Jew, talking about how driving is a nightmare because everyone's so aggressive. And that isn't surprising considering living in a militarized apartheid state would make people more aggressive and like rude. But if you compare that to places like Thailand, Thailand is often romanticized and I would say quite fetishized by Westerners as everyone is so lovely. Everyone just gets along. I would say if your only experience to Thai people is in the service industry, maybe you'd think that and maybe you'd think everyone would just absolutely loves you and is peaceful. But it's fair to say that by and large Thai society for different reasons is quite non-confrontational.

[00:05:20]And one of the biggest differences if you go through Southeast Asia, go out in traffic in Vietnam anywhere, listen to the car horns, look how terrible the driving is, and then go to somewhere like Thailand where no one no one does this. No one beeps their horns in traffic. Even if someone has really up and made a nuisance of themselves, it's just a different culture in regards to this self. So here you have like one group of people who are fairly non-confrontational versus another group of people who are very confrontational and even proudly admit this. It's just like Israeli culture.

[00:05:51]And then you put them together and it's not a very good blend. And you see that when Israelis come to Thailand. Also what happened recently is a Thai island called Copanyang. If you've done backpacking, you might have been there.

[00:06:03]This has been in the news recently because Israelis have increasingly been buying up land in massive numbers after October 7th as loads of IDF soldiers fresh off their service go to these places to relax and maybe try and start a new home. There have been retreats set up for war criminal soldiers to rehabilitate their minds and get over all the war crimes they committed. And increasingly, there's been scams going on from Thai people to Israelis, basically selling them false deeds to the land, which Israelis by law aren't allowed to own. But this hasn't stopped these massive construction projects. And these construction projects are often worked on by Thai laborers who need the money. But even some of them in those videos were saying, you know, it was depressing. They were destroying the land to make way for these Israeli condos. So that is the context in Thailand itself that Israelis do not have a good reputation as tourists and that you would say they have a worse reputation even than other tourist groups. Thai often say pose problems like Russians, Ukrainians, Indians and British people for example. But now let's get into the reverse situation.

[00:07:07]Let's talk about Thai migrant labor in Israel itself. So, Israel historically relied on Palestinians to do construction jobs and to work in farms and stuff like that. But increasingly, as they've up their wars on Gaza and upped their takeover of places in the West Bank, there's been way more harassment and even bans on Palestinian workers, especially after October 7th.

[00:07:31]But ties in more recent history have worked in agricultural sectors in Israel. And here's an article from uh 2015 which talks about how it hasn't historically been a good place to work.

[00:07:42]So a raw deal abuse of Thai workers in Israel's agricultural sector. January 2015. On the night of May 21st 2013, Krywan Sisaka, a 37year-old Thai national, died in his sleep in a farming community called Cath Vitkin near the town of Netanya a few kilometers from Israel's Mediterranean coast. He died in a cramped room in a farm shed that his Israeli employer had converted into a worker's quarters. According to his colleagues, Thai migrant workers who Human Rights Watch spoke to the following day. Prywan typically worked up to 17 hours a day, 7 days a week, tending to cows on a dairy farm and working in an avocado nursery. Despite written requests from Human Rights Watch and Cavid, an Israeli rights group, the Israeli authorities conducted no investigation into his death before giving his body to the Thai embassy.

[00:08:34]From 2008 to 2013, according to the government, figures reported by the Israeli Daily Herets.

[00:08:41]122 Thai workers died in Israel, including 43 from sudden nocturnal death syndrome, which affects young and healthy Asian men, with another five taken their own life, and 22 died for unknown reasons because Israeli police do not request a postmortem. Israeli Knesset member Dove Kennan of the Hades party said it was inconceivable that so many healthy young men die without alarms going off. Prywan was one of the approximately 20,000 Thai men and women who work on Israeli owned farms, performing a variety of labor intensive jobs in the country's highly developed agricultural sector. Although he worked particularly long hours, Prywan's living and working conditions were similar to those that Human Rights Watch found in agricultural communities elsewhere in the country. Human Rights Watch met with 10 groups of Thai workers in farming communities known as Moshaveim in the north, center, and south of the country.

[00:09:32]And all of them said they were paid salaries significantly below the legal minimum wage, forced to work long hours in excess of the legal maximum, and subjected to unsafe working conditions, and also denied their right to change employers. In all, but one of the 10 communities where we documented living conditions, Thai workers were housed in makeshift and inadequate accommodations.

[00:09:52]Only workers in one of the 10 groups Human Rights Watch interviewed were able to show us salary slips and those were written in Hebrew and did not accurately reflect the hours that the workers had worked. A Thai man working on a farm in the north of the country told Human Rights Watch that he felt like dead meat after working a day that began at 4:30 a.m. and ended at 7:00 p.m. A colleague of his described employees watching them work in the fields through binoculars and treating them like slaves. Several groups of workers said they typically work 12 hours per day, seven days per week, and received only four days vacation vacation per year. At one farm, the Thai workers showed human rights watch researchers the makeshift accommodations they had constructed out of cardboard boxes erected inside farm sheds. Workers at several farms listed a range of malades, including headaches, respiratory problems, and burning sensations in their eyes, which they attributed to spraying pesticides without adequate protection. Some workers said they had relatives in Thailand send them medicine on account of their inability to access medical care. Workers also complained that their employers overcharged them for accommodation and utilities and artificially inflated the price of certain goods and shops in these isolated Mosherims where the workers who lack the time, means, and even information about other towns and cities in Israel to travel elsewhere had no option but to buy food. In 2011, Israel signed a bilateral agreement with Thailand. the Thailand Israel cooperation on the placement of workers with a view of streamlining the process of recruitment of Thai workers, reducing the corruption in the recruitment process. While the agreement, which entered into force in 2012, was a positive step among the workers we spoke to. We found no evidence that the amount of money workers had paid in recruitment fees had any bearing on their treatment by their Israeli employers. So when you see how Israelis treat Thai people, when they go to Thailand, it's not surprising that when ties go to Israel, they're treated like this. And is it really surprising when you're trying to get a group of people in to replace Palestinians because you don't trust them and you don't want them? It's not surprising you're going to treat this group just as bad. These tie people who work in Israel are being treated like literal slaves by their employer. And it's not surprising that the Israeli police have no incentive to investigate these things. It's like you live in a society where people go into Gaza, commit the most horrific crimes against humanity, and are then celebrated for those crimes on national TV. If there's any backlash to their methods, the Israeli state will defend you. Do you really think that Israeli state is going to be big on workers rights for migrants and also as we talked about in the India video, migrants who can never live in Israel, so they're never going to be citizens. They're never going to stay.

[00:12:34]They're never going to be testifying in some sort of court and stuff. They're going to be going home. And what they see them as is just it's just expendable labor. They don't give a about if they die. They don't give a if they're treated really poorly. They just want to get as much work out of them.

[00:12:48]Because just like with the India example, when you have enough poverty in a country, like in places in rural Thailand and you're offering better salaries, you're always going to have a supply of labor. And as we talked about in the India video, there were trade unions who are saying our members like you aren't allowed to go, you can't go.

[00:13:06]Lots of people obviously will not go to Israel because they're pro Palestinian.

[00:13:10]When you're signing these deals with the Thai government or the Israeli government in these countries that have lots of abject poverty, you're never going to face a shortage of supply. Now, this whole issue came more into focus during October 7th when Thai workers were killed and Thai workers were also captured by Hamas and taken hostage.

[00:13:31]Now, Thailand will restart sending agricultural workers to Israel after an 8-month break due to the Hamas attacks in October. Around 30,000 Thai workers were in Israel before the conflict with 39 killed and 32 taken hostage during the attacks. Six ties still remain captive. The Thai government has coordinated with Israel to ensure worker safety and the first group of about 100 workers will depart Bangkok on Tuesday with more following in early July.

[00:13:56]>> Less than 1% of Israelis work in agriculture. The country relies on migrant workers from places like Thailand and many of them were killed or kidnapped on October 7th. This is one of the farms in southern Israel that relies almost exclusively on foreign labor.

[00:14:12]Thai workers come to pick the tomatoes in the green houses here and Palestinians from across the border in Gaza work here. On October 7th, the owner of this farm engaged Hamas in a gun battle at the gate of this farm.

[00:14:26]Israeli volunteers have taken their place for now, but it's only a temporary solution. Among the roughly 240 hostages still being held in Gaza, more than 20 of them are Thai farm workers.

[00:14:38]>> Many also died as prisoners, although if they were actually killed by Hamas or more likely killed by the Israeli government by indiscriminate bombing of Gaza, we don't actually know. I would say it's of course more likely the latter, but the Financial Times just wrote about this a little bit. how Thai workers became integral to Israel's economy. Talk a bit more about the history. So, the history of Tai's working in Israel goes back decades.

[00:15:00]Hundreds of agricultural trainees and volunteers from Thailand arrived in the 1980s and thousands had gone there by 1992 with an influx following the 1989 interfer or Palestinian uprising. There was a strategic decision that was made on the behalf of the Israeli state to replace Palestinian workers with migrant workers so they wouldn't have this dependence. This was obviously formalized in the agreement we talked about in 2011. So most Thai migrants to Israel were men and 84% were from northeast Thailand. Due to high poverty rates in these areas, they have become prominent exporters of manpower abroad.

[00:15:33]According to the authors of this study, who found that most workers went to Israel for the comparatively high wages of more than $1,000 a month. An official at the Thai Labor Ministry's employment department, which oversees the training of migrant workers, called the pipeline a win-win arrangement. Workers could come back home with a big sum sum of money and tie bat. They can pay all their debt and even build a new house for their families and that becomes a social value that everyone wants.

[00:15:58]However, the case of mistreatment of Thai workers on Israeli farms has continued to plague the sector. A 2020 snapshot of Thai migration to Israel by workers rights NGO caved found that 83% were paid below the legal minimum wage and many do not receive legally assured entitlements and face unsafe working conditions. There are about 5,000 registered Thai workers and 1,000 unregistered one in the areas near the Gaza Strip when October 7th occurred. In many of the sites to which workers have been evacuated, they were pressured to go back to work immediately. And in others, the hosts have clarified that those who wish to stay another week will have to work. So that article shows how much Israelis obviously value the lives of the Thai migrant workers, putting them to work in expanding the Israeli state's control in terms of their farming, farming right near the Gaza border. And after Hamas see these farms as a target of attack, they say to the ties, "Yeah, go back and work. Go back and work there straight away or like lose your visa and be sent home." And as we saw, it's 84% male male ties work in this sector, but you guys might have seen this going viral last year. 100% of female Thai agriculture workers report abuse under Israeli employees. Every single Thai woman employed in the sector has suffered sexual assault, a report has shown. The damning data was presented before Israel's parliament special community special committee on foreign workers on Tuesday. As many as 654 out of 654 women surveyed had reported abuse according to the data that had provided in a report by immigration experts Yahel Kander and Shah Shah a woman that wants to complain as no clear course of action. Obviously, that's an absolutely like shocking statistic, but it's really not surprising, especially with how Thai women are often viewed by Westerners generally and especially in a culture where a lot of the population go traveling to Southeast Asia. When I read you some of those statistics the other day um about how many IDF soldiers go to Thailand and the Philippines afterwards, it's absolutely staggering for a country that small that such a high amount of the population go to India, go to Thailand, and go to the Philippines because it's a cultural part of being in the service. Now, when you both have that dehumanization of Thai women and you have absolute power over these workers, it's not surprising that this assault is so common among Thai female workers. But overall this is just another sinister part of the apartheid project. In my India video I spoke about this. Indian laborers have historically been used in this capacity in many apartheid states and colonial projects.

[00:18:29]Colonial South Africa, colonial Kenya, loads of places around South Asia as well. They always do this to divide and rule the population and try and completely push out the natives and destroy them. And that's what's happening in Palestine. They do not want Palestinian workers anymore. And that's why they're so happy to get rid of them, send them back to Gaza, and then completely obliterate Gaza, killing most of the people who used to do the work, because they know because of the poverty around the world. And if they offer enough, you know, in terms of the wages, like $1,000 a month for Thai laborers or $1,600 for Indian construction workers, you're always going to have that unending supply to rebuild your country. But Israel makes it so none of these people can ever settle there. So there is never going to be some cross community collaboration in you know uprising against the Israeli state. You're never going to have ties and Indians working with Palestinians for better rights or to have representation in Israeli parliament or something like that.

[00:19:25]That's never going to happen and it's by design. It keeps these people on 5-year contracts at most and it essentially makes many of them disposable slave labor. So that is it for the video. Let me know what you guys think in the comments.