Staff Reports
The New Yorker ran a long feature this week arguing that Israel should let Palestinian workers return to jobs inside Israel. The piece shows some real human hardship in the West Bank. It also skips over the reason Israel closed the doors in the first place: October 7 and the murderous betrayal that followed. That matters. A lot.
The New Yorker’s angle — sympathy without consequence
The magazine’s story focuses on employers who say their factories and farms need labor, and on Palestinian families who suddenly lost income when Israel sharply curtailed work permits after the October 7 Hamas attacks. That is a sympathetic frame. But sympathy isn’t a security plan. The New Yorker treats economic pain as the chief wrong here, as if forgetting that large numbers of Palestinian permit-holders were implicated, directly or indirectly, in supplying maps and access to terrorists. If empathy means ignoring the cause of the carnage, it is not compassion — it is negligence with a smile.
Security is not a punchline
October 7: the pivot that changed everything
Israel’s decision to suspend and severely limit Palestinian entry was a direct response to a tactical and moral collapse on October 7, when Hamas used local knowledge to strike inside Israeli communities. Israeli security services — the IDF, Shin Bet and COGAT — have repeatedly tied permit policy to their assessments. Some Israeli security officials have, at times, supported carefully vetted returns. But the political leadership, including Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Economy and Industry Minister Nir Barkat, have pushed toward a much stricter, longer-lasting posture. That split is real. Safety has to win if a nation is to survive.
Yes, the West Bank economy is hurting — and that’s not Israel’s moral tab to pick up alone
World Bank and other international reports show sharp unemployment and a contracting Palestinian economy after the permit suspensions. Israeli employers clearly want workers back; their factories and fields miss skilled and reliable labor. But the choice isn’t between prosperity and generosity — it’s between allowing unchecked access that risks more attacks and building alternative, secure ways for Palestinians to earn a living. If the Palestinian Authority and neighboring Arab states cared as much about jobs as they do about headlines, those alternatives would already be happening.
What should happen next
Here’s the conservative, pro-security bottom line: Israel should keep controls that protect its citizens. That doesn’t mean cruelty for cruelty’s sake. It means a tough, selective program of vetted work permits tied to hard security guarantees, ID checks, monitored work sites, and consequences for any abuse. The Leftist media can keep whining about human costs — and they should. But they must also reckon honestly with what caused those costs. National survival and common sense must come first. If you want to argue for reopening the gates, show a plan that actually prevents another October 7, not just a sentimental essay and a tear-stained plea to feel bad.
