Tipsheet

Israel Banned Palestinian Workers, and America's Leftist Media Is Hardest Hit

Amy Curtis
Amy Curtis  |  June 30, 2026 9:00 AM

One of the reasons the October 7, 2023 Hamas terror attacks in Israel were so effective was that Palestinians who worked in Israel provided the terrorists with detailed maps of cities, streets, and other geographical information. Because of this betrayal, Israel has banned Palestinian workers from the country, and rightly so.

But the American Leftist media wants us to feel sympathy for those Palestinians, as this sob story in The New Yorker attempts to do.

Here's more:

Before October 7th, a fifth of the West Bank’s labor force was employed in Israel, earning more than double the prevailing wage at home. Palestinian workers were required to obtain permits, but a 2007 ruling by Israel’s High Court awarded them the same labor rights as Israelis. After October 7th, however, the number of Palestinian workers entering Israel each day fell from more than a hundred thousand to well under ten thousand. (Another thirty-four thousand maintain permits to work around Israeli settlements in the West Bank.) Unemployment in the West Bank surged to twenty-nine per cent. A World Bank report on the state of the Palestinian economy described what amounted to an economic collapse.

The decision to ban Palestinian workers was originally presented as an emergency measure, but as it continued, many business leaders and economists came to oppose it. According to the Times of Israel, a proposal to allow some Palestinian workers back into Israel, in late 2023, was supported by representatives from the Israeli military; from Israel’s security agency, the Shin Bet; and from COGAT, the agency responsible for implementing Israeli policies in Palestinian territories. Senior figures argued that job opportunities in Israel helped stabilize the West Bank, reducing tensions by providing income and a sense of economic mobility. But some Israeli politicians argued for a permanent shift. “Israel can and must advance alternatives that will provide a different solution to the economy,” Bezalel Smotrich, Israel’s finance minister, said. “We are leaving the old conception behind: stop employing Palestinian workers,” Barkat said, in 2024. More than two and a half years after October 7th, the ban is still in effect, and it no longer reads as temporary.

This is toxic empathy.

The should never be allowed into the nation again.

They have no shame.

Egypt won't tolerate this nonsense.

Insane is all they've got.

That's solid advice for anyone who wants a job.

This is also a really good point. Israel is committing a genocide, but Palestinians still want to work in the country that's genociding them?

Makes no sense.

It is beyond deranged that The New Yorker and other Leftists believe Israel has an obligation to allow Palestinians into the country after what happened on October 7. Palestinian workers helped Hamas terrorists kill Jews in the largest massacre since the Holocaust. Banning them from employment in the country is the moderate option.