Israel barred Palestinian workers after evidence showed some provided maps and other intelligence to Hamas attackers, and many in the American left press reacted with sympathy instead of outrage.
On October 7, 2023 Hamas terror attacks, Palestinian employees who worked inside Israel allegedly supplied detailed maps and local knowledge that helped the killers. In response, Israeli authorities stopped most Palestinian labor access to protect citizens and critical infrastructure. That move is predictable and defensible from a national-security angle.
The American Leftist media have leaned toward pity for the displaced workers, framing the ban as an economic hardship rather than a public-safety measure. A recent profile in The New Yorker followed business leaders and economists who warned of the West Bank’s mounting unemployment and economic collapse.
Here’s more:
https://x.com/NewYorker/status/2070945286902743461
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 kind of sympathy is misguided when the evidence shows collaboration with terrorists. Calling the economic consequences a tragedy ignores the core problem: security. If allowing workers back risks more attacks, the humane choice is to protect Israeli citizens first, not to restore wages for people who compromised safety.
Permits and labor rights existed for years, but those legal comforts do not erase the betrayal of October 7. Returning unchecked access would invite the same loopholes militants exploited to gather intelligence. Any policy that puts Israelis at risk in the name of economic normalization is a bad trade.
Critics who call the ban cruel are missing the bigger picture: national survival trumps cross-border convenience. The media framing often treats Israel as if it must absorb risk for the sake of optics. That stance rewards bad actors and punishes the country that suffered a massacre.
Some left-leaning outlets push narratives that minimize the role collaborators played and emphasize hardship instead. Those narratives can shift public opinion away from sensible caution and toward pressure for quick economic fixes. External pressure from media elites should not determine Israel’s security calculus.
When public debate centers on empathy for potential security risks, the conversation gets inverted. Protecting borders and workplaces is not heartless; it’s pragmatic. The people harmed on October 7 deserve policy that reduces the chance of a repeat attack.
Moral clarity matters: countries must defend their citizens and disincentivize cooperation with terror. Rebuilding trust takes far more than sympathetic profiles and human-interest pieces. Policy has to reflect that reality if lives are to be protected.
It is hard to square claims that Israel is committing genocide with the argument that Palestinians should be welcomed back to jobs after aiding the October 7 attackers. That contradiction underlines why many on the right see mainstream left media coverage as tone-deaf, at best, and dangerous, at worst. The question here is simple: whose safety comes first?
Given the scale of the October 7 killings, a ban on those who enabled the attack is a moderate, responsible step. Allowing unfettered access back into Israeli workplaces would be reckless until there is clear, verifiable evidence that security risks have been eliminated. Policy should reflect the reality that protecting citizens is the primary duty of any government.
