By Munza Mushtaq

COLOMBO – Buddhika Bandara, a father of two, is desperate for work. He lost over 450,000 Sri Lankan rupees ($1,370) to recruitment scams he thought would find him jobs in Canada or the US. Now he has set his sights elsewhere: Israel.

The war raging between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, he says, does not faze him. “I’m not worried about going and working in Israel if I get a job there,” he said, adding that he regularly checks the news and “not all areas are affected by the war.”

Bandara is one of the thousands of people who have registered with the Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment (SLBFE) looking to work in Israel’s agricultural sector. The keen interest comes as the South Asian island struggles to recover from its worst-ever economic crisis, after plunging into sovereign default last year.

The context of the recruitment, however, raises safety and ethical concerns, while also angering many among Sri Lanka’s Muslim minority, who broadly support the Palestinian cause.

In November – the month after the Palestinian militant group Hamas sparked the conflict by rampaging into Israel, killing an estimated 1,200 people – Sri Lanka’s embassy forged an agreement with the Israeli government to allow the immediate hiring of 10,000 Sri Lankans to work on farms. This came as Israel deported thousands of Palestinian workers from Gaza back to the besieged enclave, according to media reports, after revoking their work permits.

Since the Hamas attack, Israel’s war to root out the militants has killed over 18,000 people, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.

Israel, which even before the conflict needed workers not only in farming but also sectors such as nursing and construction, has been looking to India and elsewhere to add human resources. Thailand has long been a key source of agricultural labour for Israel. Dozens of Thais were killed or abducted by Hamas during the Oct. 7 attack.

Sri Lanka was touched by the violence, too – at least one 48-year-old male caregiver from Sri Lanka was killed alongside his patient by Hamas, according to media reports.

Despite this, the Sri Lankan Embassy in Israel says it has not received any repatriation requests from the roughly 6,000 citizens already working in the country. And now dispatches to farms under the November agreement are expected to begin this month.

For people like Bandara, or caregiver Sambula Sanda, the incentives for working in Israel can be significant. Sanda, who left behind her three children to go to the Middle Eastern country, said people in her line of work can earn over 400,000 Sri Lankan rupees a month depending on experience, versus around 65,000 rupees at home.

Some argue that sending more workers to Israel could help Sri Lanka’s economic prospects over the long term.

“The opportunity for Sri Lankan citizens to work in Israel’s agricultural sector can be highly beneficial,” said Akila Wijerathna-Yapa, a post-doctoral research fellow attached to the School of Agriculture and Food Sustainability of the University of Queensland, Australia. “Israel is globally recognized for its innovative agricultural technologies and practices. By immersing themselves in this environment, Sri Lankan workers can acquire valuable knowledge and experience.”

In his view, the potential for technology transfer is also “significant,” with possibilities to introduce advanced Israeli technologies such as precision irrigation, wastewater reuse and seed breeding to Sri Lanka. “Israel’s agricultural sector is at the forefront of regenerative agriculture, houses numerous ag-tech start-ups, and invests heavily in R&D, all of which could provide invaluable learning opportunities for Sri Lankan workers,” he said.

The workers will be expected to foot the bill for going to Israel, which the SLBFE estimates at about 823,600 rupees per person. But many are hopeful they can quickly cover this expense thanks to the higher salaries.

Some, however, are furious over the arrangement.

Rishard Bathiudeen, a Muslim Member of Parliament in the predominantly Buddhist nation of 22 million, said the initiative was wrong and opportunistic. “Most of the world, including people in Western countries, are protesting against Israel’s onslaught against Palestine,” he said. “At a time like this, the Sri Lankan government must remember that many Muslim countries helped Sri Lanka during various instances, including by funding and aiding development projects in the island, and when we suffered from the tsunami [in 2004], the Muslim nations always came to our aid.”

Bathiudeen argued, “In that sense, Israel has not done anything for our country, so I appeal to the government to reconsider this decision.”

Reports from the days after the tsunami said Israel sent emergency supplies and medical personnel to Sri Lanka and other stricken countries.

Another Muslim lawmaker, Rauff Hakeem, made even more incendiary remarks to Parliament in November, saying that “sending [Sri Lankan] workers to a country that is committing war crimes is like sending workers to Nazi Germany, when Hitler was killing Jews.” Despite the heavy Palestinian civilian death toll and widespread condemnation of its tactics, Israel insists its forces abide by the laws of war.

The opposition echoes resistance to similar plans in India, which have sparked a considerable backlash. Multiple Indian trade unions signed a letter rejecting any move to send workers to Israel. “That India is even considering ‘exporting’ works shows the manner in which it has dehumanized and commodified Indian workers,” they said. “Such step will amount to complicity on India’s part with Israel’s ongoing genocidal war against Palestinians and will naturally have adverse implications for Indian workers in the entire region.”

Sri Lanka’s minister of labour and foreign employment, Manusha Nanayakkara, has defended the decision to dispatch the workers. “Certain political groups are trying to exploit racism for their own benefit, aiming to increase their votes at the elections next year,” Nanayakkara was quoted as saying by local media.

Nanayakkara did not respond to Nikkei Asia’s repeated attempts to contact him directly about the agreement.

Other critics, meanwhile, question the ethics of Sri Lanka’s military ties with Israel along with its own management of migrant labour.

Vindhya Buthpitiya, a Sri Lankan political anthropologist, said the Sri Lankan state and armed forces have benefited from Israeli technical and military assistance over the years, arguing that at times this has contributed to the brutal suppression of Sri Lanka’s own citizens. “This has had a direct bearing on the Sri Lankan Tamil community, in particular, who for decades were subjected to mass human rights violations at the hands of the Sri Lankan state,” she said.

The Sri Lankan government fought a civil war against Tamil rebels for a quarter of a century, until 2009, and has been accused of war crimes in the final stages of the conflict.

Apart from that, Buthpitiya said that since the 1970s, the Sri Lankan state has consistently leaned on the contributions of migrant workers and their remittances to prop up an economy plagued by conflict, mismanagement and corruption.

“Thousands of migrant workers have been repeatedly failed by the state, with little to no support or protection extended to them or their families, not only during emergencies or times of crisis but more generally in terms of their rights and well-being,” she said.

She said the arrangement with Israel “follows along this well-established pattern” and accused the state of preying on the desperation of Sri Lankans gravely impacted by the economic crisis, adding that human rights organizations have long raised concerns about the treatment of Palestinian and other migrant workers in Israel.

Nevertheless, Bandara, the applicant, is eager to go and is willing to work on a farm even though it would be something of a departure from his current job as an irrigation technician. As for potential dangers, he said, “Whether there is a war in a country or not, if something is to happen, it will.”

-Munza Mushtaq is a contributing writer for Nikkei Asia where this article was originally featured