A great catastrophe was averted this week. At the new Big Fashion Glilot, the largest shopping mall in Israel and the crowning glory of recent national achievements, 10 Palestinians who were in Israel without entry permits were discovered.
Imagine, 10 undocumented Palestinians at a "leisure and shopping" complex. Idols in the Israeli holy temple.
The mall on Monday. The 'illegals' were led away, handcuffed, in full view.Credit: Tomer Appelbaum
The 150,000 shopping-hungry Israelis who stormed the mall over the weekend had been exposed to a danger they didn't know existed. Appoint a commission of inquiryimmediately. Survivors of the disaster that didn't happen were interviewed everywhere and said they never imagined there would be unauthorized Palestinians in their new mall.
After all, they want to feel safe when they go to eat a hamburger or buy a pair of sneakers. One undocumented cleaner was discovered at a Zara store, and it appears there was another at the Delta store.
The quarry were led away, handcuffed, in full view. Border policemen, Israeli heroes, captured them with characteristic courage and determination. The store chains' PR people are focusing on damage control and reassuring the public: There will be no more "illegals" at Big.
The mall on Monday. Bold Israeli journalists are quick to report them to the authorities; then they feel they have fulfilled a journalistic mission.Credit: Tomer Appelbaum
Everyone is invited back to a mall that has been cleansed.
As their status suggests, "illegal" Palestinians are not human beings. They have no names or faces, dreams or personal crises. It is enough to know that they are in Israel without a permit. They are suspicious objects.
Soon, tools will be developed to locate and eliminate them without any human contact. When they say "there are no innocents in Gaza," they also mean the West Bank Palestinians who are in Israel without authorization. They are ticking bombs, unless proven otherwise.
Bold Israeli journalists are quick to report them to the authorities; then they feel they have fulfilled a journalistic mission.
One of the manhunters, Yossi Eli from Channel 13 News, has long been obsessed with tormenting Palestinians. His eyes lit up when he presented an embarrassing report on the abuse of detainees from Hamas' Nukhba Forces.
Israeli soldiers in Jenin in the West Bank on Tuesday.Credit: Raneen Sawafta/Reuters
He stood transfixed by the scandalous display the guards put on in his honor, humiliating the detainees in front of the cameras. Perhaps he thought he was doing his duty as a journalist. In 2025 Israel, showing Palestinians being abused is PR; once it was a cause of shame.
Eli is sure that the hunt at Big was prompted by his future story on the "swarms of unauthorized [Palestinians] flooding Israel." On X he boasted of joining a "civilian initiative" to expel the "illegals," who, he says, are not "being dealt with." He, too, tells the story of Israeli media.
Residents of Nur Shams evacuate their homes in the West Bank on Wednesday.Credit: Majdi Mohammed/AP
The Palestinians who are in Israel without permits are indeed human beings. Desperate people, deprived of their livelihood by Israel in an arbitrary act of collective punishment.
For a year and a half, they have been denied entry, leaving hundreds of thousands of them destitute. Despair in the West Bank is growing, as is the poverty. Some resort to violence; others try to sneak into Israel to work. They sneak into Israel just as Jews sneaked out of the ghettos to obtain food. They, too, were illegals.
They know what will happen if they are caught, but their children at home are hungry. Israel prohibits them from working within its borders, but surprisingly allows them to work in the settlements. There, they are not "illegals."
The greed of the settlers – most are "operators," some exploit cheap Palestinian labor – outweighs everything. After all, someone has to clean the settlers' streets and build their homes. What is dangerous in Big is not dangerous in Halamish.
A gate blocks the access for Palestinians, according to local residents, on an area of an Israeli settlers' outpost near the West Bank village of Tuwani on Monday.Credit: Leo Correa/AP
Above all, the lines of racism and dehumanization, wrapped in the cellophane of security that permits everything, including collective punishment, humiliation and starvation. But it is not at all clear what is more dangerous for Israel – closing its borders, which leads to hunger and despair, or their controlled opening.
In the meantime, generations of Israelis are being raised here who come to the mall on Shabbat and see Palestinians hunted like animals. It's shocking when it's an unfortunate animal, but no less shocking when it's an unfortunate worker, one of thousands who built this country and paved its roads.
Help, there's an illegal here. Call the Border Police, or Yossi Eli.