I don't understand anything about Israelis and Palestinians. I came to work a year and a half ago in the countryside and that's all I've done," said 36-year-old Akaradeth Namjing, one of 300 Thais who are scheduled to return home today on an army plane. .
In the basement of the luxurious Intercontinental Hotel in Tel-Aviv, ideal for conventions, dances or jewelry fairs, dozens of compatriots - all men - arrive with suitcases on wheels, eat at the buffet in silence and smile to deny that they speak english Today they will return to Thailand, a country that the Middle East cared about.
Thais are the most invisible victims of the Oct. 7 massacre, with consequences still lingering: 26 Thais returned home in white coffins and 22 are kidnapped, the most numerous nationality after the Israelis, according to a spokeswoman for the embassy None of their faces appear in the dozens and dozens of portraits of the kidnapped in the streets of Tel-Aviv or Jerusalem (yesterday, 239, according to the Israeli Government's variable count).
Akaradeth Namjing has a friend kidnapped. "If I think he has a chance of being released? I am very sorry for him. His kibbutz was closer to Gaza than mine. I trust the Israeli army." What if I had to bet? "I would say it has a 50% chance."
Israel is no different from developed Arab countries: Filipina immigrants are the caretakers of many of its elderly, Indians and Nepalese are in charge of construction – from the stadiums of Qatar to the skyscrapers of Tel-Aviv – and the Thais, from field tasks, people alien to demanding religions and geopolitics.
“We signed a bilateral labor agreement with Thailand in 2014. The experience was very good for both parties. They are excellent workers, they have never created problems", says an Israeli official of the repatriation device.
Israel has 100,000 labor immigrants, mostly hired in the country of origin. Of these, 30,000 are Thai, unnoticed in the big cities - unlike the Filipinos - because they all work in the agricultural operations, paralyzed by the war. Quiet, nondescript places, where you work hard, be it with tomatoes, cows or cucumbers. "Eight hours a day and two or three volunteer hours. One holiday a week. What did we do that day? Being with friends, watching TV", answers Akaradeth.
The bilateral agreement and the courts fairly protect these workers, whose passports are not withheld as is the case in the Gulf countries. The average salary is close to 1,500 euros and the limit of each contract is five and a half years.
Silent and disciplined, they queue to enter the bus that will take them to another, more modest hotel. They are people from the north of the kingdom of Siam, peasants from deep Thailand, alien to tourism and the image of sex, exoticism and tambourines of the tourist mosques.
None speak English, few speak a little Hebrew, but they sacrifice a few years of their lives to work for the highest bidder in the Middle East, where they are needed, appreciated or exploited. His dream was to save and set up a business in his village. "On October 7 I was scared. I could only see rockets going through the sky, some other rockets knocking them down. I didn't understand what was happening." Among the graphic documentation exhibited by the Chancellor of Israel before the UN was that of an average Thai man decapitated with a hoe. To die like this, so far, so alien...
