When Israel ordered more than 143,000 of its citizens to evacuate border regions more than a year ago, it allowed migrant farmworkers, mostly from Thailand, to stay put — to water crops, prune trees and harvest fruit as rockets fell around them. Thousands of Thai workers have been laboring in Israel’s frontiers for months, some inside closed military zones where they’re the only civilians present alongside Israeli soldiers, authorities say.
At least six migrant workers — five Thai, one Indian — have been killed in cross-border attacks in the north this year. Four Thai workers died of rocket fire in October after receiving Israeli military permission to work in the evacuated town of Metula, about 500 feet from the border, Thai authorities said.
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A half dozen Thai workers interviewed by The Post said they earn four to ten times more in Israel than in Thailand’s impoverished northeast, where many of them are from. All said they have young children to raise, and some said they incurred debts to travel to Israel.
Employers don’t pay them if they choose on a given day not to work because of security concerns, the workers said. So on most days, they do. Videos from the workers show them plucking apples and kiwis with air-raid sirens blaring, ducking behind trees or under trucks as missiles streak overhead, and taking off through the fields on foot when panic set in.
It’s not normal work, said Thitiwat Klangrit, 35, as he stood pruning a peach tree in Metula one recent afternoon. Dressed in a thin cotton shirt and a sun hat, he grimaced as rocket fire boomed nearby.
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Israel has come under mounting pressure to boost its domestic agriculture sector, especially after Turkey, which had been a major food exporter, severed all trade in May.
But much of Israel’s homegrown crops are in its northern and southern border regions, where labor is in short supply. Palestinian laborers have been barred from working in Israel since the war and many Israeli workers have been conscripted to fight.
Before the Oct. 7, attack, about 30,000 Thais worked on Israeli farms, the result of a decades-old recruitment effort by Israel to wean itself off a Palestinian workforce, say labor researchers. About 9,000 of them went home immediately following the attack. But Israeli farmers offered higher wages to those willing to return — and many accepted, coming in waves since the start of the year. As of November, there were 35,000 Thai workers in Israel, according to government figures.
The "salary" in NE Thailand for unskilled labor is maybe 80 USD/month or less at a rough estimate. So they are dodging rockets for 320-800 USD/month at most.
The "salary" in NE Thailand for unskilled labor is maybe 80 USD/month or less at a rough estimate. So they are dodging rockets for 320-800 USD/month at most.
That title is the epitome of why US racial designation is stupid. Technically speaking, Israel is also in Asia and its people are Asian. Though it's already a step up that the one Indian was also...
That title is the epitome of why US racial designation is stupid. Technically speaking, Israel is also in Asia and its people are Asian.
Though it's already a step up that the one Indian was also considered Asian, a fact often lacking in the news.
Do others peoples of the world consider Israelis or even Middle Easterners, Asian? I'm SE Asian (from the US), but I would never consider people from that part of the world as Asian. Though I'm...
Do others peoples of the world consider Israelis or even Middle Easterners, Asian? I'm SE Asian (from the US), but I would never consider people from that part of the world as Asian. Though I'm unsure if that's my American background or Asian background, or both.
I've heard that in places like the UK, Asian in a more general sense tends to relate to South Asia rather than East Asia (and the rest). And it's only been in the last 5-10yrs that I've expanded my personal definition of Asian to include South Asians.
Of course given where Central Asia is located, then West Asia must be exactly the area we're talking about here.
So clearly there's some room for ambiguity. Just curious.
It’s actually the reverse in the UK, not just more common. As in, if someone says Asian, the default is someone from the Indian sub-continent. If you want to refer to someone from China or Korea...
It’s actually the reverse in the UK, not just more common. As in, if someone says Asian, the default is someone from the Indian sub-continent. If you want to refer to someone from China or Korea or Japan you’d say “East Asian”.
Middle easterners by now usually are just middle easterners, though. But like Kazakhstan is tricky.
As an American, I've only recently become cognizant that the middle east is part of Asia. Part of it was due to not really going over it in geography class too much, but the other part is that...
As an American, I've only recently become cognizant that the middle east is part of Asia. Part of it was due to not really going over it in geography class too much, but the other part is that it's never really discussed as part of Asia. It's always mentioned as its own region on the news and such. Looking back, I always sort of thought of it as "in between" Africa and Asia.
Yeah, geographically and eurocentrically, Asia is like anything on the east side of the Bosporus Strait in Turkiye. Another phrase for Turkiye, specifically the larger Anatolian side, and one...
Yeah, geographically and eurocentrically, Asia is like anything on the east side of the Bosporus Strait in Turkiye. Another phrase for Turkiye, specifically the larger Anatolian side, and one that's not as popular anymore is, "Asia Minor." If that's already Asia, than so is anything East of it.
But I have a hard time believing that many peoples outside of the US really think those the lands and people there are "Asians" as we use it contemporaneously. Nor do I think that's a weird Americanism that's spread, as CptBluebear suggests. I think ChingShih has the right of it.
Though, again, maybe there are some places that do and I'm just not aware of it.
Just so you know, the British referred to Southeast and East Asia as "the Orient." They referred to people from these regions as "Orientals," though his has fallen into disuse and in some parts of...
Just so you know, the British referred to Southeast and East Asia as "the Orient." They referred to people from these regions as "Orientals," though his has fallen into disuse and in some parts of the world is considered impolite. The word is derived from the Latin for "east." Americans from certain decades still sometimes use this term, but "Asian" has taken over as the appropriate way to refer to peoples of these regions. Similarly, some British English speakers sometimes refer to Japanese people as "Japs," but this is considered an inappropriate term in American English so it's not used.
Because the British defined "the Orient" specifically, they also defined the Middle East (and Near East) specifically in formal documents and maps. So it followed that naturally people use "Asian" as a replacement for "the Orient" and have not yet started to frequently use "Asian" as an umbrella term for Middle Easterners for a number of reasons -- the foremost might be that there's not a need to change away from a term already in use if it's not derogatory -- but also because Middle Easterners comprise a variety of cultures (they're not all Arabs) and language families that the western world doesn't have a good understanding of or descriptors for. And that's without even touching on what constitutes the Arab World or Arab States, which includes Egypt and is definitely on the African continent, or that Russia is certainly on the Asian continent.
We're still living in a world based on Eurocentric, 19th century thinking (including the Gregorian calendar; names for planets, oceans, continents, and other European "discoveries;" scientific names of flora and fauna; etc.). We're making progress, but I just want to point out that there's a logical progression at work here and we're actually quite rapidly moving in the right direction considering how long these terms have been in use and how we're getting people onboard with more correct terms.
From the article:
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The "salary" in NE Thailand for unskilled labor is maybe 80 USD/month or less at a rough estimate. So they are dodging rockets for 320-800 USD/month at most.
Mirror: https://archive.is/7YUTx
That title is the epitome of why US racial designation is stupid. Technically speaking, Israel is also in Asia and its people are Asian.
Though it's already a step up that the one Indian was also considered Asian, a fact often lacking in the news.
Do others peoples of the world consider Israelis or even Middle Easterners, Asian? I'm SE Asian (from the US), but I would never consider people from that part of the world as Asian. Though I'm unsure if that's my American background or Asian background, or both.
I've heard that in places like the UK, Asian in a more general sense tends to relate to South Asia rather than East Asia (and the rest). And it's only been in the last 5-10yrs that I've expanded my personal definition of Asian to include South Asians.
Of course given where Central Asia is located, then West Asia must be exactly the area we're talking about here.
So clearly there's some room for ambiguity. Just curious.
It’s actually the reverse in the UK, not just more common. As in, if someone says Asian, the default is someone from the Indian sub-continent. If you want to refer to someone from China or Korea or Japan you’d say “East Asian”.
Middle easterners by now usually are just middle easterners, though. But like Kazakhstan is tricky.
As an American, I've only recently become cognizant that the middle east is part of Asia. Part of it was due to not really going over it in geography class too much, but the other part is that it's never really discussed as part of Asia. It's always mentioned as its own region on the news and such. Looking back, I always sort of thought of it as "in between" Africa and Asia.
Yeah, geographically and eurocentrically, Asia is like anything on the east side of the Bosporus Strait in Turkiye. Another phrase for Turkiye, specifically the larger Anatolian side, and one that's not as popular anymore is, "Asia Minor." If that's already Asia, than so is anything East of it.
But I have a hard time believing that many peoples outside of the US really think those the lands and people there are "Asians" as we use it contemporaneously. Nor do I think that's a weird Americanism that's spread, as CptBluebear suggests. I think ChingShih has the right of it.
Though, again, maybe there are some places that do and I'm just not aware of it.
Just so you know, the British referred to Southeast and East Asia as "the Orient." They referred to people from these regions as "Orientals," though his has fallen into disuse and in some parts of the world is considered impolite. The word is derived from the Latin for "east." Americans from certain decades still sometimes use this term, but "Asian" has taken over as the appropriate way to refer to peoples of these regions. Similarly, some British English speakers sometimes refer to Japanese people as "Japs," but this is considered an inappropriate term in American English so it's not used.
Because the British defined "the Orient" specifically, they also defined the Middle East (and Near East) specifically in formal documents and maps. So it followed that naturally people use "Asian" as a replacement for "the Orient" and have not yet started to frequently use "Asian" as an umbrella term for Middle Easterners for a number of reasons -- the foremost might be that there's not a need to change away from a term already in use if it's not derogatory -- but also because Middle Easterners comprise a variety of cultures (they're not all Arabs) and language families that the western world doesn't have a good understanding of or descriptors for. And that's without even touching on what constitutes the Arab World or Arab States, which includes Egypt and is definitely on the African continent, or that Russia is certainly on the Asian continent.
We're still living in a world based on Eurocentric, 19th century thinking (including the Gregorian calendar; names for planets, oceans, continents, and other European "discoveries;" scientific names of flora and fauna; etc.). We're making progress, but I just want to point out that there's a logical progression at work here and we're actually quite rapidly moving in the right direction considering how long these terms have been in use and how we're getting people onboard with more correct terms.