In order to create jobs for the unemployed, the prime minister ordered that 50,000 foreign workers be expelled. And as part of the plan to restore the health of the Israeli economy, the government decided last month to double the number of those expulsions to 100,000.

But cynicism evidently knows no bounds. Just as the government has decided to seriously harm the livelihood of hundreds of thousands of Israelis, the prime minister decides to sell 800 precious jobs to the Turkish government. Pursuant to a furtively signed agreement between Jerusalem and Ankara, 800 Turkish construction workers have arrived in Israel over the last few weeks to work for private contractors building homes and offices. The money that the workers will send home is supposed to offset Israel's commitment to purchase $40 million worth of Turkish goods per year as part of a deal to have the Turkish army's tanks upgraded by Israel Military Industries (IMI).

IMI and the other defense industries that will participate in the project see the deal as a vital one that gives them a foot in the door of a potentially vast market. Most of the work will be done in Turkey, but the project will also provide employment for dozens of scientists and engineers in Israel. Concern for these jobs is appropriate, but academics may be able to find other work in the event that the tank deal falls through for some reason and they are fired. But what will the unemployed Israeli whose living allowance has shrunk by 30 percent do when his potential place of employment has been taken by a Turkish worker? Granted, Israelis are not keen on working in construction, but the Finance Ministry forecasts (and evidence accumulated since the rate of expulsions of foreign workers was accelerated reinforces the notion) that, as a last resort, unemployed Israelis will also work in the building trade.

They'll face fierce competition. Eight-hundred jobs won't be enough to meet the Turks' demand that Israel purchase $40 million worth of Turkish goods. Israel will have to "buy" thousands more workers from Turkey. Alon Liel, the former Israeli ambassador to Turkey and currently the head of the Israel-Turkey Business Council, says that demand for Turkish workers is growing now that there is a fear that Chinese workers could be SARS carriers. But China is also a potential partner for the defense industries. It also has weaponry in desperate need of upgrading and a government hungry for foreign currency. China, a much larger and more populous country, won't suffice with 800 jobs:

It could request tens of thousands.

The original idea was to purchase water from Turkey in order to fulfill Israel's end of the mutual procurement deal. But the treasury felt that the price of water was too high and the project ran aground. As this is the biggest export deal in the history of IMI, they frantically sought something that could serve as a replacement. Salvation came from a Turkish construction company called Yilmazlar, which has been operating in Israel since the mid-1990s. The company knew how to open the right doors and managed to convince the authorities in Ankara to agree to the innovative idea of workers in return for tanks.

When the proposal was presented to Ariel Sharon, the deal's importance for the defense industries was highlighted, and he gave it his blessing. Handling of the deal was entrusted to Avigdor Yitzhaki, director of the Prime Minister's Office, and to his friend in the Interior Ministry, Herzl Gadj, the director of the population registry, who arranged for the Turks' entry into Israel.

The Employment Service was not let in on the secret, and so IMI and Yilmazlar circumvented the official route for obtaining work permits for foreign workers and the strict criteria that every contractor in Israel is normally supposed to meet.

The treasury and the Employment Service learned about the importation of the Turks when the affair was revealed in Haaretz a few weeks ago. The Finance Minister raised the subject at a cabinet meeting and it was decided that a ministerial committee would be established to reexamine the deal.

The committee will be under great pressure to approve the deal, and not just from the defense industries. Importing Turkish workers is more profitable than importing vacuum filters. Turkey, which, like Israel, has a high unemployment rate, profits twice - with jobs for its citizens at the factory in Turkey and jobs building cottages in Israel. And the pockets of the mediators of this deal - Yilmazlar and its associates in Israel and Turkey - will no doubt be lined as well.

If it weren't for the conditions under which foreign workers are imported to Israel - including powerful economic interests that influence the allotment of permits to employers (as noted with particularly biting criticism from the State Comptroller), the binding of the workers to their employers by making their legal status dependent on them, poor enforcement of the labor laws, and the resulting exploitation - it might be possible to justify such deals. But in the absence of a better system, it appears that the Israeli government is engaging in trade in human beings.