Iran’s recent retaliation against Israeli aggression has triggered yet another wave of Israeli Jews fleeing the settler-colonial state. Citizens, dual nationals, and tourists have rushed to airports and seaports, desperate to escape on so-called “escape flotillas” and “rescue flights” as the security situation has grown more precarious than at any point since before October 7, 2023. In response to this surging reverse migration, the Israeli government has effectively moved to restrict departures.
While some stranded Israelis returned during the latest conflict, this exodus marks an extension of an upward trend of Jews emigrating from Israel in recent years.
Back in December 2022, Israel’s Maariv newspaper reported on a new initiative to facilitate Jewish emigration to the United States following the Israeli elections, which many feared could radically reshape the state’s relationship with religion. A group called “Leaving the Country – Together,” led by anti-Netanyahu activist Yaniv Gurlick and Israeli-American businessman Mordi Kahana, announced plans to relocate 10,000 Israeli Jews in its first phase.
“I’ve seen WhatsApp groups where people talk about moving to Romania or Greece, but I personally think it would be easier to move to the US,” Kahana said at the time. “I have a huge farm in New Jersey and offered Israelis the chance to join me in turning it into a kibbutz… With this government in Israel, the US should let in any Israeli with a company or in-demand profession like doctors or pilots.”
This is not a sudden phenomenon. More than two decades ago, it was documented that by the end of 2003, over 750,000 Israelis lived abroad permanently — the vast majority in the US and Canada. Estimates suggest that between 600,000 and 750,000 Israelis now reside in the US alone, with around 230,000 born in Israel — descendants of settlers who once migrated there.
Between 1948 and 2015, Israel’s own data confirms that some 720,000 Israelis left and never returned. In 2016, nearly 30% of French Jews who immigrated to Israel eventually returned to France, despite massive campaigns by the Zionist state and its networks to keep them in the colonial settlement.
In 2011, Israel’s Ministry of Immigrant Absorption even launched an ad campaign urging Israelis abroad to return. One ad showed a child trying to wake his father, who responds only when the boy switches from saying “Daddy” in English to “Abba” in Hebrew — underscoring a fear that diaspora children might lose their Israeli identity. The ad’s message, “They will always be Israeli, but their children may not be. Help them come home,” sparked backlash. Critics accused Israel of implying that “America is no place for the real Jew,” drawing condemnation from figures like Israeli prison guard-turned-American journalist Jeffrey Goldberg. The ad was pulled and the ministry apologised.
By 2017, Israel’s fears of growing emigration had escalated further. The government began offering incentives to encourage returnees and even tried to lure Israelis working in California’s Silicon Valley back with scholarships for doctoral studies — an effort that failed. Leading Israeli demographer Sergio Della Pergola had long warned that mass out-migration could threaten the settler state’s long-term viability.
This trend of active emigration predated Israel’s recent wars on Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and Iran — and its ongoing genocide in Gaza, launched on October 8, 2023. Official Israeli figures show that around 82,000 Israeli Jews fled the country, while unofficial estimates suggest the true number may approach half a million.
With this significant Jewish exodus, Israeli authorities now appear genuinely concerned that a majority may abandon the state. This is especially significant given that Palestinians have been the majority population between the river and the sea since 2010 — a demographic reality that deeply threatens the longevity of Israel’s ethnonational project. This, as some observers argue, is a driving factor behind Israel’s continued genocidal campaign against the Palestinian people.
Last week, Israel’s cabinet moved to stem the mounting wave of Jewish emigration by requiring pre-approved exit permits from a government “Exceptions Committee.” The official decision text stated that once commercial flights resume, the government will “establish clear criteria for reviewing exit requests from Israel through an official steering committee.”
While about 40,000 foreign nationals trapped inside Israel have been allowed to leave, commercial airlines have informed Israeli citizens that the government now prohibits them from buying tickets to depart — yet tens of thousands continue to try.
Estimates indicate that the number of dual citizens living in Israel exceeds 700,000 Americans and 500,000 Europeans. On June 20, just before the US strike on Iran, US State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce revealed that over 25,000 American citizens had contacted the department for information on how to leave Israel, the West Bank, and Iran. Though Bruce declined to share specifics or comment on potential evacuations, internal memos indicate that nearly 10,000 of those requests came from Israel in a single day — and that figure has likely doubled since.
Earlier this week, Canada’s Global Affairs Ministry announced that 6,000 Canadian citizens had registered their presence in Israel in preparation to flee, with another 400 registering in the West Bank. Canada is now organising evacuation flights and bus convoys to Egypt and Jordan, following similar moves by France and Australia days earlier. Many Americans have already escaped via Egypt, while large numbers of Germans have departed through Jordan.
Others have fled by sea to Cyprus on yachts and boats, dubbed “escape flotillas” by the Israeli daily Haaretz. The paper summed up the government’s hardline position, quoting Transportation Minister Miri Regev:
“Israelis are welcome to return home to danger — but they are forbidden from fleeing it.”
Meanwhile, thousands of Britons — including Israelis with British citizenship — have been scrambling to return to the UK, according to BBC reports.
Yet with the government maintaining its exit ban, the “Movement for Quality Government in Israel” has voiced alarm over the vague standards by which the cabinet’s Exceptions Committee grants departure permits. The group has petitioned Israel’s Attorney General, arguing that the ban violates Israel’s own Basic Law.
Ironically, during the 1970s, the US and Israel launched campaigns urging the Soviet Union to grant Jews exceptional exit visas denied to other Soviet citizens. Israel’s rallying cry then was, “Let my people go” — echoing the biblical plea to Pharaoh to free the Hebrews. Today, thousands of Israeli Jews find themselves appealing not to Pharaoh but to Netanyahu:
“Let us go.”
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