Morocco had no official ties with Israel but when Hassan II became the new king of Morocco in 1961 something highly remarkable became possible. Though Jews had not been allowed to move to Israel from Morocco, the king now allowed a secret deal through which he accepted 100 US for the first 50,000 to emigrate. 250 US for any emigrant later. At first they often went to Europe, but then headed to Israel.
There they were often sent to harsh peripheral zones and had to do mostly manual labour. Some were sprayed with DDT upon arrival, a practice that was more common for newly arrived Jews from Africa in the 1950s.
A lot of them had been firmly middle class in Morocco and now found themselves on the bottom rungs of society. They did agricultural work and back breaking unskilled labour.
So Israel secured a crucial labour force cheaply and also added to the problematic divisions of Israeli Jews in haves and have nots, with some privileged and some looked down upon. Israeli Jews often have more contempt for other Israeli Jews than for anyone else. Of course Israel has as its main publicity slogan that it’s the best place for Jews, but many of these Moroccan Jews were worse off there.
Though shocking, we have to be completely fair and mention that after world war 2 other states did similar things, though not so secretly. For example, Belgium got itself a lot of Italians to work in its mines and promised Italy coal in return. The Italians who went were often dumped in squalid camps and treated with disdain. Famous Belgian singer Rocco Granata was the son of such a mine worker who got lung disease from his work in the coal mines.
But Belgium wasn’t pretending it was some promised land or God given land for Italians that the new arrivals had to help defend and occupy.
