Come to Israel, we want you, we need you -- and we'll resent you when you get here

Bad news for graduates of many US universities, including YU:

The Ministry of Education is refusing to recognize undergraduate diplomas issued by U.S. universities that accept a year of yeshiva study in Israel as degree credits... North American immigrant with an undergraduate degree from Yeshiva University and a subsequent masters from Columbia, for example, is viewed by the ministry as holding only a high school diploma - since once the undergraduate degree is deemed invalid, any subsequent postgraduate degrees are not accepted either. For those working in the public sector, this means reduced income, since pay scales shift significantly depending on a person's academic standing.

The rule is that the Ministry of Education will not recognize degrees which include credits from 'non Academic institions.' This is supposedly a measure to combat the increasing number of Israelis who use fraudulent degrees to get higher up on the pay scale (people convicted of this include senior members of the police force, MKs and teachers).
Conveniently for the state, immigrants can still use the degrees to show they are qualified for jobs -- but not to demand appropriate salaries. As one of the olim interviewed remarks, this leads to the absurd situation where the state will use immigrants' expertise -- but not pay them for it.
The worst bit is that according to Ha'aretz, the Ministry knows about the situation, yet has no plans to change the rules because it "only" affects people's salaries! But surely, if the government really wants to combat fraudulent degrees, it would not be difficult to create a more subtle and flexible policy which will weed out those who are really trying to dupe them, and not discriminate against well-educated, enthusiastic Olim who genuinely want to contribute?
Unfortunately, the unhappy truth is not that they can't, but that they won't. This is another chapter in a long history of Israel telling (what it perceives as) rich, successful immigrants it wants them and needs them -- but once they get there, showing no interest whatsoever in their personal welfare, and even making things unnecessarily difficult for them. Anyone looking for an explanation need look no further than Minister Avraham Poraz's resentful comments last week. He effectively told Stanley Fischer, who was appointed governer of the Bank of Israel: "You're not a real Israeli, and you don't deserve any perks in this country, until you've suffered like the rest of us."
So if our rules mean you are going to earn significantly less than your Israeli peers, although you might have equal or better qualifications than them, why should we go to the bother of changing them? Suffer, and then get back to us.