In addition to the ever-present threat from terrorists, Israeli authorities continue to battle organized crime rings trying to import women into the country to satisfy the sex industry. At the same time, authorities are engaged in fighting the exploitation of low-skilled migrant workers lured to the promised land under false promises.

According to the U.S. State Department's Trafficking in Person's report for 2007, Israel has been placed in the Tier Two position for human trafficking. The State Department divides countries into three tiers. Tier One is for countries that have successfully implemented measures to control the practice (most Western countries fall into this category).

Tier Two is for countries that are trying to eradicate this modern-day slavery but still fail to meet the necessary standards. While Tier Three is reserved for countries that have not addressed the issue at the most basic level.

Many poor and low-skilled foreign workers, some heavily indebted, particularly from Asia and the former Eastern block countries, are lured to Israel to work in the construction, agriculture, and health industries primarily. They are promised high wages in good working conditions, only to find out on arrival that their dreams jobs soon turn into nightmares.

According to the State Department's report these workers, "migrate voluntarily for contract labor. Some are subsequently subjected to conditions of involuntary servitude, such as withholding of passports and other restrictions on movement, threats, and physical intimidation.

"The government of Israel does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking," the report stated bluntly. "However, it is making significant efforts to do so. This year, the government passed crucial amendments to its anti-trafficking law that comprehensively prohibit all forms of trafficking in persons, including involuntary servitude and slavery," the report added.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met with a group of Knesset (Israeli Parliament) members, who were involved in drafting the new anti-trafficking legislation, earlier this year to lend her support to and acknowledge their efforts in fighting trafficking.

Of particular concern is the thriving practice of trafficking in women, smuggled in from Egypt's Sinai Peninsula by Bedouins. Canadian journalist and social activist, Victor Malarek, who researched the subject, told the Canadian Jewish Tribune, "There are about 280 brothels in Tel Aviv alone.

"Newspaper ads from modeling and employment agencies promise exciting jobs, but the women are duped. They must submit, or they are raped, beaten, and tortured," said Malarek. The Knesset estimates between 3,000 to 5,000 foreign women are currently enslaved in the sex industry in Israel.

Rabbi David Forman from Rabbis for Human Rights called the trafficking of women in Israel "A blight on Jewish decency." While Israeli human rights group ATZUM, an acronym for "Avodat Tzedaka U'Mishpat" (righteous work leads to justice) has established a task force against the trafficking of women to help individuals and lobby the government to take further action.

This year there has been a slight drop in the number of trafficked women since the new anti-trafficking legislation was passed and the subsequent reaction of the police to take the issue more seriously.

"A prostitute was considered a partner in crime," said Meir Cohen, a police investigator. Instead of testifying, victims were simply arrested and deported. Police were instructed not to intervene in brothels as the authorities preferred to use pimps as intelligence sources for other underworld investigations

These investigations included delving into organized Russian crime gangs who run many of the sex trade operations. Israel police major general Moshe Mizrahi stated the obvious: "Trafficking in women here is run by organized crime."

"The Russians do quality work in crime," police superintendent and spokesperson Gil Kleiman told the website theisraelinewsagency.com which has run a report on women in the sex trade.

But the reason for the minimal decrease in the female slave trade is also because trafficking in women in Israel is an extremely complex problem. It comes with security concerns that are rarely addressed publicly. The trade-off seems simple: Better that some in the Bedouin community in the south make their money smuggling women rather than smuggling arms.

Anna, a Romanian woman in her early twenties testified before an Israeli court recalling how she was lured from Romania by an Israeli woman who promised her well paid work caring for the elderly.

"I was booked on a plane from Bucharest and told I would be taken to Israel but instead the plane landed in Cairo. I and several other women were then driven to near the Israeli border in a car escorted by masked Bedouin armed with automatic weapons," she said.

In the middle of the night the car stopped and they walked for hours after which they were forced to crawl under the fence separating the Sinai Peninsula from Israel. Once in Israel, Anna was taken to a hotel in Eilat where she was physically examined by a trafficker before being "purchased."

Anna was then forced to work up to 13 hours a day, servicing dozens of clients each for about 15 minutes. The clients paid 150 new Israeli shekel, about $40, of which Anna received only NIS 20 with which she was expected to buy food and contraceptives.

"If any of the customers were dissatisfied, the women were beaten and there were several cases of prostitutes being murdered. Women who fell pregnant were taken to veterinarians or back-alley abortionists and forced to undergo abortions," said Anna.

Anna's story however, had a fortunate ending when police raided the brothel and arrested the pimps where she was working, after an anonymous tip-off. She was freed and placed in a shelter and later able to testify against her former tormentors.