ASHDOD (Israel): Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert urged Jews worldwide to migrate on Tuesday as his government unveiled new incentives to woo back expats and reverse declining immigration.

“Come and join us here because it’s the best place to live,” Olmert told the opening of an immigration conference in the southern city of Ashdod.

Under a new campaign for 2008, the immigration and absorption ministry said it was looking to repatriate 15,000 Israelis living abroad and bring in 20,000 new Jewish immigrants next year.

More than half a million Israelis live abroad. The ministry said it would offer a series of cash incentives and tax breaks to encourage them back. “These Israelis won’t have the difficulties facing new immigrants in integrating.

We should use economic arguments to encourage them to return,” Immigrant Absorption Minister Yaacov Edri told the conference. “We seem to be going in the right direction. I hope aliya (immigration) statistics will double in 2008,” he said.—AFP