[alteredgemed]

How wonderful the state of Israel is...

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/...85A0VI20120611

Israel said on Monday it had started rounding up African migrants in the first stage of a controversial "emergency plan" to intern and deport thousands deemed a threat to the Jewish character of the state.

Israel Radio reported that dozens of Africans, mainly from South Sudan, had already been detained in the Red Sea resort of Eilat, including mothers and children.

"This is only a small group of the infiltrators," Interior Minister Eli Yishai said. "I'm not acting out of hatred of strangers but love of my people and to rescue the homeland."

The goal is to repatriate all the estimated 60,000 African migrants, whose growing numbers are seen by many Israelis as a law and order issue and even a threat to the long-term viability of the Jewish state.

Illegal migration, and the pool of cheap labor it provides, is a common headache for developed economies. Israel is grappling with its own special ghosts as it tackles the problem.

For some in Israel, built by immigrants and refugees, internment and deportation are bad solutions that may damage the international image of the country needlessly.

They say rounding up members of a different racial group and holding them in camps for deportation may invite allusions to the Nazi Holocaust, however unfair such comparisons may be, and betrays Jewish values.

NOT CRIMINALS

About 500 Sudanese men held an orderly protest in Tel Aviv on Sunday against expulsion, the solution chosen by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after two months of heated debate over how to handle the flow of migrants.

"We are refugees, not criminals," the Sudanese chanted, in a retort to allegations that Africans prey on Israeli citizens, following high-profile rape allegations.

Many Sudanese, including hundreds who escaped from conflict and humanitarian disaster in Darfur, have been in Israel for several years, living in legal limbo without formal refugee status, but peaceably, they say.

Now they are caught up in a wave of hostility towards blacks in general, focused on a poor area of south Tel Aviv where they congregate.

"We're being called a cancer and an AIDs virus on the Israeli people, by politicians in the Knesset," said protest organizer Jacob Berri. He accused government right-wingers of racist incitement and inflammatory language.

The number of migrants crossing into Israel over the Sinai desert border has accelerated since 2006. It ballooned last year when revolution distracted Egypt's attention from policing Bedouin people-smugglers operating in the Sinai peninsula.

Israel has now built a high fence along the frontier.

"My policy with regard to the illegal infiltrators seeking work is clear," Netanyahu said in a May 29 speech. "First of all, to stop their entry with the fence and at the same time to deport the infiltrators who are in Israel."

He warns of Africans "flooding" and "swamping" Israel, threatening "the character of the country". Emergency measures to reverse the influx will include "detention facilities with thousands of units", Netanyahu said last week.

Berri said the South Sudanese number about 700. They know when they are not wanted and will leave, he said. But their refugee status must first be assured by the United Nations, and third-country resettlement programs established.

TIP OF THE ICEBERG

Israeli human rights and activist groups back the Africans. But rightwing and religious parties say that if they are not stopped today's 60,000 will become 600,000 in a few years, in a population of 7.8 million.

Poor south Tel Aviv residents say affluent north Tel Aviv Jews can afford to be liberal, because the Africans are not in their back yard. An opinion poll last week showed 52 percent of Israelis agree that the Africans are "a cancer".

"They've come here to rape and steal," one Israeli woman shouted at a small but ugly anti-migrant demonstration earlier this month in south Tel Aviv. "We should burn them out, put poison in their food," said an elderly man.

Netanyahu urges restraint. "We are a moral people and we will act accordingly. We denounce violence; we denounce invective. We respect human rights," he said, but added: "Israel cannot accept "infiltrators from an entire continent".

The term "infiltrators" is also used by authorities to describe armed Palestinian militants.

Voluntary deportees will get financial assistance.

"Whoever comes forward will get his grant ... from the moment you come to immigration authorities and say you will pack up, from that moment you will be given an opportunity to pack up, and the grant of 1,000 euros," Yishai said.

The first planeload is expected to leave Israel next week.

[mafya]

You must have got it wrong as Israel is the leading democracy in the middle east, surly this can't be true?

[Happ Hazzard]

Maybe they want to keep it that way?

[MrSmith]

Originally Posted by mafya

You must have got it wrong as Israel is the leading democracy in the middle east, surly this can't be true?

Why must it be wrong? The government is voted in by the majority and acts on behalf of the people. This is obviously what the majority want and if it isn't the government will lose the next election.

[hard2miss]

This is the sort of story you could not make up, Im waiting for the next headline that they have in fact not sent them home but stuck them in some sort of work camp to help out with the war effort against Iran.

I think Israel is a bit like someone that was abused as a kid and then goes on to abuse when they have grown up.

[mafya]

Originally Posted by MrSmith

Why must it be wrong? The government is voted in by the majority and acts on behalf of the people. This is obviously what the majority want and if it isn't the government will lose the next election.

My post was a **** take, we are constantly told that Israel is the only democracy in the middle east yet they are proposing internment and deportation of a single race of people (Blacks).
No wonder there are people who get ****** off with the way the Israeli gov does things.

[mafya]

Originally Posted by hard2miss

This is the sort of story you could not make up, Im waiting for the next headline that they have in fact not sent them home but stuck them in some sort of work camp to help out with the war effort against Iran.

I think Israel is a bit like someone that was abused as a kid and then goes on to abuse when they have grown up.

My Bold=

I agree that is the way it looks, then they wonder why people don't like them although I must stress the Israeli Gov actions are not representative of Jewish people.

[callippo]

show me some other country in the Middle East that has provided better facilities for African migrants, than Israel. Also have you wondered why they make a beeline for Israel in the first place? If it's so bad, then why do they want to go there rather than Libya, Tunisia, or Egypt? Why don't they want to get all loved up with their fellow Africans? What is so appealing to them, about Israel?

it is because they know they might not get a good reception in the other places, that they head towards Israel, because they know that as a liberal democratic country, they won't get shot down like dogs for being blacks, in Israel like they might in Egypt.

[natjack]

Originally Posted by mafya

My post was a **** take, we are constantly told that Israel is the only democracy in the middle east yet they are proposing internment and deportation of a single race of people (Blacks).
No wonder there are people who get ****** off with the way the Israeli gov does things.

You think it's because they're black? Not because they're 'infiltrators' from a foreign country, no reason to be there, and a threat to the Jewish culture?

Israel was set up purely and simply to be a homeland for Jews, wasn't it? If they're going to have a load of non-Jews infiltrating from Africa, they may as well stop fighting with their next door neighbours

[MrSmith]

Originally Posted by mafya

My post was a **** take, we are constantly told that Israel is the only democracy in the middle east yet they are proposing internment and deportation of a single race of people (Blacks).
No wonder there are people who get ****** off with the way the Israeli gov does things.

It’s a policy decision by the elected government to stop and send back illegal immigrants, is there anything to suggest they wouldn’t do the same if thousands of white British people turned up and caused problems?

It’s a very small county and just can’t absorb the large amounts of people that arrive from much larger countries.

[callippo]

look on the positive side, I always say. The street music in Tel Aviv has probably improved just a touch. They can stay.

[cgksheff]

Originally Posted by mafya

........ yet they are proposing internment and deportation of a single race of people (Blacks).
........

Except that they are not proposing anything as radical as you claim.

Asylum seekers come from South Sudan.

South Sudan becomes declared a safe country.

Asylum applications are refused and applicants are invited to return home with financial assistance.

[callippo]

they're doing them a favour. If they play their cards right on that amount of money, they'll make a living on it in South Sudan. They can open up a business with it. It's a lot of money. Certainly better than they started out with.

[Riche]

Isreal are deporting people back to thier home? Asad kills his own people in thier homes, now that is fact. Lets not have another bash the jew thread please they are not the problem in the region.

[Teddybare]

Originally Posted by hard2miss

This is the sort of story you could not make up, Im waiting for the next headline that they have in fact not sent them home but stuck them in some sort of work camp to help out with the war effort against Iran.

http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition...igrants-1.4754

Was already suggested. Failed because they decided paying them minimum wage, which was around 3£/hour then, was too much.

They offer them 1000€ to leave, most have paid over 5000$ to cross from Egypt.
All looks pretty damning. But it's not. Most are economic migrants. Looking for a better life. Most work hard for very little pay in the hotels and cleaning businesses around the south/dead sea area. As with any impoverished migrant population they brought with them more than their fair share of bad apples.
Arad used to be silent every day, a very boring and safe place to live.
Now there are massive gangs of African youths in the town centre at all hours. Burglaries, robberies, drugs related offences, stabbings and rapes have started occuring with relative frequency. People in the south have had enough. Unfortunately the good migrants get tarred with same brush.

When they first started arriving, several organisations endeavoured to convert them to Judaism which some did, willingly, in order to gain citizenship and rights. To me that was a worse option than deportation.
I see no problem in deporting illegal immigrants or legal ones for that matter if they commit crimes.

Their skin colour and ethnicity is irrelevant to most Israelis. The south has a thriving Ethiopian population and also many from the African American cult known as the black Hebrews. For every numpty they find to say "burn the blacks' it's possible to find 5 bleeding heart liberals who are collecting money to send the sudanese youths on a pleasure trip to Jerusalem.

Imagine the mixed reaction you would get in Sheffield if the government announced all the illegal migrants were about to be forcefully deported. No other country is as liberal as the uk when it comes to migration. Israel is one of the strictest in the world as it seeks not only to stay secure and keep out terrorists but also to stay majority Jewish. Which has been its main purpose since the war of independence. The future safety of the Jewish people, most believe, requires that Jews rule the country and are not out-populated by any other group.

The south will be a safer place with the Sudanese gone, undoubtedly, and our house prices will stop falling as fast. That is, unfortunately, more important to the average Israeli living in this region than the human rights of the good majority of Sudanese migrants.
The fact is they should have never come and now they have to leave. Once again the approach taken by government is an absolute PR disaster and knee jerk reaction. But that is how things work in Israel. It is a fairly new country with little experience in peacetime, living in constant fear of attacks. Flaunting international law and UN sanctions is a favourite pastime of the administration.

Israel is for the Jews. The sooner everyone else realises that, they'll stop being shocked by its actions.

It does pose another question though, who is going to fill all these job vacancies in areas that Israelis refuse to work?

I wouldn't be surprised if they set up a similar deal to the one they have with the Thais and Filipinos: which is one based on temporary residency and slave labour.
The average wage is around 4£ and most legal foreign workers in home care, agriculture and construction don't even make half that.

[grafikhaus74]

Can't say I blame them. At last Europe is waking up to the madness of just letting anybody go anywhere they please.

They're even talking of suspending the Schengen Agreement. Horse. Stable. Bolted...

Originally Posted by Teddybare

http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition...igrants-1.4754

It does pose another question though, who is going to fill all these job vacancies in areas that Israelis refuse to work?

Send them here. We've got an unlimited need for 'people who prop up the NHS', 'cheap plumbers/nannies' etc. So unlimited we need 5m of them.

And who's going to look after our old people?

[callippo]

Originally Posted by Teddybare

http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition...igrants-1.4754

Their skin colour and ethnicity is irrelevant to most Israelis. The south has a thriving Ethiopian population and also many from the African American cult known as the black Hebrews. For every numpty they find to say "burn the blacks' it's possible to find 5 bleeding heart liberals who are collecting money to send the sudanese youths on a pleasure trip to Jerusalem.

Israel has come a long way since Golda Meir apparently said, on being asked to consider the immigration of Ethiopian Jews into Israel, 'haven't we got enough problems anyway, without all these blacks?'

kind of funny looking back on it really. Of course since then and after a considerable amount of investment the Ethiopians have assimilated pretty well into the rest. Literally changed the complexion of the country.

the most shocking anti black sentiments you will find in the Middle East are of course among the Arabs. British Somalis are pretty likely to experience something unpleasant when they are on their hajj, never mind people from sub Saharan Africa, like Nigeria, etc. Then there's all the tension between Egyptian Arabs/black Nubians, Libyan Arabs/black Chadians etc. Dislike of and predjudice against black people is very deep seated, I even heard stories of Iraqi insurgents cancelling ambushes at the last minute on American platoons in Iraq, because there were no black soldiers in the unit. They wanted to hold their fire until they had the chance to shoot up a few blacks who they regarded as absolutely the worst kind of possible invader. Could be an apocyphal tale I suppose, but not totally unbelievable.

[mj.scuba]

Sounds fair enough, it is their country, they can decide who lives there and their own immigration policies. If only we had the balls to do a bit of the same.

[southcoast]

[QUOTE=MrSmith;8947335]It’s a policy decision by the elected government to stop and send back illegal immigrants, is there anything to suggest they wouldn’t do the same if thousands of white British people turned up and caused problems?

It’s a very small county and just can’t absorb the large amounts of people that arrive from much larger countries.[/QUOTE]


Why not,we manage to take just about anyone so why cant they?we too are a small country.

[MrSmith]

Originally Posted by southcoast

Why not,we manage to take just about anyone so why cant they?we too are a small country.

Their country is significantly smaller and we already have too many people so we should also adapt a better immigration policy.