generalspeaking

Pointless Finger-Pointing

They're at at it again, characterizing Israel as perniciously racist, homophobic and discriminatory. This is the latest attack by the news media in a new feature published by the Los Angeles Times on Sunday, citing what they claim to be a "wave of intolerance toward people of different races, religions, orientations and viewpoints", taking over the country.

Odd that there is no attention whatever given to Europe, where in Germany, France, Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia, Hungary, Italy and elsewhere in the European Union the Roma, that perennial scapegoat nation of gold-earring dancers and singers have been hounded unmercifully, their presence not seen as tolerable even though they've lived in those countries for generations.

Wrong, Time did indeed graze by the subject of European intolerance and rejection and persecution of their Roma, but only in passing reference in an article devoted to the well-being of Roma in the United States. Where they are free to capitalize on opportunities in a free society and seek their aspirations to their full potential. Only in America, though.

The Los Angeles Times took its inspiration from an article that appeared in an Israeli on-line news source, bewailing what appeared to be a hostile social climate, in "A Time To Hate", in Haaretz. Within Israel itself, this new focus on refugees and immigrants threatens to upturn the country's democratic ideals. Even politicians like Tzipi Livni, of the centrist Kadima party, fears "an evil spirit has been sweeping over the country."

From well-publicized initiatives to have non-Jewish individuals wishing to become citizens having to declare a oath of loyalty to a "Jewish state", to the move toward institutionalizing a law against Jews selling land within Israel to Arabs, Defense Minister Ehud Barak dolefully claims "a wave of racism is threatening to pull Israeli society into dark and dangerous places."

A recent poll came away with the information that almost 50% of Jewish Israelis would prefer not to live next to an Arab; 1/3 decline the opportunity to live close to foreigners or the mentally challenged. And, in the secular society that is Israel, almost 25% would prefer not to share a neighbourhood with gays or the ultra-Orthodox. Giving new meaning to equal opportunity denials.

One supposes it is futile to take too much out of these statistics. It is people behaving as they usually do. Some form or another of discriminatory choices are always taking place. It may not be socially polite, but it does represent how people think, anywhere in the world. When it happens in other countries a mental shrug ensues from the outside world; when it happens in Israel it is a sign of an evil malaise.

There are always reasonable explanations, more or less, however. Sweden has expelled 26 Iraqis seeking asylum, but that's justifiable since its courts have made the ruling that "you have to show an individual threat directed towards you as an individual to qualify for asylum." Obviously then, to simply flee an unstable, violent environment where members of your religious sect are slaughtered is deemed insufficient cause.

This, despite that the UN High Commissioner for Refugees has pleaded with asylum-offering countries not to deport those seeking haven because of the "volatile security situation" prevailing in Iraq. Details, details. To which Sweden's Minister for Migration and Asylum Policy responded, "We are returning only the Iraqis who have failed to meet the asylum requirements." Economic migrants need not apply.

Israel knows about all of that, all too well, as tens of thousands of Africans, most fleeing restive Sudan,newly voting for secession for the South and simmering with the potential for bloody civil war, have complicated matters in Israel, pouring over the border from Egypt. In a country which has dedicated itself to the solace and haven for the world's Jews, more non-Jews swelling the numbers of Christians, Arab Muslims, Kurds and others create a social and demographic threat to Jewish society.

Within Israel, there is the official concerns, of absorbing additional refugees, and there are other concerns to contend with, humanitarian ones. Where the liberal-minded oppose the government's intention to deport thousands of Africans (Israel has absorbed a good number of Darfurians as legitimate refugees). Immigration and refugee officials claim the refugees are mostly illegal migrants who travel across Egypt and into Israel to improve their social and economic futures.

Who can blame them? Egypt has no wish to absorb its fellow Africans seeking a better life. Nor would they necessarily find a better place in Egypt, a country wallowing in its own sub-standard living accommodations, insufficient employment and a rising cost of living, along with a restive population believing themselves to be ill served by an autocratic government.

The world is a place of haves and have-nots, and those that have generally acquire more, while those who live in squalor and despair urgently seek to upgrade their conditions. Unsurprisingly the populations whose struggle for survival threatens to disturb the entitlements of the populations who get by very nicely, thank you, are not likely to be embraced as brothers and sisters in that struggle.

Blame is not to be apportioned, necessarily, but the situation is fairly deplorable, always has been, likely always will be. As long as human nature, geography and unstable governments have anything to say about it.

Labels: European Union, Human Relations, Israel, Middle East, United States

posted by Pieface @ Sunday, January 23, 2011