Israel’s Illegal Immigrant Disaster

The illegal immigration problems in Israel have the identical overt ramifications as any other issue in Israel, namely that the United Nations, Left and far Left NGOs, the European Union and a whole list of foreign nations are all condemning Israel and demanding that Israel give full rights and comforts to these illegal entrants into their country even as much of the rest of the world is deporting the very same peoples who illegally enter their borders. Even putting the double standards aside, there are numerous other problems these unwelcomed invaders are posing purely within Israeli borders. Many of these illegal immigrants originally come from South Sudan, Somalia, Eritrea, Nigeria, Mali, Kenya and other nations throughout Africa with almost all these peoples transverse from three to as many as seven nations, risking death in many such as Egypt where illegal migrants are often shot instead of arrested, in order to reach Israel, their intentionally chosen goal for obvious reasons. There are the obvious problems caused as many of the illegal immigrants have no employment and are even often virtually unemployable as they have little education and do not speak any of the languages commonly found within Israel. This leads to either their living in overcrowded apartments when they are able to arrange to rent living space. Many live on the streets and in bus stations and other public buildings turning them into dangerous and unusable locations. There are also the personal hygiene problems of every conceivable nature which simply add to the difficulties posed to the neighborhoods where the illegal immigrants tend to congregate. There have come to be entire areas such as some parts of Eilat and much of South Tel Aviv, both areas are where the most affordable housing exists and is where many workers from the lower end of the financial ladder reside as well as elderly on fixed incomes and others who cannot afford to live elsewhere. These people now face a situation where by sundown they must already have retreated to their homes and locked themselves inside for their own safety. Women residing in these neighborhoods are not safe going out alone even during the daylight hours and many elderly are too frightened to leave their houses to visit the doctor, purchase their prescriptions or even shop for food as they fear physical assaults from some of the illegal immigrants who own the streets in some areas.

 

Another side to the problem is the police have not provided sufficient coverage to make the streets safe for people to use and go about their day-to-day lives. The reason this is a problem has a number of facets which include but are not limited to lack of sufficient manpower to patrol all of the areas, fear that unless the police go in force that individual or paired officers do not pose sufficient threat of force and would often be outnumbered facing both superior numbers and able bodied adversaries who would show the officers little or no respect and would fight and resist any actions against them, and then even when the police do arrest or detain groups of these illegal entrants there are liberal leftist NGOs which provide bail and legal representation to them claiming that society owes these illegals a fair break and we need to understand their plight. Needless to point out, these liberal leftists come from neighborhoods where there are no illegal immigrants plaguing their streets threatening the citizens in their neighborhood so placing those from among the illegal community who do get arrested for acts of violence back on the streets poses no threat to the leftist do-gooders.

 

And that ties into the most troublesome item in the efforts to address the illegal entrants problem. Where the government has finally taken steps to secure the Israel-Sinai border and stem the influx of illegal entrants, the efforts to find solutions for those already in country have not been very effective. The Knesset for its part has passed legislation allowing for the restraining and keeping the illegal entrants in custody while their cases are deliberated and it is decided if they are actual refugees who would face threats to their lives or freedom if returned to their native lands or if they are simply illegal immigrants seeking a better life living in a society which provides them with supposed employment opportunities or where they can live on government support via the societal safety net which was intended for citizens of the nation, not for freeloaders coming from the outside world. Thus far the Israeli Supreme Court has struck down each attempt thus far to address the problems. The current Knesset passed legislation is currently under, or soon will be; challenge by Leftist lawyers whose main aim in life is to make sure that not a single illegal entrant is sent back to their home nation or is inconvenienced in any manner. The reasoning given is that Israel needs to be a nation of refuge for all people who are in need and should forget about the idea and ideals that Israel is and should act as the home of the Jewish People. These far leftists condemn Zionists as narrow minded bigots and agree with Justice Minister Tzipi Livni who recently was quoted claiming, “I want to see a liberal, Zionist Israel, not a conservative, nationalistic one.”

 

One has to know that when the leftist claim they desire a liberal Zionist Israel they define such as a nation where Jews are welcome as is everybody else and where there is no thoughts of actually defining the State as a Jewish State and where religion, especially Orthodox Judaism, holds no special place and should receive no special treatment. They believe that Israel would be best served if it became a multi-ethnic, multi-religious, socialist state where everybody and every outcome are guaranteed equal by the government and in order to prove that this liberal Israel does not regard Israel as the Jewish state it must denigrate and work against any religious Jewish agendas. This is what is behind a number of other contentious issues such as the demand by the secularists and leftists that the religious Bible studying adults must serve in the military even if that requires them to give up their dedicated Bible studies. It is behind the Women of the Wall fight to demolish the Orthodox hold of the Kotel, the plaza and Western Wall complex, and who demand that the main area be realigned to fit their demands despite the fact that the vast majority of Israelis desire the rules to remain the same. These ladies were even offered an area recently developed close to the main Kotel where they could hold their style of services and practice their form of Judaism but they demand that they be allowed at the main area and the rest of those wishing to follow Orthodoxy should use the somewhat smaller new area despite the fact that these women are a small minority. Even if they should prevail, then the newly renovated and prepared area would become the new central place for Jewish prayer. Would that then cause them to demand that area in the future? My guess is it would be exactly what would happen.

 

Israel is at a crossroads where her future is on the line; the Leftists recognize this and are in full-fledged panic. They look at the landscape of Judaism in Israel and note that they are rapidly becoming a smaller and smaller minority. They currently hold many of the government positions and have representation beyond their numbers in the courts and are using these cudgels to bludgeon Israeli society to bend to their beliefs and practices. The leftist also realize that despite the billions of dollars being poured into extreme leftist NGOs by the European Union, European governments, and numerous international leftist NGOs that they are facing a desperate situation and within twenty years Israel will more resemble Judea under King David but with a high tech economy and modern conveniences, than a modern, multi-ethnic socialist dream come true. They believe that if they can just push hard enough and get their agendas established that they will be able to make the socialist societal dream which began with the progressives of the early twentieth century into a wondrous and splendid reality. At the root driving their dream forward is the idea that Judaism and socialist humanism are basically identical and that because of this, they are the real Jews and by solving all the world’s ills through government interventions and programs they can implement a messianic perfection which has been unattainable until now. The fact that their schemes and dreams can never work in practice does not matter because true ideologues do not concern themselves with little matters such as reality. And a final point, many of these leftists believe that if Israel will just get rid of those religious fanatics, anybody who does not worship at the alter to the idol of political correctness and socialist humanism all of which has many of the same qualities as did the Hellenist Greeks, as well as those nationalist Zionists, then they can establish their perfect society free from want or blemish of any kind, where all are equal with a select few, mostly their fellow travelers, are just a little more equal than the rest, and crime and want can be vanquished and a peace can be had with the Palestinians if only those obstinate people in the government would realize the errors of their ways and accept the new world order offered by these international secular-humanist NGOs. Please, save us from those who claim they know all the answers as in reality we do not even know the extent of the questions yet.

 

Beyond the Cusp