I took a lot of flak for characterizing Netanyahu’s Israel as follows in “Israel Votes to Become More Like (old) Apartheid South Africa,” March 18, 2015.
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Election Day in Israel yesterday was full of surprises; none more so than the desperate declarations and exhortations Bibi Netanyahu made to get his supporters to the polls.
He not only declared that there will never be a Palestinian state as long as he’s prime minister, but also exhorted right-wing Jews to help him stay in power to honor this declaration:
The right-wing government is in danger. Arab voters are going in droves to the polls. Left-wing NGOs are bringing them on buses.
(The Jerusalem Post, March 18, 2015)
Imagine the outrage (national and international) if Mitt Romney had done something like this on Election Day in 2012 (i.e., exhorted white voters to get to the polls because black voters were going in droves, putting his plan to’ take back our [white] government’ in danger…).
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Well, I hope this vindicates my characterization:
Israel said on Wednesday it would pay thousands of African migrants living illegally in the country to leave, threatening them with jail if they are caught after the end of March.
The vast majority came from Eritrea and Sudan and many said they fled war and persecution as well as economic hardship, but Israel treats them as economic migrants.
Netanyahu has called the migrants’ presence a threat to Israel’s social fabric and Jewish character, and one government minister has referred to them as ‘a cancer’.
(Reuters, January 3, 2018)
In other words, it appears Netanyahu believes Israel should be not only a Jewish state free of Arabs, but a white one free of blacks as well. This excerpt from “American-Style Racial Protests Erupt in Israel,” May 6, 2015, explains why I find the latter prospect especially disheartening.
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American-style racial protests have been erupting in Israel for days now – complete with rolling clashes between the police and destitute, disaffected, disenfranchised and disillusioned Israeli citizens of African descent. …
Simmering grievances among blacks in Israel, which finally boiled over last week, are all too familiar. After all, similar grievances have been simmering (and boiling over from time to time) among blacks in America for decades – as embering protests in Ferguson and Baltimore throw into stark relief. What’s more, similar grievances have been simmering (and boiling over from time to time) among blacks in Europe in recent years.
All the same, these protests in Israel are unique in at least one respect.
For, unlike blacks in America, blacks in Israel are not descendants of slaves Israel’s forefathers imported; and unlike blacks in Europe, they are not descendants of migrants from foreign countries Israel colonized.
Instead, they are the offspring of African Jews who Israel – the purported homeland of all Jews – airlifted from chronic privation and strife in Africa as an article of religious faith. …
This is why it damns Israel’s soul that it is treating these ‘chosen’ blacks (a.k.a. sons of the Cush) no differently than America treated its legacy blacks, or Europe its colonial blacks. A May 3 editorial in the Jerusalem Post put this treatment into particularly dismaying context. For it highlighted that black Jews demonstrate their gratitude and loyalty to Israel by enlisting in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) at a level of 86 percent, compared to white Jews – who enlist at just 74 percent. …
To be fair, a May 4 editorial hinted at national redemption. Because it charged rather indignantly that Israel has a moral obligation to assimilate these black Jews:
We brought Ethiopian Jews home, but now we must make them feel at home, for their sake as well as ours.
Blacks in Israel should not hold their breath, however. After all, editorials have been charging for nearly 150 years that America has a moral obligation to fully and fairly assimilate its black citizens.
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That said, Netanyahu’s declared intent to excise this “cancer” from Israel is troubling. Even more so is that President Trump has emboldened him. Netanyahu is trying to ensure that Africans and Arabs compose no more than a negligible percentage of Israel’s immigrant population. But he is only aping the open and notorious way Trump is trying to ensure that Mexicans, Muslims, and Africans compose a decreasing percentage of America’s immigrant population.
I have lamented the latter in such commentaries as “Trump’s America Showing ‘Shades’ of Hitler’s Germany…?” August 25, 2017, and “Obama Joins Chorus Warning about Trump’s America Aping Hitler’s Germany,” December 11, 2017.
Sure enough, their common cause became manifest when Trump announced that America would recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. I decried their racist folly in “Recognizing Jerusalem: Trump’s America and Netanyahu’s Israel against the World,” December 7, 2017.
Related commentaries:
Israel apartheid south Africa…
American-style protests in Israel…
Recognizing Jerusalem…