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<a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/mya04222011.html" eudora="autourl">
http://www.counterpunch.org/mya04222011.html<br>
</a></font><font size=2 color="#990000">April 22 - 24, 2011<br><br>
</font><h1><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4><b>Detention and
Deportation in Israel<br><br>
<br>
</i></font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=5 color="#990000">A
New Nakba?</b></font></h1><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4>By
MYA GUARNIERI<br><br>
</font><font size=3><i>Tel Aviv.<br><br>
</i>Several weeks ago, Israeli authorities arrested M, a pregnant woman,
along with her three-year-old, Israeli-born son. The young familysans
the father, who had been deported several months beforewas briefly
detained then expelled from the country. <br><br>
But don't break out those Palestinian flags just yet. This was a family
of migrant workers. <br><br>
The father is Thai; the mother, Filipina. They both arrived in Israel,
legally, on state-issued work visas. Here, they met and fell in love. And
that's how they became "illegal."<br><br>
The father lost his visa because of an Israeli policy that forbids
romantic relationships between migrant workers (read: non-Jews). The
mother lost her legal status due to the governmental policy that forces
women to choose between their visa and their baby. M made the choice most
women wouldafter she gave birth, she refused to send her infant to live
with extended family in a faraway land. So she became
"illegal", along with her child.<br><br>
About a week after M and her toddler were deported, the Israeli High
Court struck the latter policy down (pointing out in its ruling that the
policy was actually breaking the state's own labor laws). While future
families might be spared, the current expulsion that will see some 500
children kicked out of the country, along with their parents, has already
begun. And, so far, there is no sign that the High Court ruling will be
applied retroactively. (Given the state's tendency to ignore left-leaning
court decisionsincluding the 2007 order to reroute the separation
barrier that has sliced the West Bank Palestinian village of Bilin into
twoit's unclear whether the policy will indeed be changed.)<br><br>
And so the deportation continuesone family at a timein the name of
preserving a "Jewish and democratic" state. <br><br>
***<br><br>
At first glance, migrant workers might seem unrelated to the Palestinian
struggle. But migrant workers were introduced to Israel during the First
Intifada to replace Palestinian day laborers from the Occupied
Territories. While the siege on Gaza is often discussed as something that
began suddenly in 2006, it is the most severe manifestation of a gradual
closure that the Israelis started during the First Intifada. Despite the
fact that the Palestinian resistance to the occupation was, by and large,
nonviolent at the time, this gradual closure included restrictions on
movement. In some cases, it prevented Palestinian laborers from reaching
their jobslow-paying jobs that Israelis didn't want, jobs that are now
held by migrant workers.<br><br>
Having replaced those other "others"Palestiniansforeign
laborers and their children have become the new battleground for Israeli
nationalism. Interior Minister Eli Yishai has called the kids "a
demographic threat… liable to damage the state's Jewish identity."
During his tenure as Finance Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu called
Palestinian citizens of Israel a "demographic problem". As
Prime Minister, Netanyahu has extended this racist rhetoric to non-Jewish
foreigners in general, lumping African asylum seekers and undocumented
migrant workers into one group that poses "a concrete threat to the
Jewish and democratic character of the country."<br><br>
But nationalism cuts both ways. And those who oppose the deportation also
tend to frame their arguments in patriotic terms. <br><br>
Israeli Children is the most prominent grassroots movement that was
formed in response to the planned deportation, which initially included
1200 children and was announced in the summer of 2009 (the same year
Israel issued a record number of visas to bring new migrant workers). As
the name suggests, its leaders and affiliated activists emphasized how
quintessentially Israeli the kids facing deportation are. <br><br>
Last May, a massive rally against the expulsion was held under a blue and
white banner that read, "We don't have another country." A
tweaking of the title of a beloved Israeli folk song, "I don't have
another country," the event drew over 10,000 supporters. <br><br>
But the movement against the deportation was a victim of its own success.
<br><br>
In August 2010, the Israeli cabinet voted on arbitrary criteria that
would allow most school-aged children to be naturalized. In other words,
these 700 kids were considered Israeli enough to stay. Forget about human
rights for the little ones (and for the older ones who have already
graduated from Israeli schools). <br><br>
Now, as the deportation is being carried out, Israeli Children is
struggling to bring media attention to the issue. <br><br>
"When people are against the deportation, they always imagine a
10-year-old that speaks Hebrew and goes to the Israeli school
system," says Rotem Ilan, co-founder of Israeli Children. "When
they are talking about a 3-year-old, they don't see him in the same
way..."<br><br>
"When we talk about the younger children, we talk about basic human
rights," she adds, "[I can't] say that a one year old is
Israeli. And yet I don't believe that these children should be in
jail."<br><br>
The movement's success and, now, its failure points to the issue facing
the "Jewish and democratic" statehuman rights, stripped down,
pure and simple. <br><br>
***<br><br>
Amongst friends and colleagues, I have angrily referred to this
deportation as the new nakba. Arabic for catastrophe, it refers to the
dispossession that befell hundreds of thousands of Palestinians when
Israel was established in 1948. As my friends and colleagues are keen to
remind me, invoking the nakba for this current expulsion is a mistake, it
deflates the power of the word. <br><br>
But we need a word. Something must be a said about a state that brings
non-Jewish migrant workers and, in denying their basic human right to
love and make love, treats them as little more than machines. Something
must be said about a state that, some 60 years ago, treated humans like
objects to be moved outside of its newly forged borders and continues to
do so today. Something must be said about a state that arrests and
deports children whose only "crime" is being born to a
non-Jewish mother.<br><br>
<b>Mya Guarnieri</b> am a freelance journalist and writer based in Tel
Aviv. I am a regular contributor to Al Jazeera English. She can be
reached at: myaguarnieri(at)gmail(dot)com<br><br>
<br><br>
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