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<h1 class="page__title title balance-text" id="page-title">Israeli
leaders delight in Europe’s cruelty toward refugees</h1>
<header class="node__header">
<p class="node__submitted">
<span class="field field-author"><a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/people/rania-khalek"
typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel"
datatype="">Rania Khalek</a></span>
<span class="field field-publication-date"><span
class="date-display-single" property="dc:date"
datatype="xsd:dateTime" content="2015-09-18T09:31:46+00:00">18
September 2015<br>
<b><small><small><small><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/rania-khalek/israeli-leaders-delight-europes-cruelty-toward-refugees">https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/rania-khalek/israeli-leaders-delight-europes-cruelty-toward-refugees</a></small></small></small></b><br>
</span></span> </p>
</header>
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<p>As most of the world looks on in horror at Europe’s atrocious
response to refugees escaping war and persecution in the Middle
East and Africa, some Israeli officials are quietly reveling in
the chaos.</p>
<p><a href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/dore-gold">Dore Gold</a>,
director general of the Israeli foreign ministry, expressed
optimism that the refugee influx will shift Europe to the right,
making it more sympathetic to Israel’s “security” justification
for its ongoing colonization of Palestine.</p>
<p>“Israel always faced the problem in the past that its national
security perspective was completely out of sync with how Europeans
were viewing the emergence of the European community and the
borderless world that was emerging,” the American-born hardliner <a
href="http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Politics-And-Diplomacy/Seeing-eye-to-eye-416085">told</a>
<em>The Jerusalem Post</em>. </p>
<p>“In the European models that existed 25 or 30 years ago, it is
kind of difficult to hear an Israeli argument. But now things may
be beginning to change a little,” posited Gold.</p>
<p>“The European perspective is beginning to sound a little bit more
like Israel’s perspective on security issues, compared to what it
was in the past.” </p>
<h2>Echoes of the Holocaust</h2>
<p>Images of refugees being corralled in trains, tracked with <a
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/04/world/europe/czech-republic-criticized-after-officers-mark-migrants-with-numbers.html?ref=topics&_r=0">numbers
on their forearms</a>, locked away and <a
href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/hungary/11857695/Video-shows-refugees-fed-like-animals-in-pen-in-Hungary-camp.html">fed
like zoo animals</a> in <a
href="http://http://abcnews.go.com/International/inside-abysmal-refugee-detention-camps-hungary/story?id=33685148">overcrowded
camps</a> and blocked with <a
href="https://www.rt.com/news/315589-razor-wire-hungary-germany/">razor
wire</a> fences from entering Hungary have recalled memories of
Europe’s darkest chapter.</p>
<p>All the while, refugees continue to die en masse on perilous
journeys to Europe, sometimes <a
href="http://news.yahoo.com/migrant-tragedy-off-greece-athens-dismisses-criticism-131745580.html">drowning</a>
on rickety boats by sea and other times <a
href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/refugees-suffocate-dead-truck-austria_55defe14e4b08dc094867ca8a">suffocating</a> in
trucks on the side of highways. </p>
<p>Frequently overlooked is the fact that these deaths are a direct
consequence of European border policies <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/rania-khalek/europes-border-policy-designed-push-refugees-sea">designed</a>
to make migration as unsafe as possible. </p>
<p>The only thing less acknowledged is the root catalyst. </p>
<p>Rapacious policies advanced by wealthy nations in the
increasingly gated Global North have destabilized and fueled the
very unrest that has produced the worst refugee crisis <a
href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-33178035">since the Second
World War</a>. </p>
<p>It’s no coincidence that many of the refugees at Europe’s
doorstep are fleeing unrest in Syria, Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan
— all countries the US and its allies have directly and indirectly
pillaged and destabilized. </p>
<h2>Keeping Europe Christian</h2>
<p>While there is plenty of blame to go around for the current
crisis, Hungary’s actions — coupled with the jingoistic rhetoric
of its right-wing Prime Minister Viktor Orban — have provoked the
most widespread revulsion. </p>
<p>Muslim refugees must be kept out of Europe “to keep Europe
Christian,” <a
href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/09/03/muslims-threaten-europes-christian-identity-hungarys-leader-says/">said</a>
Orban in an opinion piece urging Germans not to welcome Muslim
refugees. </p>
<p>“We shouldn’t forget that the people who are coming here grew up
in a different religion and represent a completely different
culture,” he insisted. “Most are not Christian, but Muslim. … That
is an important question, because Europe and European culture have
Christian roots.”</p>
<p>A statement from Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, the UN’s high
commissioner for human rights, attributed Hungary’s “<a
href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/09/17/us-europe-migrants-hungary-zeid-idUSKCN0RH1WS20150917">callous</a>”
and “illegal” treatment of refugees to “the xenophobic and
anti-Muslim views that appear to lie at the heart of current
Hungarian government policy.” </p>
<p>As it turns out, Orban’s ruling party, Fidesz, is
smitten with Israel, particularly Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu’s Likud party. During a visit to Israel in 2005, Orban
reportedly declared, “<a
href="http://hungarianfreepress.com/2015/08/22/ideas-from-israel-a-look-at-finkelstein-and-birthright-hungary/">Likud
is our natural ideological partner</a>.”</p>
<p>He has since adopted several Israeli practices. </p>
<p>Inspired by <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/birthright-israel">Birthright</a>,
a program that sends young American Jews on free trips to Israel
in hopes they will immigrate, Orban launched a <a
href="http://reconnecthungary.org">Hungarian Birthright program</a>
for North Americans of Hungarian descent. </p>
<p>Orban also tapped Netanyahu’s former political advisor, Arthur
Finkelstein, to help him consolidate power. </p>
<p>Finkelstein is a <a
href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/israeli-elections-2013/israeli-elections-news-features/understanding-the-enigma-of-arthur-finkelstein-unseen-power-broker.premium-1.483807">mud-slinging
Republican strategist</a> from the United States who has advised
countless rightwing candidates both domestically and abroad.
They include the failed presidential candidate <a
href="http://www.algemeiner.com/2013/04/11/a-tribute-to-arthur-j-finkelstein-strategist-for-u-s-conservatives-and-israeli-prime-ministers/">Mitt
Romney and more recently Avigdor Lieberman</a>, leader of
Israel’s proto-fascist party <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/yisrael-beiteinu">Yisreal
Beiteinu</a> (Israel Our Home). </p>
<p>In recent years Fidesz has deepened ties with the far right and
openly anti-Semitic <a
href="http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/ruling-hungarian-fidesz-party-adopts-policies-of-far-right-jobbik-party-a-880590.html">Jobbik
party</a>.</p>
<p>Hungary is joined by <a
href="http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/09/10/the-stunning-hypocrisy-of-mitteleuropa-refugees-poland-hungary-czech-republic/">Slovakia,
Poland and the Czech Republic</a> in refusing to take
non-Christian refugees. </p>
<p>Leaders in Poland are said to be appealing to widespread
anti-Muslim sentiment among the populace as election season
approaches. </p>
<p>More than half of those polled earlier this month agreed that
allowing Arabs and Turks into Poland would be “<a
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/10/opinion/poland-shouldnt-shut-out-refugees.html">detrimental</a>”
to the country. Some people have even suggested reopening
Auschwitz and sending the refugees there, prompting an
investigation by Poland’s prosecutor general.</p>
<p>In Warsaw last weekend, thousands of right-wing protesters took
to the streets, chanting, “<a
href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/refugees-crisis-pro-and-antirefugee-protests-take-place-in-poland--in-pictures-10499352.html">Today
refugees, tomorrow terrorists!</a>“ and “Poland, free of Islam!”</p>
<p>To make their point, the rightwing demonstrators used a cartoon
originally crafted by pro-Israel propogandists to portray Israeli
soldiers as morally superior to Palestinians, who are shown using
civilians as human shields. In reality it is <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/rania-khalek/israeli-army-uses-gaza-children-human-shields">Israel
that uses Palestinians</a>, including children, as human
shields.</p>
<div id="file-31896" class="file file-document file-text-oembed
oembed-rich oembed-default oembed-twitter">
<div class="oembed-content">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" width="550">
<p dir="ltr" xml:lang="en" lang="en">Rightwing protesters in
Poland used anti-Palestinian Israeli propaganda cartoon to
agitate against Muslim refugees <a
href="http://t.co/kK2lZoFwLU">pic.twitter.com/kK2lZoFwLU</a></p>
— Rania Khalek (@RaniaKhalek) <a
href="https://twitter.com/RaniaKhalek/status/643641616620744704">September
15, 2015</a></blockquote>
</div>
</div>
<p>Back in Israel, fans of the Maccabi Tel Aviv football team
unfurled a giant banner that read, “<a
href="http://www.haaretz.com/life/sports/.premium-1.675775">Refugees
not welcome!</a>” </p>
<h2>Keeping Israel Jewish</h2>
<p>As Hungary was making headlines for its racist pledge to build an
anti-refugee fence, Netanyahu announced the construction of a wall
along the Jordanian border to block a potential influx of Syrian
refugees. Once the barrier is completed by the end of 2015, Israel
will be <a
href="http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2015/09/daily-chart-10?fsrc=scn/fb/te/bl/ed/moreneighboursmakemorefences">entirely walled
off</a>. </p>
<p>Israeli officials claim they are helping Syrians by providing
them with medical treatment instead of asylum. But this has only
involved around 1,500 people, most of them fighters <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/content/why-has-israel-embraced-al-qaidas-branch-syria/14619">linked
to al-Qaida’s affiliate</a> in Syria. In any case, patching up
the wounded, fighter or not, and then sending them back into a war
zone, as Israel has done, does not qualify as asylum. </p>
<p>Of the five states that border Syria, Israel is the only one that
has <a
href="http://www.latimes.com/world/europe/la-fg-migrants-scorecard-20150908-story.html">not
taken in any Syrian refugees</a> for reasons identical to
Hungary’s. </p>
<p>“Israel is a very small country. It has no demographic depth and
has no geographic breadth,” Netanyahu has <a
href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/pm-israel-not-indifferent-but-too-small-to-take-in-refugees/">told</a>
his cabinet. “We must protect our borders against illegal
immigrants and against the perpetrators of terrorism. We cannot
allow Israel to be flooded with infiltrators.” </p>
<p>“Demographic depth” refers to Israel’s ideological imperative to
maintain its Jewish majority, which was engineered by the
premeditated mass expulsion of more than 750,000 indigenous
Palestinians by Zionist militias in 1948. In turn, Israel barred
Palestinian refugees from returning and labeled those who tried to
come back as “infiltrators.”</p>
<p>That is why millions of Palestinians continue to languish in
squalid refugee camps scattered across the Middle East nearly
seventy years later, making it the longest running refugee crisis
in modern history. </p>
<p>As “proud Zionist” Noah Arbit <a
href="http://http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/To-honor-thy-neighbor-416333">argued</a>
in <em>The Jerusalem Post,</em> “absorbing any amount of Syrian
refugees will only increase this demographic threat.”</p>
<p>Israel’s refusal to grant asylum to non-Jewish <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/african-refugees-israel">African
refugees</a> is rooted in the same exclusivist logic.</p>
<p>Openly referred to as “<a
href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/netanyahu-israel-could-be-overrun-by-african-infiltrators-1.431589">infiltrators</a>”
by Israeli government officials, African refugees have, like
Palestinians, been labeled a threat because they are not Jewish.</p>
<p>Israel not only <a
href="http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=8042">denies them
asylum</a>, it <a
href="http://http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/12/us-israel-africans-idUSBRE85B0IY20120612">imprisons
and deports</a> them back to the horrors they escaped, where
some have since been <a
href="http://972mag.com/exclusive-israel-deports-most-asylum-seekers-to-home-countries-where-they-face-death-or-prison/110614/">tortured
and even killed</a>.</p>
<p>In 2013, Israel completed construction of a wall along its border
with Egypt to block African refugees from entering the country.
Hungary and Bulgaria have reportedly <a
href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/09/03/us-europe-migrants-israel-fences-idUSKCN0R31GE20150903">expressed
interest</a> in buying Israeli equipment for their own borders. </p>
<p>Slamming Netanyahu’s embarrassingly open indifference, Isaac
Herzog, leader of the opposition Zionist Union, <a
href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.674717">wrote</a>
on his Facebook page, “You’ve forgotten what it means to be Jews.
Refugees. Persecuted. The prime minister of the Jewish people does
not close his heart and the gate when people are fleeing for their
lives from persecution, with their babies in their hands.” </p>
<p>It is difficult to take Herzog seriously given his party’s
indifference towards Israel’s cruel treatment of African refugees,
not to mention its refusal to allow Palestinian refugees to
return, a policy Herzog’s Labor (part of the Zionist
Union) instituted. </p>
<p><a href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/zeev-elkin">Zeev
Elkin</a>, Israel’s immigration minister, slammed Herzog’s
appeal as an “<a
href="http://http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Politics-And-Diplomacy/Netanyahu-Israel-not-indifferent-but-cant-absorb-Syrian-or-African-refugees-415374">attempt
to bring</a> the [Palestinian] ‘right of return’ through the
back door. That is not responsible, and it is forbidden that it
should happen.”</p>
<p>In the case of Palestinian refugees, the Israeli response is
arguably more absurd. Israel is not denying Palestinian refugees
asylum but rather their <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/right-return">right to
return</a> to land they were violently expelled from.</p>
<p>It’s hard to imagine anyone arguing against the right of Syrians
to return to Syria should they choose to do so when the country is
no longer engulfed in war. Yet the idea that Palestinians should
have the right to return to their homeland is considered by many
to be preposterous, even anti-Semitic.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, under Israel’s discriminatory Law of Return, the
purpose of which is to boost the Jewish majority, a Jew from
anywhere in the world with no connection to land can immigrate to
Israel. </p>
<p>In June, Elkin beseeched French Jews to “<a
href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/come-home-israeli-minister-urges-french-jews-amid-terror-wave/">come
home</a>,” insisting “Anti-Semitism is growing, terrorism is
running rampant, and according to reports, ISIS is committing
murder in broad daylight.”</p>
<p>“We are prepared to open our arms to the Jews of France,” he
said, adding, “This is a national mission of the highest
priority.” </p>
<p>A month later, Elkin <a
href="http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/news/headlines-breaking-stories/326071/minister-of-absorption-zeev-elkin-to-greet-nefesh-bnefesh-arrivals.html">greeted
221 new Jewish immigrants</a> who left comfortable lives in the
United States and Canada to settle in historic Palestine. A total
of 4,000 North American Jews are expected in Israel by the end of
2015.</p>
<p>The similarities between European far right and Israeli
government policies were best distilled by <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/arnon-soffer">Arnon
Soffer</a>, an Israeli demographer nicknamed <a
href="http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/The-European-refugee-crisis-will-not-end-well-says-Israeli-professor-415503">the
Arab counter</a> due to his compulsive fixation on the
“demographic threat” posed by Palestinian babies.</p>
<h2>Bizarre paradox</h2>
<p>Rejecting calls to accept Syrian refugees, Soffer explained, “We
are a very small country … please leave me some space for
additional Jews to come.”</p>
<p>He went on to relate Israel’s anti-refugee imperative with
Europe’s. </p>
<p>“Europe potentially can open its doors and accept more and more
refugees, but if Europe says no, I can understand because they are
afraid [of] the Muslims,” said Soffer. “This is a clash of
civilizations and it will not happen in Africa or Asia. It will
happen in France, Hungary and will eventually reach England and
Germany.” </p>
<p>Orban and Netanyahu share a clear affinity for jingoistic saber
rattling against Muslims, but the same cannot be said for the
response their behavior elicits.</p>
<p>While Orban has been <a
href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/09/12/us-europe-migrants-idUSKCN0RC0GL20150912">likened
to a Nazi</a>, Israeli leaders have been granted special
immunity from abiding by the most basic standards of equality, not
in spite of the Holocaust but rather because of it. The US State
Department has gone so far as to <a
href="http://www.state.gov/j/drl/rls/fs/2010/122352.htm">classify</a> as
a form of anti-Semitism “comparisons of contemporary Israeli
policy to that of the Nazis.”</p>
<p>This has created a bizarre paradox where the Holocaust is invoked
to demand inclusiveness and sympathy for refugees in Europe,
while being simultaneously deployed to excuse racist Israeli
practices. Indeed, Israel’s existence as an exclusionary settler
state is deceptively justified as a necessary response to the
world’s indifference to the Nazi genocide of European Jews.</p>
<p>Consequently, language that is being condemned when spoken by
European leaders is routinely excused when uttered in reference to
Israel and Palestine. When the subject matter is Palestinian
refugees, liberal rhetoric on both sides of the Atlantic becomes
indistinguishable from sentiments typically relegated to the far
right. </p>
<p>Warning about the threat posed by “higher Palestinian population
growth and <a
href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/can-israel-remain-a-democracy/2015/03/20/49d766a8-cf06-11e4-a2a7-9517a3a70506_story.html">fertility
rates</a>,” as <em>Washington Post</em> columnist Dana Milbank
did in February, is perfectly acceptable mainstream discourse.</p>
<p>The same goes for describing Palestinian refugees as a “<a
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/01/world/middleeast/netanyahu-lashes-out-at-criticism-of-israel.html">demographic
death warrant</a>,” as <em>New York Times</em> Jerusalem bureau
chief Jodi Rudoren did this past summer. </p>
<p>Hungary’s Orban would certainly approve. <br>
</p>
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