Posted: 02 Jun 2012 08:06 PM PDT
Guy Bechor wrote a very powerful op-ed last week about the looming crisis of African migrants to Israel:When we published an article in 2007 about the nightmare facing Israel from Africa, many were shocked. Today, this vision has become a reality (Then, 400 infiltrators stole over the border from Africa each month; currently, about 4,000 come here illegally every month).I am always reluctant to post a charge like this, that NGOs are encouraging this migration, but some proof comes from a monograph recently put out by the UNHCR:
I realize today that I too was naive back then, when I wrote the article. I did not see the depth of the picture unfolding before us. Then I thought that the primarily reason for the infiltration was to improve the lives of the Africans who came here, as it is with the migration from Mexico to the United States, but now it appears that the image is unique to Israel.
The truth is that millions of Africans would like to immigrate to Israel to improve their lives, but it turns out that in Israel there are those who want to exploit this to change our country’s demographic balance. After they failed to let in hundreds of thousands of Palestinians into this country, these people now expect a migration of hundreds of thousands of Muslims from Africa to Israel. It’s not a war on immigration that lies ahead of us, but a war over the continuation of the Jewish majority in Israel.
A number of associations, NGOs and others have encouraged this African immigration to Israel. They begin by directing the emigration from the countries of origin, preserving it, preventing it from running into obstacles in the Sinai Peninsula, and providing it with a warm home in Israel. They have spread and continue to spread the rumor in Africa that Israel is a paradise, and that it can be reached by foot.
These are not migrant workers who stand before us, and not refugees, but a majority of African Muslims who come here to settle, and never leave.
...
And what is the plan hatched in secret by those organizations of “human rights?” When the numbers reach a quarter of a million or half a million, and we’re getting there fast, the organizations will turn to the High Court of Justice and to the United Nations, demanding that Israel grant residency to these “immigrants” and even citizenship, as is customary in the West.
With that, the percentage of Muslims in Israel will jump immediately to between 30% and 35%, with all the demographic implications that you can imagine.
Being residents, then citizens, the Africans will naturally be able to bring their family members, and the numbers will double. For those who did not want the Jews in Uganda, Uganda will now come to Israel. Being a small country, these processes will occur very fast, faster than in Europe.
Now we understand that the Muslim infiltrators from Africa (the migrants from Sudan are all Muslim, and most of the Eritrean migrants are, too) are not weak, but rather their Israeli absorbers. They are not the ones being threatened, because they are not war refugees, but rather Israel is being threatened.
The “human rights” organizations have easy access to the media, and they do not hide their desire to see Israel as a state of all citizens and no longer a Jewish or Zionist state, and from this perspective, the Muslim migrants from Africa suit their cause very well. These organizations bear direct responsibility for the new plague that has befallen Israel. They direct the migration, organize it, preserve it from the authorities, help the migrants get permits and papers, empower them, teach them how to stand up to the authorities, how to conduct demonstrations that will touch the sensitive nerves of the Israelis, and even made them a newspaper, in African languages, which is funded by the UN.
[O]ne NGO worker argued that civil society organisations advocate a perception of 'universalistic citizenship‘, where everyone should have rights. "They do not see the nationality issue as relevant, but publicly, it is not stated. In today‘s public atmosphere, we will not say it out loud because it does not serve the struggle and the strategy." As the same NGO worker argued: "the central issue here is [one that addresses] the nature of Israeli civil society, the struggle is about the character of Israel as a state, and the refugees are not really sharing this struggle, they are rather disempowered by it".
Rotter.net also translates an interview with one of the Sudanese migrants who names the left-wing Israelis associated with the New Israel Fund that helped him come into the country.
It is not the spontaneous flight of refugees from Africa that the media is implying.
(h/t Ruchie)
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