The Double-Standard That Demands Only Israel to Solve Africa’s Economic Woes

...If Westerners would like to help them, they are free to welcome them into their own countries. Failing that, Israel deserves either some constructive help, such as an international diplomatic initiative that would force Sudan and Eritrea to guarantee their safety upon their return home, or be allowed to deal with the situation as best they can. Until they do either of those things or come up with a solution that doesn’t involve Israel being forced to accept economic refugees as legal immigrants in a manner that no other nation on the planet would ever consider, Western critics should pipe down.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary Magazine..
17 December '13..

One of the leading talking points of Israel-bashers these days is the treatment of African economic migrants who have illegally crossed into the Jewish state. Nearly 60,000 of these people who are for the most part from the Sudan or Eritrea and have no ties to the country or claim on its people have made their way to Israel in the last several years. In a nation of only seven million people living in a country the size of New Jersey, that’s the equivalent of about 2.7 million illegal immigrants showing up in the Garden State. As such, a group of this size arriving uninvited present a huge problem for any nation, even one whose entire identity is based on immigration, as is Israel’s.

But instead of sympathy or perhaps a helping hand from an international community that surely bears more responsibility for the plight of people from the Horn of Africa than Israel, its struggles to deal with this insoluble problem have become yet another club with which anti-Zionists seek to delegitimize the Jewish state. This is hypocrisy of the first order and the inordinate attention given these Africans by the Western media—such as the article published today by the New York Times—in a world where tens of millions of refugees and economic migrants are to be found, once again illustrates the double standard by which Israel is judged on any conceivable issue.

It is to be conceded that not everyone in Israel has behaved appropriately toward the migrants. Anger, insults, and threats from people in neighborhoods where illegals have concentrated, as well as from a few rabble-rousing politicians, hasn’t helped the country’s reputation. The plight of people stuck in limbo without legal status where they are and nowhere else to go should arouse the sympathy of any decent person. But the notion that it is somehow Israel’s responsibility to cope with the impact of economic distress in the Horn of Africa is not a defensible or reasonable position to take.

Were that many people to show up in virtually any country in the world, especially all the other countries of the Middle East which are ruled by various kinds of tyrants, it doesn’t take much imagination to consider the kind of treatment they would get. But in democratic Israel where Jewish religious values about welcoming the stranger are part of the culture, these African newcomers have been spared the sort of abuse they would have gotten anywhere else in the region. Indeed that, and the fact that Israel has a booming First World economy, is the only reason why so many have tried to sneak into Israel to find work. Were they just a few, they might well have been allowed to stay. But once the number reached the tens of thousands, with many working illegally and with some committing crimes, that wasn’t an option. Since deportation back to their home countries would likely result in dire consequences for the migrants and no one else wants them, Israel is stuck with them until someone can come up with a solution.

The downplayed and the played-up - The two sides of the same coin of hypocrisy.

Sarah Honig..
Another Tack..
05 July '13..

To contextualize the provocations of the so-called hilltop youth, and the possibly linked price-tag inanities, we need to visit unloved and forsaken southern Tel Aviv – From Neveh Sha’anan all the way to the Hatikva and Shapira Quarters. Their sordid streets offer an improbable but pertinent perspective for the barren rocky landscapes of Judea and Samaria.

It’s not instantly obvious but there’s much that ties the denizens of these seemingly disparate settings. In a word it’s disaffection.

Our mainstream doesn’t care about the Israeli remainder in areas of Tel Aviv that had ceased to matter to trendsetters. The same goes for those broadly denigrated as “settlers.” Tenaciously clinging to values long ago discounted by conceited talking heads, they’re physically and psychologically removed from Tel Aviv’s clubs and cafes, besides being anathema to the in-crowd’s fashion police.

The stories of those whom stuck-up snobs disown – whether they live only several run-down blocks away or beyond the sacrosanct Green Line – get no hearing, to say nothing of sympathy.

It’s enlightening to note how little fuss our tendentious media makes over some news items. Imagine the hysteria it would have pumped up had a Jew brandished a knife with a 40-centimeter-long blade, chased Arab passersby down a busy urban thoroughfare, stabbed six (one seriously) and then topped it all off with insolent V-sign gestures during his arraignment in court.

Incensed howls berating our innate racism would have reverberated around the globe. The breasts of generic Israelis would have been beaten with exultant relish and the din of righteous recriminations would have been earsplitting. Entire sectors of our society would have been lustily stereotyped. Blaming them would have been hoarsely held up as the progressive cause célèbre.

An Arab assailant would have excited less frenzy because our news-purveyors regard Arab attacks as expected, part of the course, dog bites man. Moreover, the copywriters of our conventional wisdom either subliminally anticipate no better from our enemies or, non-too-subliminally, they somewhat identify with the point of view of those who viscerally hate us. Hence, the hubbub would have been of exceedingly limited duration. Seen that. Been there. We deserve no better. It’s probably all our fault anyway. End of story.