By Joseph Dana
Yesterday morning, Nefesh B’Nefesh had the first in a series of summer 2009 celebrations greeting its charter flights packed with new immigrants from North America. Nefesh B'Nefesh is a non-profit organization that encourages and facilitates Jewish immigration to Israel from North America and the United Kingdom. They expect to bring over 3,000 immigrants to Israel over the course of the summer, in addition to the 20,000 they have brought since 2002. Attending the ceremony were the Israeli Minister of Transportation, Israeli Minister of Immigrant Absorption, the Chairman of the Jewish Agency, the CEO of EL Al Israel Airlines and the two American Jewish founders of Nefesh B’Nefesh.
Nefesh B’Nefesh, along with the Jewish Agency and the Israeli
government, is intentionally encouraging new immigrants to move to
illegal settlements. Of the 232 immigrants who arrived in Israel yesterday, seven families were going to settle in Ma’aleh Adumim, along with a handful of people moving to Efrat inside the Gush Etzion settlement block. Both of these areas are considered to be illegal Israeli settlements according to international law. President Obama has recently called on Israel to cease all settlement growth and activity. The Israeli government has, in turn, argued that it must be able to continue what it calls "natural growth," or building within existing settlements for the children of residents. But even using their own logic, "natural growth" certainly can’t include new immigrants from the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom.
Nefesh B’Nefesh will succeed in bringing family after family to the settlements in effect having an American based nonprofit organization directly contributing to Israeli settlement growth (click here to see upcoming Nefesh B'Nefesh events in the US). Furthermore, important staff members of the Nefesh B’Nefesh organization are settlers by their own admission.
In addition to Israel’s stalling of evacuating outposts it has itself slated for dismantlement, the Obama administration faces another crucial obstacle in its efforts to implement a freeze on Israeli settlement growth: American citizens moving there.
