This is a brilliant post by Daniel Sieradski comparing American Jewish organizations’ tolerant attitudes toward illegal immigrants in our country and their intolerant attitudes toward the African immigrants in Israel.
Apparently, when it comes to the U.S., the Jewish community’s policy is amnesty, pathways to citizenship and family reunification – with some organizations even advising their members to break the law to aid refugees. But when it comes to Israel, the policy is, “Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on your way out.”
This post shows what Zionism is doing to American Jewish political attitudes. Dragging us right. It calls on our worst instincts. Or as Robert Lowell said of 1967: “We had a great wave of New York Jewish nationalism, all the doves turning into hawks.”
Of course, this has been precisely the accusation of white nationalists like David Duke for decades, and frankly, whether you view it positively or not, they’re right. Jewish organizations were at the forefront of immigration reform and I can probably thank my existence to their lobbying for the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965.
I do think there’s something to the claim of white racists that the Jewish community advocated immigration not simply out of liberal sympathies but out of a view that a more diverse society was less likely to exhibit marked anti-Semitism. Well, it makes sense doesn’t it? The more whites there are proportionally in America, the more likely they are to notice the Jewish minority among them and distinguish them as the other, especially in those parts of the country where blacks are only a small minority. On the other hand, add an infusion of Hispanic and Asian immigrants, and the distinction between white gentile and Jew diminishes considerably. Note that this strategy, if indeed it is one, only works to the extent that whites and minorities do not identify with each other as much as white Christians do with Jews. And of course, this is indeed the case.
AKA, “Is it good for the Jews?” The 98% of Americans who are not Jewish? Chopped liver, for sure. This fits right in with the most recent article Phil wrote here re Beinhart, where it’s pointed out that AIPAC has its own US helicopter fleet.
American Jewry isn’t as liberal on immigration as people think.
Beinart’s on this:
They’re a lot less enthusiastic about immigration. A slight plurality opposes “the U.S. government making it possible for illegal immigrants to become U.S. citizens.” On immigration, in fact, American Jews are slightly to the American Jewish leadership’s right. I think Steven M. Cohen, who conducted the poll with Samuel Abrams, has noticed this waning Jewish support for immigration before. It’s intriguing, and depressing, given that many Jews still valorize their Ellis Island roots.A poll in 2010 of Arizona’s Jewry revealed that a majority of them(again a slight one, but still) supported the harsh immigration laws.
I think what drives the national Jewish organizations is the same dynamic that drives them on the (almost) uncondintional support of Bibi; it’s another universe.
Namely, both are of fear. I think many of these organizations supported it in the beginning simply out of fear. The more homogenious(and let’s face it, white and Christian) the country was, the more exposed Jews were as a minority. By allowing more and more immigrants, there was no longer a single soft target. Also, by turning sentment around “had something happened”, there would be a much better and much more fertile soil in the mass media for receiving refugees(remember FDR turning down those Jews in WWII, most of whom perished?)
Over time, however, this became more of a practical matter. This change is now irreversible, so it makes sense to ally oneself with the newcomers and stress the similarities.
But apparently most American Jewry doens’t feel like this. Blame assimilation, intermarriage or whatnot. Certainly blame economic upwards mobility.
But we just don’t see ourselves in those illegal tresspassers coming from Mexico anymore. There aren’t large populations of Jews oppressed around the world anymore and haven’t been for decades.
Source:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/06/05/what-gives-on-american-jews-and-immigration.html
Hypocrites
‘A person who engages in the same behaviors he condemns others for.
…a person who pretends to have virtues, moral or religious beliefs, principles, etc., that he or she does not actually possess, especially a person whose actions belie stated beliefs.
One who plays a part; especially, one who, for the purpose of winning approbation of favor, puts on a fair outside seeming; one who feigns to be other and better than he is; a false pretender to virtue or piety; one who simulates virtue or piety.
Feigning to be what one is not, or to feel what one does not feel; a dissimulation, or a concealment of one’s real character, disposition, or motives; especially, the assuming of false appearance of virtue or religion; a simulation of goodness.’
But hypocrites always claim something like…. ‘but it’s different in my case, our case, for me,us,’…
Well , it isn’t really.
The thing is most people are hypocrites at one time or on one thing or another BUT even then they can recognize that they are being hypocritical even though they might not admit it.
I think the reason the hypocrisy doesn’t bother the Israel supporters is that they have completely bought into the idea that they are ‘exceptions”, not subject to most norms of the world and societies.
Are there really two policies or just two different outcomes of the policy what’s ‘good for the Jews’? Advocating humane approaches in the diaspora to play nice under the domination of the goyim while rejecting them for Israel to maintain Jewish domination? Hypocrits or just opportunists?