Two weeks back we picked up Daniel Sieradski’s great reporting showing that American Jewish organizations are very liberal in their support for illegal immigrants in the U.S. but become reactionary when the issue is illegal immigrants to Israel.
Well earlier this week Sieradski posted a twitter argument about the story that he had with Jeremy Burton, head of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston, a member organization of the JCPA, a national body that lobbies on behalf of the Jewish community.
I have picked up most of the argument below. Fabulous. Hat’s off to Sieradski for exposing the transformation of Jewish political thought when it comes to Israel. Dialogue begins with Jeremy Burton commenting on a Haaretz post on the subject:
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What @haaretzonline writer fails to frame is that we apply different benchmarks to having a say on our country’s issues than on Israel’s.
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@mobius1ski See my follow up tweet. You cant equate domestic US & Israel on via-a-vis Jewish orgs positions on this. -
@mobius1ski Immigration is a moral, economic & security issue. Our sense of “agency” to speak on it differs in our country & in Israel.
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@mobius1ski vis-a-vis Israel, mainstream Jews will talk about the moral issues, but will defer on the security issues.
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@mobius1ski Fairly open US immigration supports & sustains the immigrant character of our nation.
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@mobius1ski Non-Jewish immigration to Israel has the potential to challenge the Jewish character of the state.
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@mobius1ski All of which is to say that the nuances of US & Israel are different & it is simplistic thinking to accuse orgs of hypocrisy.
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@mobius1ski And we Jews, by & large, dont support the American whiteness argument
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@mobius1ski Israel is a nation of Jewish immigrants & you know it. Are you just trying to twist words & facts?
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@mobius1ski Always good to go with name calling. Very mature way to discuss a serious issue.
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@mobius1ski Calling my/communal orgs “hypocrites” general would be seen as name calling.
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@BurtonJM calling your org’s position hypocritical isn’t calling you a name, it’s making a basic factual observation
“The more diverse American society is the safer [Jews] are,” Glickman told the Forward.
Of course it’s hypocritical. Burton is another example of the Pilpul Truth argument—whatever is good for the Jews is the unchallengeable moral right and exception to everything.
Doesn’t matter to them the rest of the world is floored by the obvious hypocrisy.
And a demonstration of why people like Dan have to be careful, because inevitably, the arguments he makes will be misused here to undermine Jewish political self-determination. Dan is a Zionist.
Does anyone deny that immigration issues differ from country to country?
Look, it’s simple. Let’s inundate Egypt with black African refugees and see how society reacts. There are 83m people in Arab Republic of Egypt; tens of thousands of African refugees shouldn’t be a problem for them.
What’s that? The refugees come through Egypt? And Egypt shoots at them as a matter of policy?
What’s that? Leftists don’t care about Arab human rights violation and societal racism in Arab countries?
RE: “Non-Jewish immigration to Israel has the potential to challenge the Jewish character of the state.” ~ Jeremy Burton
DAVID DUKE AND OTHER WHITE SUPREMACISTS MIGHT WELL SAY: “Non-White immigration to the U.S. has the potential to challenge the White character of the country.”
ALSO SEE: “How white were the Israelites? Facial reconstruction may be surprising”, By Ofri Ilani and Haaretz Correspondent, 11/14/08
Israeli anthropologist claims the subjects of the Kingdom of Judea looked more like black Africans.
LINK – http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/how-white-were-the-israelites-facial-reconstruction-may-be-surprising-1.257245
AND SEE: “80 refugees are rounded up as Israel’s Interior Minister declares, ‘this country belongs to the white man’”, by Allison Deger, Mondoweiss, 6/12/12
SOURCE – https://mondoweiss.mystagingwebsite.com/2012/06/80-refugees-are-rounded-up-as-israels-interior-minister-declares-this-country-belongs-to-the-white-man.html
no American policy or official should ever advocate for anything other than democratic pluralism and equal rights … the notion of a “Jewish state” is antithetical to American values and laws