A recent piece in The New York Times’s online Opinionator section took a whack at the issue of migrants.
Not in Israel, but in France. And while exhibiting a certain understanding of the sentiments of many of the concerned natives, the writer, an American professor who had moved to Paris in 2012 to take up a teaching position, ended by saying that “what I hear in the streets is really only an echo of the rhetoric of politicians and purported intellectuals, who have found it convenient to blame the most powerless members of French society for the instability of the present and the uncertainty of the future.”Four days after the piece appeared on January 5, the most popular talkback was by a fellow American expatriate, although one living in France for almost three decades.
It addressed the professor’s comments by saying that “it might be worth spending a lot more time in the country than you’ve spent here in your Ivory Tower….There’s racism to one extent or another in every country, but what I’ve witnessed here is much less racism and much more a simple case of wishing to preserve a national identity and culture which is being ignored by so many immigrants intent on keeping their own….”The following comments also received a lot of support: “So, France is racist for wanting to protect their [sic] own culture? If so, then the Japanese are also racist. So are Chinese, Koreans. And what about Africans? Africans are having wars all the time because of race.”“I agree with much that you say….Nevertheless, bringing those populations into a tiny country like France is not easy and I would agree with those who are native to France when they say France will never be the same.”“The western world has yet [to] develop a discourse that acknowledges the difficult truth that political and social instability have been brought on by large waves of Muslim immigration. So far, any discussion about this legitimate problem always seem [sic] to stray into either political correctness and accusations of racism (coming from the Left) or actual racism (from the Right wing).”Keeping in mind that (a) this was The New York Times and (b) the migration issue in France has mostly to do with people coming from former French colonies – meaning a lot of them are entitled to come and perhaps already have French citizenship – my observation, while not at all scientific, is that a whole lot of liberal humanists (of which I consider myself one) are not quite ready to love thy neighbor when “thy neighbor” means alien hordes at the gates.What this indicates is that our attitude toward our own migrants is entirely normal. But it doesn’t mean we should treat them the way we do.ISRAEL IS a “contracting state,” or signatory, to the UN Refugee Convention. The convention says two important things: 1. “The Contracting States shall not impose penalties, on account of their illegal entry or presence, on refugees who, coming directly from a territory where their life or freedom was threatened in the sense of article 1, enter or are present in their territory without authorization, provided they present themselves without delay to the authorities and show good cause for their illegal entry or presence” (Article 31:1).2. “No Contracting State shall expel or return a refugee in any manner whatsoever to the frontiers of territories where his life or freedom would be threatened on account of his race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social or political opinion” (Article 33:1).Ah, you might say. These people are not refugees. They’re migrants. They’re infiltrators.Not so fast.The last quarterly report issued by PIBA, the Interior Ministry’s Population, Immigration and Border Authority, says there were 53,636 African migrants in the country illegally as of October 1, 2013. A quarter of them were from Sudan, and two-thirds were from Eritrea.According to the guidelines of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), which is charged with overseeing the aforementioned convention, Eritreans cannot be turned away because there is too much political tumult back home, while Sudanese who return home could face punishment for having spent time in an enemy state. So they languish in limbo because, for some reason, the Interior Ministry is not processing their applications for asylum fast enough, and when it does it turns almost all of them down.Things have gotten so bad that many here are up in arms about the migrants, and understandably so. They take over neighborhoods. They take away jobs.They are not only not Jewish, but a lot of them, perhaps most, are Muslim.Worst of all, they stand out like the proverbial sore thumb – making them the perfect target for populist MKs like Miri Regev to show up with megaphones and shamelessly appeal to our basest fears in a never-ending trawl for votes.The saddest part, though, is that we have only ourselves to blame.Considering the fact that we have long been worried about jihadists roaming Sinai, it is absolutely mind-blowing that we left so much of a sensitive border literally fenceless for so long. It is telling that even though PIBA began keeping track of the flow of African infiltrations from Sinai starting in 2006, it took until 2011 for the government to start plugging the holes. The results speak for themselves: During the period from last January to the end of September, a grand total of 36 infiltrators made it in, with the monthly totals in a steady decline until in August there were no more arrivals.But having opened its eyes, the government has also pushed through legislation amending the country’s anti- infiltration law, part of which was struck down last year by the High Court of Justice for being a bit too draconian for a democracy. Yes, the provisions of the new amendment include an “open” facility for migrants rather than a jail – although it purposely was built in the middle of the desert, miles from nowhere, and requires the “residents” to be present for roll call three times a day.What’s more, they can be “guests” there for up to a year, although it is pretty clear that there is nothing to keep authorities from letting them out at the end of their stay and then throwing them right back in for lack of a better solution. I mean, what are the PIBA people going to do – bus them straight to south Tel Aviv? ALL THE usual suspects, chief among them the UNHCR, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, have condemned the way Israel has been handling the whole thing – which probably makes a whole lot of us think we’re doing it right. It’s a gut reaction, and it’s pretty understandable considering the hypocrisy of some of these bodies.But there must be a better way. One hint comes from PIBA’s statistics, which also track foreign workers. As of October there were 69,500 who were legally in the country, and over 14,800 more who had overstayed their work visas and were no longer considered legal.Perhaps instead of importing additional foreign labor, the refugees/migrants/ infiltrators from Africa could be given these jobs, at least getting them off the dole until their cases are sorted out – if they ever are.