Oppenheim Arts & Letters

Leibler on Shepherd's Latest Book and Leftward Europe's Final Treason

People who had spent their lives campaigning for the rights of women, homosexuals, ethnic minorities and pacifism are now making common cause with some of the most violent religious bigots on the planet. This has also encouraged European elites to labor under the false illusion that they can coexist with radical jihadist elements by appeasing them.

Shepherd also describes how the Jews, who in the immediate post-war era still enjoyed warm relations with liberals and the left, have now been rejected by them. He shows in brutal terms, how these groups continue expressing concern and commemorate dead Jews, but are less inclined to support the living, especially when it comes to those residing in their Jewish homeland where, to use the lexicon of Engels, they became transformed into a "reactionary people." [1]

Above: columnist Isi Leibler commenting on Robin Shepherd's analysis in his still new book, A State Beyond the Pale: Europe's Problem with Israel [2], of the political psychology--I would call it political psychosis--characterizing a part of Europe's attitude toward the Jewish state.

Leibler makes the statement in the context of his own most recent encounter with the European intellectual community engaged on the surface in observing European-Israeli relations, but, apparantly and tragically adrift in its own appeasing and ethically ambivalent soup.  Challenged by circumstance to confront the discrepency between its open society ideals and those of the company it prefers to assuage and whose influence drowns it in hypocrisy, it mouths a demonizing and useless agenda to the ears that always listen: Israel's.

See no evil: Hamas, Hizbollah, the Palestinian Liberation Organization and assorted and related company.

Speak no evil: the suppression and persecution of Christians in the hot zones of the Islamic Small Wars, all of them civil wars, essentially, involving the tension between medieval and modern ideation; also, denial of the full suite of oppressive and draconian social policies in force in every patch ravaged by the Islamic Small Wars.

To remind my European readers of one of the the true locations of the MIddle East Conflict and the source of the erosion of their values in light for their drift and their voices, here is my favorite passage from the Hamas charter:

"There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors."

"After Palestine, the Zionists aspire to expand from the Nile to the Euphrates. When they will have digested the region they overtook, they will aspire to further expansion, and so on. Their plan is embodied in the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion", and their present conduct is the best proof of what we are saying." [3]

It's not enough to merely change the direction of the pointing fingers.  The cruelty inherent in the sustained Islamic Small Wars demands a path toward resolution, not one conducive to the encouragment of further animosity, barbarism, political chaos, and global division.  To construct that path, however, we may have to dig down further into the language-driven psychology that licenses and motivates the latest indulgences in the dark mirrors that transform Jews into Nazis and their persecutors into innocent underdogs.

There are reasons, many, for Adolph Hitler's Mein Kampf becoming a bestseller in Gaza earlier in this decade. [4]

Reference

1. Leibler, Isi.  "Candidly Speaking: Europe Has Forsaken Israel."  The Jerusalem Post, December 9, 2009, updated December 10, 2009: http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull&cid=1260181033850

2. Shepherd, Robin.  A State Beyond the Pale: Europe's Problem with Israel.  London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2009.

3. Hamas Charter: http://www.mideastweb.org/hamas.htm

4. Pryce-Jones, David. "Their Kampf: Hitler's Book in Arab Hands." National Review, July 18, 2002: http://www.nationalreview.com/29july02/pryce-jones072902.asp

# # #

Introducing - The Abraham Path

Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wA48J5AEuzM

Related URL's:

http://www.abrahampath.org/visit.php

http://internationalpeaceandconflict.ning.com/group/abrahampathinitiative

Job Announcement (Jerusalem): http://www.mepeace.org/forum/topics/opening-for-executive-director

http://api.ning.com/files/dbwdMd*RhScSF74r1IZwntM8s9d3TYrrEdT33Baj1gGnaXAWubB1pDeP7VpUWPt8lSc5hKn-WOIhnxvLX89bhJTFyeePpDh0/AbrahamPathInitiativeEDJuly09.pdf

I thought I'd just pass along the above video and URL's.  They will make their way around the web, perhaps letting the people who would "buy the world a Coke" know too that accommodation and cooperation are possible across the Middle East, so long, perhaps, as one may do without the grinches, who may one day soon be made out to look like what they are.

# # #

Paper Clips - the Documentary About Something Else

Why am I crying?

Paper Clips is a beautiful film.

And it's not because it's about the Jews: it is because it is about everyone, something the children of Whitwell Middle School in Tennessee seem to have grasped with a prescience for our times--this time--exceding that of many of the world's so-called adults.

Whether we have a God or not, and whether we may fathom what we have in the divine, or capital "D" Divine, we have most certainly one another.  Mutual indebtedness turns out a swell thing, for in Paper Clips, a documentary about a school project designed to encounter and engage a culture absent from a rural American school, and subsequently produce an engagement with the Holocaust, the resonance of the murder of six million Jews has drawn a profound and profoundly appropriate response, and one that will not exist isolated, unrecognized (hardly), nor unreturned.

I'm watching the DVD from Netflix right now.  You may take a few moments or more to watch it at your desktop at this address: http://www.snagfilms.com/films/title/paper_clips/.

# # #

Foretelling the End of Slavery

Americans have an old saying, long attributed to film mogul Sam Goldwynn: "Don't worry about the War.  It's all over but the shooting."

I've heard it noted or suggested that the outcome of America's Civil War, or as southerners continue to call it, "The War Between the States", was determined on September 17, 1862 fairly much on the landscape pictured above.

General Robert E. Lee's army had crossed the Potomac River into Maryland at Sharpsburg, extended itself across South Mountain, in whose shadow I live, and east to Frederick for provisioning and recruits.  The provisioning turned out a matter of cash trade; the recruiting, although not entirely a flop--the skirmishing on the 17th may have been set off by a Baltimore unit aligned with the south--had not gone so well.  The civilian Yankee reception turned out chilly.

Lee's assembly on the east side of South Mountain had dropped a copy of the battle plans for Sharpsburg, and these picked up by the Army of the Potomac would seem to have helped its general, George B. McClellan, rise to the occasion, something he had been unable to bring himself and his units to do while bivouaced for months in Virginia's tidewater region.

There are many descriptions of the battle online, but all agree on the facts met at the end of the day: 23,000 casualties, a field truce for a sober evening spent cleaning up some and even conversing between opposed officers, and a morning that saw Lee's thoroughly whipped army left to retreat across the Potomac to fight another day.

That other day took place in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania over the summer of the following year from July 1 to 3, and it proved so disastrous in the end that Lee himself apologized personally to those beaten and retreating from the pivotal battle of Little Round Top.  His vanity and ego had far exceded his good sense, and he had knowingly sent his men--his General Pickett's men--up a hill against a better positioned and quite "canny" force--short on ammunition, a fair portion of Union soldiers had lain hidden and held their fire until last moments, which they then followed with ferocious hand-to-hand combat.

Foretold by the dismal day at Antietam and confirmed at Gettysburg, the real and truest end of the Battle of Gettysburg took place at the first reenactment of "Pickett's Charge", Lee's disastrous decision, in 1913:

Back in 1913, just fifty years after the momentous Battle of Gettysburg, 50,000 Confederate and Union veterans returned to camp together on the fields where they had once been locked in mortal combat. The highlight, however, was a reenactment of the infamous Pickett’s Charge, in which more than 3,000 men died in a matter of minutes. But this time, instead of meeting one another with bayonets and artillery fire, the old men threw down their weapons and embraced one another. . . . .

Source: http://blogcritics.org/culture/article/q-whats-so-heartwarming-about-the/

The documentary by Ken Burns, The Civil War, contains black and white photographs or footage of that moment.

There are few uncontested assertions in the 20/20 hindsight that follows in the wake of wars as they become historical artifact for scholars, but of this be certain: Antietam stands signal as a beginning of the end of the southern plantation-based and slaveholding artistocracy that stood with its money behind the shield of "Stats Rats".

States Rights.

A latterday General Grant reminded me that seccession meant assuming ownership of the national funds forwarded for the Louisiana Purchase, essentially an act of theft from even the then loosely related "American People."

I go out to Antietam now, as do many locals, for recreation.  Bikers, hikers, joggers, birdwatchers, and, of course, photographers and others use the park as an outdoor recreation resource, but I believe most remain aware and sensitive to its dead and to its larger meaning in the American psyche and to its message to the world. 

At Antietam, "Out of Many, One" (E Pluribus Unum) and " . . . that all men are created equal" found the seeds for their implementation and their reality.

The warriors, south and north, who had never seen this thing called "a country" had traveled from every corner of it for the one day of battle.

Their children today costume up, study the maps, the journals and come out annually to do it all over again.

I'm sure a park ranger had (or has by now) removed the flags put there by a visitor from (or friend of) the historic "69th Irish Brigade" shortly after my visit--that above is a detail from their monument at Antietam. Here is a related contemporary video from the same.

Source: YouTube poster "IrishJoe3". "Civil War Reenacting With the 69th Irish Brigade." Posted July 13, 2008: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-JcCm2T1ZE

Look carefully, and you may see a multicultural Irish Brigade.

Out of Many, One.

This next photograph is mine, an interpretation of "Bloody Lane", an eroded and sunken farm road from which Confederate soldiers stood off the Union army until a position looking down the lane was obtained and the men firing from the ditch "infilladed".  The monument in the middle ground is that of the 132 Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry.

 

Reference

"Bloody Lane": http://www.88ny.net/Antietam_Bloody_Lane.htm

Wikipedia

"Battle of Antietam": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Antietam

"Battle of Gettysburg": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Gettysburg

"Little Round Top": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Little_Round_Top

"Pickett's Charge": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pickett's_Charge

# # #

ISW - Three New Legs

I wish to and will get away from commenting on what I call the Islamic Small Wars (ISW).

However, this morning, and in the way of the web as well as within the cerebral environment in which "The War" has become an entrenched part of the daily American experience, elements collide.

Geert Wilders gives a talk at this address: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CenRu4jfL3E

Time mark 14:11 then provides the lever for searching out this: H.R. 6975 - "Jihad Prevention Act", introduced in the House on September 18, 2009 with this objective: "To require aliens to attest that they will not advocate installing a Sharia law system in the United States as a condition for admission, and for other purposes." 

URL: http://thomas.loc.gov/home/gpoxmlc110/h6975_ih.xml

And readily at hand (from online chatter earlier this week) and with headquarters in Florida:

http://www.shariaacademy.com/;

Add a busy franchise in Houston: http://houstonshariaacademy.blogspot.com/.

Mix.

# # #

About Compassion - Out of Iraq

Brown, Aaron.  "The Last Jews of Baghdad."  CNN NewsNight, Aaron Brown and Rachel Zelon, Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) of New York, originally aired: October 20, 2004, and posted to YouTube March 19, 2009 by "samuelhbs2": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0hX7M7nIwc

Prior to the established and worldwide recognition of the State of Israel in 1948, Iraq (Mesopotamia) had hosted a continuous Jewish community for some 2,500 years.

Other Reference

Bard, Mitchell.  "The Jews of Iraq."  Jewish Virtual Library: http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/anti-semitism/iraqijews.html

Lyn, Julius.  "Iraq's Jews."  London Review of Books, Letters, 30:23, December 4, 2008: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v30/n23/letters.html. Excerpt:

The Jews did not leave because they were pushed by Zionist rumours or bombs. Bombs and murders in 1936 had not led to a mass exodus, and sixty thousand Jews had registered to leave before the only fatal bombing in January 1951. Until Iraq permitted legal emigration, Jews were being smuggled out at a rate of a thousand a month – because they were banned from higher education, could not travel abroad, were denied work and suffered restrictions in business. ‘But for these severe handicaps, Iraqi Jews would not have gone so far as to attempt large-scale flight from the country,’ the Jewish senator Ezra Daniel said, making his last futile appeal against the Denaturalisation Bill in March 1950.

Julius Lyn's article contains a special twist (italics mine):

The Iraqi Jews had every right to be bitter when they arrived in Israel, having lost everything. They were housed in dusty refugee camps for up to 12 years. At the time, they did experience prejudice, but so did Holocaust survivors, taunted on arrival as ‘sabon’ (soap). Today the Iraqi community is one of the most successfully integrated in Israel. Iraq-born Palestinians, meanwhile, have been denied citizenship and expelled from Iraq.

A response by Adam Shatz follows Julius Lyn's piece and provides a counterpoint, including this damning allegation:

"Writers often contrast Israel’s generous absorption of more than a hundred thousand Iraqi Jewish refugees with Iraq’s paltry acceptance of ‘only’ fourteen thousand Palestinian Arabs. But the situations are not symmetrical: Israel was determined to settle the Iraqi Jews in the Jewish state, while Iraq had no interest in settling Palestinian refugees (who for their part wanted to return home)."

Magnet, Julia.  "The Terror Behind Iraq's Jewish Exodus."  Telegraph, April 16, 2003: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iraq/1427687/The-terror-behind-Iraqs-Jewish-exodus.html.  This is an excerpt from that article:

In the past week, I have spoken to a dozen Iraqi Jews about their memories. I was expecting to hear only about suffering and persecution, but they wanted to talk about the vibrant society in which they grew up.

They recalled a privileged life: elite schools, close communities, two-storey houses with indoor courtyards and evening promenades along the Tigris. Some of the best neighbourhoods were almost entirely Jewish, because only Jews could afford the houses. "It was a good life," I was told again and again.

Pipes, Daniel.  "The Jewish Exodus from Iraq, 1948-1951." Review of book by Moshe Gat.  Middle East Quarterly, September 1997: http://www.danielpipes.org/759/the-jewish-exodus-from-iraq-1948-1951.  Excerpt from Pipes' note:

The author puts to rest the notion that Israeli agents used terrorism to get Iraqi Jews to make aliyah: "there was no connection between the bomb-throwing incidents and the departure of the Jews." The sudden rush to leave Iraq overwhelmed Israel's capacities and resulted not from mischief but from the Iraqi Jews' well-grounded sense of impending doom unless they took advantage of a unique chance to escape.

Point of No Return.  "Abbas Shiblak blames Iraqi Exodus on Zionism."  Blog, May 15, 2008: http://jewishrefugees.blogspot.com/2008/05/abbas-shiblak-blames-iraqi-exodus-on.html

Shiblak says no evidence exists that 'serious harm' was done in May 1941 when the pro-Nazi Rashid Ali was in power, ' except for a few cases of harassment'. (As Violette Shamash in Memories of Eden explains, that harassment extended to rapes, pillage and murders). Even when the government started persecuting the Jews in earnest in 1948 - civil servants dismissed from their posts, education and travel bans, arrests, extortion, internment and hangings - Shiblak says that no specific official laws could be called discriminatory.

Shamas, Violet.  Memories of Eden: A Journey Through Jewish Baghdad: http://www.memoriesofeden.com/

Sternthal, Tamar.  "AFP Whitewashes History of Iraq's Jews."  CAMERA, May 3, 2009: http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=2&x_outlet=147&x_article=1662.  Excerpt:

The Government of Iraq began to take specifically anti-Jewish steps practically from the moment of its independence; in 1934 the teaching of Hebrew was prohibited and students' entry into high schools and universities restricted. Jews began to be dismissed from certain government positions. Physical attacks on Jews in Baghdad - including murders - became frequent from 1936 on; anti-Jewish propaganda was spread by an openly pro-Nazi and anti-Zionist regime. The tension and "shadowy persecution" erupted into violence in other cities too, where local Muslim leaders used the opportunity to extort money from the Jews. (Maurice M. Roumani, The Case of the Jews From Arab Countries: A Neglected Issue, 1983).

Wikipedia.  "History of Jews in Iraq": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Iraq

# # #

A New Year -- in Ecstatic Harmony

Source: YouTube poster "cornerstonemusic".  "Mayim Medley."  Posted October 29, 2008: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjiMlEec5cU.  Caption: "Cornerstone Choir and Orchestra Sing the Mayim Medley of song with the Cornerstone CUFI singers."

Source: YouTube poster "cornerstonemusic".  "Hava Nagila Texas Style."  Posted October 28, 2008: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WF6irnzAiI

Religion mixed with politics makes the strangest bedfellows.

Well, L'Shana Tovah, my online frenemies: from time to time, it is okay to be happy and at peace, and if the two videos posted above don't make you feel happy and peaceful, Allah help you, for faith should boost one's spirits in a good way.

Credit Jerusalem Post columnist Isi Leibler with circulating through e-mail the URL's to the above videos.

Through his column, Leibler notes the following:

The principal reason for Evangelical support is that unlike other Christian groups, they reject replacement theology, which teaches that God forsook the Jews for having rejected Jesus. They respect Judaism as the foundation of Christianity and believe that the Jews will always remain God’s chosen people. They believe that the Jewish claim to Israel is based on the biblical promise from God. That may embarrass secular Jews, but for traditional Jews it remains the core of their relationship with the Holy Land. [1]

Leibler goes on to note that, "Evangelical political clout with the Democratic administration is considerably weaker than it was under president George W. Bush. Nevertheless, with more than 60 million adherents, they still represent one of the most powerful political forces in the United States."

* * *

I told my last girlfriend--both most recent and probably last forever--who wanted a Messianic Jewish household, which I interpreted as Christianity on a Jewish holiday schedule, that it seemed that "half the world wants to kill us, and the other half wants to convert us."

Personal lesson learned: Jewish culture and Judaism remain in me, at least, a breathing, organic inseparable experience.  Should such ever be consigned to "heritage", it will then be a dead thing--may it neither die in me or with me.

Still, this is a New Year, calendar day -- 4 Tishri 5770: may all start refreshed with all.

May all start with you.

Reference

1. Leibler, Isi.  "Evangelicals: An Appreciation."  Isi Leibler Candidly Speaking From Jerusalem, August 17, 2009: http://wordfromjerusalem.com/?p=1759; The Jerusalem Post, August 16, 2009: http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1249418620257&pagename=JPArticle/ShowFull

# # #

Hitler's Children Afterward -- Forward

"Katrin Himler married an Israeli Jew, the son of Holocaust survivors from Poland . . . ."

-- 

"People say you come from the Himmler family . . . and yet the father of your son is from a Jewish survivor family!" -- "And we say, 'What is the problem?'"

Reference

Source: Maya Productions.  Hitler's Children.  Documentary.  Trailer ported through AISH, September 21, 2009: http://www.aish.com/jw/s/59442977.html

Maya Productions. Hitler's Children.  Web site: http://www.hitlerschildren.com/index.html

# # #

A Larger Heart

It could be the wine.

One passes through many ages in a life.

Once down at the Cantina I was watching two girls dancing together to some slow blues, and I said to my dance instructor, a retired fireman who with his wife taught line dancing and two-stepping.  "You know," I said to him, "a couple of years ago that would have looked really hot.  Now they're just kind of cute."

:-)

So here am I looking at the web page of the founder of an online Middle East peace community, "mepeace.org". 

I am even older today, of course, and the latest in peace community web sites looks even more youthful than the two aforementioned babes, but it touches the heart, the good soul, even more.

The personality is Eyal Raviv, a thirty-something resident of Tel Aviv, and his profile page at mepeace.org is this one:

http://www.mepeace.org/profile/eyal

Right now, I'm enjoying the music (and a good pinot noir).

We expect a good spirit from youth, even the third generaton survivors of the Holocaust and the children of wanderers also who have drifted through the Jewish Diaspora for more than 1,900 years.

Welcome home, children.

Now you may deal with the world's anti-Semites, clever princes out in the Arabian Peninsula, the remnant generations of the Nazis who escaped persecution in the wake of WWII, and the militant religious zealots of Islam who well know the first five books were not only pretty good but preserved with integrity.

-------

Along such lines, I have read this week of Arabs maintaining the threads to a now surreptitious Judaism.

Source: Fendel, Hillel.  "Arabs of Jewish Descent in Israel."  Arutz Sheva, n.d.: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/132800

As a people, one may expect the Jews not to have worried much about those among them converted at the swords of Christian and Muslim potentates: more appropriate sympathy would seem extended to the butchered and the refugee.  However, with the passing of generations, it may not be so surprising--and I am not surprised at all--that the ghosts of Judaism and of the Jewish People continue to inhabit their descendants, and then to do so to the extent that they may hew in secret to their more true and bedrock beliefs.

From the above cited article:

MiSinai has spent about a half-million shekels, he estimates, on these efforts. They include visiting dangerous places deep inside Palestinian Authority-controlled territory, hearing the stories of Arabs who remember observing Jewish customs, and distributing literature to Jews and Arabs alike.

One Arab says his father told him the secret of his family’s Jewishness on his deathbed, while another one, on the backdrop of a photo of the saintly Cabalistic sage Rabbi Abuchatzeira on his wall, says their roots have been known in his family for generations. Wrapping what apparently used to be kosher tefillin on his arm, he says, “My father used to do this, and he taught us to do it whenever someone was sick or in trouble.”

I've referenced the same recently in a post titled "Semitic and Semantics": http://commart.typepad.com/oppenheim_arts_letters/2009/08/semitic-and-semantics.html

I haven't chased these pieces at the primary level, which is a primary weakness in the world's second row seat to history, but whether I'm passing along disinformation, propaganda, or marvelously true reports, what if it was wanted true?

What if the renewing Sandhedrin (http://www.thesanhedrin.org/en/index.php/The_Re-established_Jewish_Sanhedrin) sought first the redemption of the descendents of forced conversions who have kept for generations their family's secrets and rituals?

What if those who would wish to explore Judaism or convert on the grounds of identity with the people and the Land of Israel could without fear and a fair expectation of acceptance after appropriate examination?

I wrote this week about African refugees seeking freedom in Israel, which may be chimera and mixed up with the United States--modern states having modern problems--but here's the thing: there has been something always liberating and generous in the Jewish Way--the origin story remains unquestioned as one about tyranny and freedom as much as one about an imparted relationship with God: the future may lay in sharing that way, in accepting proselytes, in moving into ever more peaceful relationships secure in both the ancient faith and its emerging modern mandates.

# # #

Israel - To Be Free

Narrator: The Sudanese in the kibbuts insist they didn't come here for economic reasons, and their uncertain legal status is their most pressing concern.

Refugee: We came here to Israel just to be (pause) free."

Israeli Official: We understand what it is to be a refugee.  We know in our collective memory, from our history, for more than two thousand years, so we understand our commitment to treat them as human beings and to have a compassion, but on the other hand, everything is measurable.  The question is what we are waiting is a policy. [1]

The Guardian UK posted the above narrative via video to the web on May 2, 2008.  This morning, Reuters in a report on a shooting by Egyptian police at a border crossing with Israel noted that in addition to one deceased (shot in the head), "The other migrants, ten Ethiopians and one Eritrean, were detained. Egypt has arrested scores of African migrants, mostly from Eritrea and Ethiopia, in recent months and has killed at least eight this year."

In the subtext for Israel and mentioned toward the end of the Guardian video is the state's concern with the impact of immigration on the majority Jewish character of the state.  On this issue, the third generation of Holocaust survivers find their homeland, this despite astonishing risks, including that of being shot and detained at borders, a beacon for freedom, a think it may be but no more so than other of the world's states hosting "illegals". 

Judging from online sources--yes: journalism from the second row seat to history--the latest appears to have taken place in an atmosphere of tighting defense against illegal immigration.

Several months after the Guardian article appeared, Haaretz.com noted the introduction of regulations to forestall the return of illegal migrants who had stayed in the country and then left of their own volition, a broad class of migrant:

According to the regulation, foreign workers from visa-exempt countries who remained in the country illegally for more than 30 days and then left on their own volition would be subject to a two-year "cooling-off" period. The price to be paid by foreigners who arrived as tourists but remained in the country illegally for a period of up to 30 days is slightly lower - a no-entry period of just one year. However, a foreign worker who is caught and deported from Israel will be barred from entering the country for a period of 10 years. A tourist or foreign worker residing in the country for over a year without a permit will be barred from returning for the rest of his or her lifetime, unless he or she receives a special permit from the immigration authorities in advance. According to the regulation, foreign workers who remained in Israel legally and departed as required will not be allowed to return for a year following their departure. [3] 

I'm sure I would not use the term "crack-down" to describe a policy seeking to exercise some control over who is in the country--and a country kept in a state of war by some neighbors and in-holdings--and who is not.

More recently, this reported out by the Communist Party of Israel in July 2009,  the state would seem to want to up the ante in illegal migration penalties:

The bill would mandate five years of imprisonment for most illegal immigrants and seven years for those coming from enemy countries" or countries "that assist enemies" of Israel, such as Sudan. It also would give authorities a choice between detention and immediate deportation of illegal immigrants if authorities catch them within 72 hours of entering Israel. That clause is particularly troubling to refugee activists. Another concern is the lack of differentiation between asylum-seekers, who are fleeing persecution, and other illegal immigrants. Immediate deportation of asylum-seekers could mean returning them to a place where their lives are in danger, Khenin said. According to Khenin, it was first proposed by the Defense Ministry.

The new legislation would replace the 1954 Law for the Prevention of Infiltration, which was created to handle Palestinians entering Israel and mandates five years in prison for illegal immigrants suspected of posing a security threat. Under current procedure, most "illegal" immigrants caught entering the country are initially detained under the Infiltration Law but are prosecuted under less stringent legislation, the Entry to Israel Law, which sentences most illegal immigrants to one year in prison. [4]

Fortunately for Israel, Israel's illegal immigration problem is not only Egypt's also, geophysically and politically and by treaty, but also the problem of all open societies bearing the fallout from Eritrea, Sudan, and elsewhere.

The hardliner in me says "Convert them to Judaism!"

See how they like it.

I kid but a little, as being Jewish would seem to come with some responsibilities those in the conflicted corners of Islam and elsewhere eschew.

The dove in me appeals, however, to Canada, France, Germany, Great Britain, Sweden, the United States, and so many others who cry freedom to either engage these political sinkholes out of which refugees needs must crawl or forthrightly share the burden of them, accepting them to their own states, and educating them and their children as to how freedom works in industrious, plural, and tolerant societies.

As it has stood in Israel for some time, kibbutzim and volunteers have stepped in to help some, and more capitalist businesses, as they do elsewhere in the world, find means to support immigrant labor at the expense of indigenous workers.  However, the other side of downward market pressure (lowering costs at the expense of labor) is abuse, and following the old dictum that "Jews are like everyone else, only more so" turns up this lead:

Agricultural firm Katif Venture and Development Ltd. may grow environmentally friendly produce, but when it comes to their treatment of workers, their practices, it appears, are anything but friendly. Last week, the company and two of its managers were charged with severe maltreatment of 12 foreign workers from Thailand that they employed. [5,6]

From the The Jerusalem Post source of the above:

According to the indictment, the Thai laborers were forced to work between 15-20 hours a day, seven days a week on a farm in Kfar Maimon, near the Gaza Strip.They were paid NIS 13-15 an hour, well under the legally mandated minimum wage of NIS 20.70 per hour, and without overtime. [6]

Americans well know the music of this globalized "fence war".  Only the names of the states change, and whether the plight of refugees fleeing persecution and war or "guest workers" scraping up livings for themselves and trying to send a few shekels home, their origins and names become interchangeable too.

One thing does not change wherever in the world it may be found: Jewish idealism.

Note, please: the practices of Katif Venture and Development Ltd. have seen the same indicted and made defendents in a criminal course process. 

Who helped? 

Kav LaOved, "a nonprofit non governmental organization committed to protecting the rights of disadvantaged workers employed in Israel and by Israelis in the Occupied Territories, including Palestinians, migrant workers, subcontracted workers and new immigrants. " [7]

The Kav LaOved introductory note goes on to state that it is "committed to principles of democracy, equality and international law concerning human and social rights."

Jerusalem Post journalist Ron Friedman, who seems to be on the worker's issues beat, posted related work last month (August): "TA protest slams gov'ts 'exploitive' foreign worker policies." [8]

In Israel, Hadash, the Communist Party has an open existence.  Friedman's article covered their action:

"Foreign workers are not slaves!" yelled the protesters toward the empty buildings, which during the day house the financing arms of the businesses that demonstrators have claimed make money off the import of migrant workers." [8]

Quite a few "Oppenheims" in the world have made or left their marks (and I dearly want to do a post on that), but the closest doppelganger in name to me and my spirit might be the early 20th Century writer "James  Oppenheim" who composed the socialist workers' poem-cum-anthem "Bread and Roses," famed for its appeal for "fair wages and dignified conditions." [9]

Trust the Jews to produce a state that beckons the most desparate refugees out of Africa, supports an active and vital communist party that can actually take a worker's complaint to the police and make it stick well enough for indictment in criminal court, and "works the issues" always from "least harm" to "most good".

Were it not so, not one soul on earth would dare cross Egypt for the hope of finding freedom in Israel.

Would they could stay at home in their native lands and find the same.

Cited Reference

1. McCarthy, Rory.  "Unholy sanctuary."  Guardian UK, May 2, 2008: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/may/02/israel

2. Reuters AlertNet.  "Egypt police kill African at border, wound another."  September 1, 2009: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L1593019.htm

3. Ilan, Shahar.  "Israel clamps down on illegal immigrants: Life bans and 10-year expulsions."  Haaretz.com, October 28, 2008: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1031587.html

4. Communist Party of Israel.  "Israel: Right-wing Government Pushes Harsh Anti-Immigrant Law."  Political Affairs.Net, July 7, 2009: http://www.politicalaffairs.net/article/articleview/8759/

5. "WorkerFreedom."  "Israel: Migrant Workers / Slave Labor."  Infoshop News, September 1, 2009: http://news.infoshop.org/article.php?story=20090825001908199

6. Friedman, Ron.  "Slave labor."  The Jerusalem Post, August 23, 2009: http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1249418678799&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

7. Kav LaOved: http://www.kavlaoved.org.il/default_eng.asp

8. Friedman, Ron.  "TA protest slams gov't's 'exploitive' foreign worker policies."  The Jerusalem Post, August 10, 2009: http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1249418572788&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

9. Wikipedia: "Bread and Roses": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_and_Roses

Other Reference

Wikipedia: "James Oppenheim": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Oppenheim

The Bread and Roses Pub -- Clapham's Best Kept Secret: http://www.breadandrosespub.com/

# # #