Palestinian MK Ahmad Tibi [Raam-Taal] tweeted this status on Friday:
I oppose the entrance of infiltrators from Eritrea because they are coming to work instead of the Palestinians, but if they are here, they should be treated in a humane way, and not with the barbarity of (MK Danny) Danon and (MK Miri) Regev
Some Israeli liberals on Twitter attacked Tibi for the first part of the sentence, and he later said that he should have not used the term “infiltrators” but instead refer to the Africans as immigrants who seek work. Eritrean citizens comprise most of the Africans who have entered Israeli in recent years, and most Eritreans are recognized as refugees by the rest of the world, due to the murderous dictatorship in their country. Tibi, like most of the Israeli public, prefers to see them as illegal aliens who seek a better life in Israel.
This is not the first time that the Palestinian leadership in Israel refuses to take part in opposing measures taken against the African asylum seekers. In many ways, the Africans are indeed “the other’s others” here. Though I never heard from Palestinian MKs the kind of angry and often racist rhetoric right-wing Knesset members use on this issue, it’s clear that the Arab leaders are reluctant to stand in solidarity with the asylum seekers, as much of the Israeli left sometimes tries to do. In January, when the Knesset voted in favor of the infamous infiltration bill – making it possible to detain illegal aliens, including minors, for three years or more – not a single Palestinian MK joined Labor and Meretz in opposition to the bill. The only non-Zionist MK to oppose it was Dov Khenin, a Jew from Hadash.
It’s easy to understand why Palestinians do not welcome the asylum seekers. Not unlike poor Jews living in south Tel Aviv, they see the Africans as an economic threat, competing with them for the same limited resources, and for the low-paid positions available to them. “They are brought to replace the Arab workers!” replied Tibi to a tweet criticizing him.
Tweet by MK Ahmad Tibi, opposing the entry of African 'infiltrators' into Israel but also the racist comments against them
Though I think MK Tibi got things wrong – Eritreans are not “brought” to Israel – the angry comments he got from leftists Jews showed to what extent they project their liberal views on the Palestinian population they claim to support. This is a practice that is bound to lead the left to many more such disappointments. Both sides of this debate don’t get the other’s position: Tibi doesn’t understand that liberals apply the same universal values to the Palestinians and the African asylum seekers, and his critics miss the special position of the Palestinians of ’48 vis a vis “the new other,” who can be seen as yet another invader to whom they are losing their land. Israelis also overlook the special place the word “refugees” holds in Palestinian discourse: “If [you have] refugees [enter], why not refugees who have emotional, family or historical attachment to this land?” wrote Tibi to one of his critics.
What I find lacking in this conversation is a regional, or even international, perspective. Both Israelis and the few Palestinians who take part in this debate treat the refugees as if they are a new and very local problem. The world has seen waves of immigration from poverty stricken or war-torn countries in the past, and will continue to do so in the future (probably in greater numbers than ever). Any modern country should come up with a policy regarding this unauthorized immigration, comprised of more than the creation of high fences and huge mega-prisons – one that reflects a balance between international commitments and the values and the needs of the community. The main problem in Israel right now is that a huge coalition led by a powerful prime minister is doing nothing but inciting the Jewish public against the Africans.
Moreover, Israelis have become accustomed to seeing Africa as a playground for commercial initiatives and arm deals. It’s hardly surprising that we are one of a handful of countries who have full diplomatic contacts – and maybe more – with the Eritrean dictatorship, the same one leading to the flight of its citizens to our southern borders. Ephraim Sneh, a former security official and Labor minister, is a proxy to the president of Eritrea; this week he was running between TV studios, assuring everyone that it’s perfectly safe to deport the asylums seekers back to their country, despite the opposite opinion held by most of the international community.
More responsible political behavior and a real interest in Africa should also be one of the lessons of the racial riot in Tel Aviv.
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Aaron the Fascist Troll
The Zionist left (what the hell are “Israeli liberals”?) are always being disappointed with their Arabs, their Others. Remember that Edward Said used to refer to “the all-purpose Amos Oz” because Oz used to keep getting disappointed and move to the right for a few minutes?
Anyway, once again I find myself agreeing with Ahmed Tibi: keep ‘em out, but make sure that those who are already here are treated humanely. Agreed that the policy must consist of more than “the creation of high fences,” but the creation of high fences is an excellent and indispensable place to start. Once those fences are built, “a real interest in Africa” will be unnecessary, at least as far as further migration is concerned.
That Hebrew word מסתננים sure gets a lot of attention. “Infiltrators” is the literal translation, but is the Hebrew really that derogatory? Doesn’t it just mean people who have entered by evading, or “filtering through,” the official barriers? I mean, Ha’aretz uses that word, and I don’t think they’re a xenophobic right-wing hate site.
caden
But wait, shouldn’t Tibi be siding with the Africans against the “zionist entity”. Or is it possible this is really about economics.
Noam Sheizaf
@Aaron: I kind of find the Hebrew word worse, due to the historical context (from the 50s). I touched it in the previous post on the issue.
Rowan Berkeley
In english it definitely has the connotation of fifth columnist or spy, someone by definition treacherous and disloyal, who for military-political reasons (not merely economic or cultural ones) would not have been allowed entry if they had openly sought it.
.
It doesn’t seem worth commenting on what Tibi said, except to ask what Tibi would have gained by being a good liberal.
Shlomo Krol
Palestinian leaders and most of the public opposed in the past (and many oppose today) the Jewish immigration, too. Too often, this opposition was violent: pogroms, wars, terror attacks. As much as I respect dr. Tibi, I think, that his anti-immigration stance should be condemned, as well as the opposition of the Palestinian leadership and part of the public to the Jewish immigration (and denial of the historical rights of Jews in this land).
Shlomo Krol
And, of course, the pogrom, commited by the mob, incited by the fascist Knesset members in Hatikva, must be condemned, too, as well as the absence of liberal immigration policy in Israel, the anti-immigrant rhetorics of the government, its failure to provide decent conditions for naturalization and absorbtion for the newcomers.
Piotr Berman
Real life is complicated and it is hard to create “pure classification”. Israel is definitely not the ONLY country with such a problem. The term “infiltrators” for refugees seems peculiar to Israel.
As example, consider a wave of Somali refugees in Ethiopia. Because of draught, their flocks died out and they lost resources to survive, and because of the fighting of Shabab (spelling?) with government and domination of the Shabab where they live they are subjects of repression. Are they economic migrants or political? A single area has 150,000 of these refugees. Lack of food kind of qualifies as economic need …
In Eritrea, the reports say that military service of 18 months is being arbitrarily extended so about 7% of population is effective free (slave) workforce for the government. Refugees from that military may be viewed as either common criminals, deserters, or economic migrants, they have a preference for work with payments, or as subjects of repression.
Clearly, Israelis have fewer problems if those people are not in Israel, like Somali pastoralists on Ethiopian border. In a perfect word, Eritrea would accept them and refrain from repression. Is it repression if you are placed in slave workforce “like everybody else”, or denied a passport like big majority? Actually, at least 50,000 Eritreans have jobs in Persian Gulf region and remittances from those Eritreans are main reason why the government is not bankrupt. I guess that every prospective economic migrant would prefer to fly to Doha or Dubai and get a job there rather than trek through Sudan, Egypt and Sinai through untold dangers and then be in the “paradise” of Israel.
Mohammad Ahnouch
I reckon that it is indeed very difficult for israeli arabs to distance themselves emotionally from the cause of african immigrants for them to make an objective judgement. We have to admit that they first have no say and that the feeling of being ‘politically’ oppressed in their own land definitely leads them to think that future would be harder for them if they are to share the ‘crumb’ with others
The situation reminds me of a parallel scenario that has occured in my country Morocco 5 centuries ago. When Sephardic spanish jews came to Morocco. They were not welcomed at all by the local jewish community that has feared that those new-comers would cause more intolerance towards jews and also it feared that the new spanish jews would reshape the Moroccan jewish life and take the lead : which exactly happened afterwards. It took a lot of time for both groups to inter-marry. The opposite phenomenon occured in India where jews have adopted a parallel cast system in which the iraqi baghdadi families who moved in the 19th century refused to interact with the more native jewish community. So israeli left does not have to be disappointed but it has to be smart enough to be understanding of those phenomena and to help bring palestinians in the fight for the case of those ‘alien refugees’
RichardL
It’s a no-win situation from wherever you look at it. Even without corruption, greed and racism we would still be left with a 7 billion world population rising exponentially. We can’t even feed this population now (despite destroying the oceans in an attempt to do so) and the distribution systems are not in place anyway. Israel could deport all the Africans (and might even do that yet) but it will still be left with the Haredim population doubling every 12-20 years (Wikipedia). Israel’s very own family time bomb ticking away which when it goes off will trigger this whole situation again whether or not there is a single black African or Palestinian anywhere within 100 miles.
The Eritrean problem would be best dealt with in Eritrea, same as the Somali pirate problem should be dealt with in on the land in Somalia. That is to say there needs to be real development, whose genuine committed purpose is real improvement of living standards in poor African countries. So that people do not need to take insane death-defying risks in order to try to get somewhere where they can even get the flimsiest hope of a reasonable existence. Real development in the poor world is in the interests of the developed world. We ignore it at our peril, but we are going to ignore it anyway because intelligent life here on earth is a fantasy.
Incidentally anyone know how much Israel’s annual aid budget is? Last time I looked Israel was the only OECD country for which stats were not available. I wonder why?
Jack
Sholomo Krol,
Funny you stopping short before condemning the terror, cleansing and denial of some 1000s of years of palestinian ties (which actually matters today, legally).
Mohammad Ahnouch
Shlomo Krol was compelled by his wife to wish the dishes today.. please show the required sympathy and empathy towards him
max
Noam, it isn’t only that the ‘real’ Israeli Left finds itself disconnected from its proteges and what they want and think, it’s also the continuous exaggerations that make one wonder whether the left really believes in its claims, and how much respect it has to people.
.
“Tibi doesn’t understand that liberals apply the same universal values to the Palestinians” – you really think he’s such a simpleton?
.
“The main problem in Israeli right now is that a huge coalition led by a powerful prime minister is doing nothing but inciting the Jewish public against the Africans”
How long does the huge coalition exist? What has that prime minister say? How has the Left helped in coming up with a solution? How long has the Left been pretending that there’s no problem, sending _anyone_ out of Israel is immoral, and just referring to the problem is racism?
.
“It’s hardly surprising that we are one of a handful of countries who have full diplomatic contacts”
Eritrea maintains diplomatic relations with the United States, EU, Italy, United Kingdom, Germany, Norway, France, Sweden, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Russia,…
.
But a first positive step has been made, as you now refer to “unauthorized immigration”
Shlomo Krol
Jack,
Of course I do condemn all this.
max
@RICHARDL,
Israel’s ‘NET OFFICIAL DEVELOPMENT ASSISTANCE’ for 2011 has been USD 176M, a 14.9% increase over the previous year, while the OECD’s average decreased
Shlomo Krol
Richardl, there’s no problem with Eritreans or Haredim in Israel, or with any other population. Everybody is blessing. The only problem is that too many people believe, that those who differ from them, are a problem.
aristeides
Noam is right about “infiltrator.” Israel used this word for the Palestinians who attempted to return and reclaim their land. They were often shot on sight.
sh
Tibi certainly shouldn’t have used the word infiltrators for asylum seekers or migrants. An infiltrator is one who “passes surreptitiously into enemy-held territory”, as dictionaries define it. He and most of those using the term today may be too young to remember that Palestinians who stole into pre-1967 Israel from neighboring countries, whether to look for their villages or on a raid, were called mistanenim too. Whether the term was appropriate for those Palestinians is up to him to decide, but it hardly applies to today’s asylum seekers.
.
Africans replacing Arab workers seems to me to be the least of the problems. I wonder why Tibi didn’t say that a Palestinian with Israeli citizenship is refused the right to bring a Palestinian spouse into the country even from the occupied territories, let alone another country. If the Israeli left was Tibi, it would be extremely disturbed by the idea that people with no connection to this place at all would have the right to walk in and apply for asylum here while Palestinians whose families lived here for centuries continue to sit in refugee camps and are denied that right.
max
Infiltrator, intruder, interloper – how many English – or Hebrew – words do you know that will fit the situation?
‘those that cross Borders illegally’?
Trespassers – but can it be used in a non-property related context?
Arnon Schwanzinger
ATFT wrote:
[“Infiltrators” is the literal translation, but is the Hebrew really that derogatory? Doesn’t it just mean people who have entered by evading, or “filtering through,” the official barriers?]
Infiltrate: “to filter into or through; permeate.”
English is not that derogatory either.
sh
Illegal immigrant’ll do nicely thanks, Max. That’s if they’re not asylum-seekers.
Greg Pollock
I do not think the State of Israel is obligated to grant asylum save as its law holds. As I understand it, for some reason the High Court has stayed the deportation of illegal immigrants present in the country. The action of MK’s Danny D. et. al. seems almost a political challenge to that court order, intended to raise anger, as it has.
.
To conflate the action of these MK’s in South Tel Aviv, which seems an incitment to riot, with asylum policy and immigration law is exactly what I think the Danny D.’s want; they want to stain the Court decision (I wonder if it would come down the same way now), positing the Knesset as the sole arbitrator of law in Israel. The fence, linking security issues, international treaties on asylum, use of “infiltrator,” which, in English, could as well apply to violent radicals–all these serve to dislocate focus on the MK’s actions which clearly engendered the riot.
.
There seem to be two real issues: incitment to riot; and an apparent legal impass generated by a High Court decision. As far as I can tell from a far distance, if the High Court will not allow deportation, constuction of detension centers is within Israel’s descretion–unless the High Court somehow finds such violate some newly articulated right to persons irregardless of citizenship or legal residency.
.
Both incitment to riot and the High Court impass speak to an undefined constitution in Israel which is beginning to seriously fray. Fray, but here only to a small population of no political standing. It may be however, that these issues portend future disfunction in other areas later.
max
SH, immigrant has a connotation of durability, so as nice as it sounds it adds meaning that’s not related to the situation
Rowan Berkeley
Piotr, when you say “consider a wave of Somali refugees in Ethiopia. Because of draught, their flocks died out and they lost resources to survive, and because of the fighting of Shabab (spelling?) with government and domination of the Shabab where they live they are subjects of repression,” are you aware that ‘al-shabab’ just means ‘the youth’? It’s hilarious really: da al-qaeda-linked yoof, da greatest threat since sliced bread.
RichardL
MAX – Can I have your source(s) please? OECD website has no figures for 2011 yet.
http://www.oecd.org/document/61/0,3746,en_2649_34447_47515235_1_1_1_1,00&&en-USS_01DBC.html
max
RB, you can’t be so dumb as to pretend that because the name means ‘the youth’ (20-40 yo, not teenagers… formerly the military arm of the Islamic Court Union (ICU)) then their actions are benign, right? So what’s your point?
BTW, they claim to have ties to Al-Qaeda – hilarious, right?
max
@RichardL, so if you didn’t have the numbers for the years when Israel joined the OECD, was your question/comment gratuitous mockery, assuming that people won’t catch your cheating?
.
In the document you provided yourself, you can see that Israel raised its contribution in 2010 by +12.4% (didn’t you see it?). In the one I provide below, you can see that it raised it by another 14.9% in 2011.
http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/44/13/50060310.pdf
Rowan Berkeley
Yeah Max, the Shabab are just like the Hilltop Youth: they’re young idealistic things, and butter wouldn’t melt in their mouths, as we say in england. By the way, the JPost has got an article today moaning and groaning about the Eli Valley cartoon that the Forward rejected as too nasty but appeared here a week or two ago:
http://www.jpost.com/DiplomacyAndPolitics/Article.aspx?id=271635
RichardL
MAX: “Israel’s ‘NET OFFICIAL DEVELOPMENT ASSISTANCE’ for 2011 has been USD 176M, a 14.9% increase over the previous year, while the OECD’s average decreased”.
Data from http://www.aidflows.org/ show that Israel has the lowest Overseas Development Aid as a percentage of Gross National Income amongst the 33 OECD countries (with the possible exception of Slovenia for which data are not given) for all of the years 2007 to 2010. No data are available for 2011 yet.
Would you describe your statement as consisting of lies, damned lies, or merely statistics?
Seriously, my point is that if Eritreans did not live in a hell-hole they would be less inclined to become refugees/illegal immigrants/infiltrators/intruders/interlopers or whatever. That if humanity chose to spend money on alleviating hunger and disease instead of on conflict and armaments there would be less motivation for Africans to risk everything of their pitiful existence in getting to Israel. In this context Israel is possibly more a part of the problem than a part of the solution.
max
@RICHARDL “Seriously, my point is …”
Seriously, your point is a platitude meant to hide the fact that all you want is to bash Israel, to the extent of claiming that Israel has a part in the plight of the Eritreans.
Neither hate nor stupidity are forbidden, no need to hide.
RichardL
MAX Seriously I am not peddling misinformation. Can you honestly write the same?
sh
@Max – “SH, immigrant has a connotation of durability,”
Not if it’s qualified by the word illegal.
.
“so as nice as it sounds it adds meaning that’s not related to the situation”
I’m afraid it’s exactly the situation for those who had hoped to stay. Those who only hoped to earn a bit of money to send home are basically like what go by the name of guest workers. Legalized, they’d make a bomb for all those Israeli agencies that charge thousands of dollars for doing them the (obligatory) favor of placing them.
max
SH, it’s quite baseless, and ugly, to insinuate that ‘those Israeli agencies’ (which I have nothing in favor of) are related to the problem.
The point with the terminology is that this also isn’t an Israeli issue; you can find this topic in the US, in the UK, in Australia… using terms like ‘Alleged illegal alien’, Pension seekers… and all terms carry a political undertone, you just can’t avoid it. In the US, for example, many refuse to use the term ‘illegal’ as no person is an illegal person.
sh
I didn’t insinuate anything, I said it straight. It is quite baseless and ugly (although I understand it’s a known technique) to call calling a spade a spade an insinuation.
max
SH, let me understand: you don’t just add an irrelevant element to the discussion; you claim – and presumably can prove – that the reason for the problem is ‘those Israeli agencies’, or, in other words, that without these agencies the problem wouldn’t exist, right?
Piotr Berman
One reason I mentioned Somali refugees is that Israeli perspective is that there are billions of less fortunate people who crave sneaking into their little paradise, hence they have to defend it with walls, concentration camps etc. But this is not the case. There are many disasters and crisis situation if Africa that lead to people fleeing their homes, often to other countries, but very few trek to distant countries, and actually either given a chance, they return home, or they prefer to stay in a neighbor country that has similar culture etc.
One problem that Israeli government has is that its rhetoric is hindering practical solutions. For example, one can build camps for refugees. But to do so, you have to decide what they would be. If the refugees are criminals, you need basically a concentration camp: spartan dormitories or tents, barbed wire and watch towers. It can be cheap, but it can also be a PR disaster. If they are simply refugees, you build with somewhat better standards, add some schools, activity centers and other amenities, and you do not prevent moving in and out. Diplomatically, it is much better, but it does not satisfy hateful rhetoric. Doing nothing costs less and evades the decision.
sh
“you claim – and presumably can prove – that the reason for the problem is ‘those Israeli agencies’,”
.
I claim only one thing, Max. That the government most of the residents of south Tel Aviv voted into office, namely Likud, is responsible for their plight and that there are rules already in place to solve the problem. Several here have already pointed out that the current incitement (see Miri Regev’s and Danny Danon’s pronouncements) is coming from that same government, plus its more extreme coalition partners. Make of that what you may, but don’t attribute your pet diversions (why do you need them?) to me.
max
SH, how interesting that you dropped your ‘agencies’ claim.
Neither Danon nor Regev are part of the government, though Yishai is, and the government that initiated the problem was Kadima’s.
Past the governments, the next in line for responsibility are those who pushed against building the fence
sh
Guest workers have to pay agencies to place them. They wouldn’t be allowed in if they didn’t. That’s not a claim that’s a fact.
Both Regev and Danon are Likud MKs.
As for the reasons for the fence, you might appreciate this clip. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1JUmexeGtY
.
But now I will make a claim. The fences are insane.
david
The African refugees are brutalized in Egypt and every other Arab/Muslim country to which they escape. So they come to Israel where they are treated humanely. Tibi and other Israeli Arabs want the Africans to stay not for any humanitarian concern (the concept doesn’t exist for them) but to dilute Israel’s Jewish character.
Israeli Arabs – overwhelmingly fifth columnists, traitors, the enemy within.