Foolish and cruel
You don't deport children who were born here and grew up here, who are perched on the threshold of kindergarten, who have no other country, who have no other language, who have no other friends.
By Yossi Sarid"This is a reasonable and balanced decision," the prime minister said yesterday after deciding to deport 400 children of migrant workers. But he would have done better to call the decision foolish and cruel.
He also said: "The decision was influenced by two primary considerations - the humanitarian and the Zionist." In our naivete, we thought they were one and the same, but it turns out these are two separate, and even contradictory, considerations.
And in truth, the Zionism of cabinet members like Benjamin Netanyahu, Eli Yishai, Avigdor Lieberman and Yaakov Neeman is not characterized by humanitarianism as such. As for the other consideration, we will continue to fight them over our Zionism.
You don't show off an unfinished project, and you certainly don't let a fool carry out the project in its entirety. The fools in the cabinet decided to let 800 children of migrant workers remain in the country - but took the opportunity to deport 400. As though they hadn't fully absorbed the rule that applies to those taking on a good deed: If you've already begun doing good, finish the job. But now the cabinet will be remembered for its violation of a "thou shalt not" and not its fulfillment of a "thou shalt."
This kind of thing is not done. You don't deport children who were born here and grew up here, who are perched on the threshold of kindergarten, who have no other country, who have no other language, who have no other friends.
It's foreign considerations that are uprooting and exiling foreign workers from here, those whose strength has been consumed and whose hopes have been dashed.
They will arrive tomorrow, the new migrant workers, and they, too, will be exploited before being banished - as long as the recruitment agencies make a mint and tithe the ministers and their friends.
But the highest marks for the most despicable act will go to two members of Labor: Avishay Braverman, who voted in favor of the deportation, and Isaac Herzog, who abstained. Labor ministers retain the talent of uniting for evil, to act as a fig leaf. Except that the fig leaf has become so tattered from overuse that the Bravermans and the Herzogs end up becoming the very nakedness they sought to conceal, tools of the cabinet. Had they voted differently, the proposal would have been voted down.
In the past year, I joined Braverman, Herzog and Limor Livnat - another abstainer - in a few events supporting the migrant workers' children. "They won't be deported," they vowed. "We will fight until the last moment." That moment arrived yesterday, and Gideon Sa'ar was the only one who stuck to his word.
I won't forgive myself for giving in to the temptation to believe them; what happened to make me deviate from my traditional skepticism? If we are ever again invited to share the same stage, I won't be there.
Don't make the lives of the decision makers easier. If any of you know children who are candidates for deportation, take them into your homes, hide them. Let the representatives of the law look for them in the attic, in the basement, in the closets, under the beds; let the authorities tear them from your arms. Maybe you won't succeed in averting the evil decree, but this is how human beings are supposed to act. A few years down the road, they become Righteous Gentiles.
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A child of Nigerian parents living in Tel Aviv and facing expulsion from Israel |
| Photo by: Tali Meir |
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Remember the story of Ruth and Orpah...
Don't do it. The shame will be last for a long time. It is unnecessary. Show some of the compassion that was denied to Jewish children in times past. Please do not do it.
Before we know it some members of the government will come up with a clause to sterilize immigrant workers before they enter the country.
I think the mistake is yours Sarid. Zionism and humanitarianism were always diametrically opposed. There were times when it was forgivable because Zionism was perceived as an act of self defense. No more. You have to many nukes to come up with this excuse.
Dear Yossi, Even though I usually agree with you, I do not understand a few elements in your argument; 1) they do not speak any other language? How do you know. They probably grew up bi-lingual, since their parents speak another language, like you would if your parents would move abroad to work for a number a years, and take you, a yuong one year old, with them. And, they have no other home/country? Where did you get that from? Their parents have a home country (their nationality) and if they are deportable, that means their home country agrees to take them back. By any law of any country, the child will have automatic right to return with his parents. If not, basic international law on family unity is broken and I have not heard of any such case (where home country accepts back parents, but not minor child). If they are the produce of mixed relations in Israel, the child can go to one out of two possible countries. It is to the parents to decide wwith whom and to where the child goes. Yossi, please, if your parents would, as businessmen, decide to live inthe USA for 10 years, and you grow up there from age 1, and they then return to Israel, do you think any NGO or politician would cry foul and say your human rights are bing violated, because you grew up in the US, know no hebrew (because for some reason your parents never spoke their native language to you or near you!??!) and you have no country to go back to? Let's take the discussion to its real point: people with good hearts feel pity for a child that lived in a Third World country and now has to return to a poor country, that is it. (while not taking into account the positive agent of change he could be in his own country with all the western education he has so far received in that host country)
This is the fault of their parents who overstayed their visas or got in via the Sinai desert.
Because their parents broke the law and illegally entered Israel for economic reasons the kids should be allowed to stay? Every country in the world has laws to protect themselves against illegal immigrants, only Israel isn't allowed to?
The Zionism of those who would deport is that of those who destroy homes of Palestinians, uproot Palestinian families from their home in Sheikh Jarrah, build settlements, deny rights to the LGBT community, practice social and political misogyny and racism...
And then there is the fear of all the married couples, who passed the "Jewishness" test with flying colors, that their sons and daughters will grow up and fall in love with a gentile living in Israel - look on the bright side! The greater the mix of the gene pool, the less chance there is of inherited genetic illness. : )
so only gentiles who assist jews are "righteous"? sorry, i forgot, we're not supposed to talk about the jewish prejudice against non-jews
Not once in this diatribe did Yossi Sarid mention the fact that these kids are the kids of Illegal migrant workers,these same illegal migrant workers,who knowingly,witingly and willfully decided to overstay their permits and knowingly have children (unless they can also claim immaculate conception) If we are going to allow illegals to stay (as we apparently are) then we are in a year or two (after BB has gone as he will do) going to face the next wave then the next wave of illegals all claiming some mitigation or other. We do not owe these people anything,their choice to come here,their choice to overstay their welcome,their decision to have kids were all economically based,there would be more zionism to be found in Mahmoud Abbas than any one of these illegals As usual Sarid shows why he never really achieved much (unless writing pulp fiction in the Haaretz is called an achievement) If you are legal then stay - if you are not then you must go.