{"id":74473,"date":"2015-09-12T19:22:26","date_gmt":"2015-09-13T03:22:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=74473"},"modified":"2015-09-13T07:23:54","modified_gmt":"2015-09-13T15:23:54","slug":"should-israel-take-syrian-refugees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=74473","title":{"rendered":"Should Israel & Australia Take Syrian Refugees?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Link<\/a>: I asked the head of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry why he thinks Australia ought to accept 12,000 Syrian refugees but Israel 0. This is his response:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe size of Israel\u2019s territory is less than one-third, of one percent, of Australia\u2019s. Within this tiny sliver of land Israel has a population of 12 million people, more than half of Australia\u2019s. (The equivalent would be if Australia had a population of 4 billion people). Yet since 1948 Israel has accepted and absorbed more than 2.5 million refugees, several hundred thousand of whom have not been Jewish.<\/p>\n

Based on size of territory alone, Israel would be as \u201cgenerous\u201d as Australia if it accepted 32 refugees from the current crisis. In fact, a much higher number of Syrians than that have been admitted into Israel for free treatment and care at Israeli hospitals during the four-year long civil war in Syria.\u201d<\/p>\n

* Manhattan has a population density of 71,000 people per square mile. Tel Aviv has a density of only 7,500 per square mile. Since Tel Aviv\u2019s population is 414,000, they could settle 3.5 million Syrian refugees in Tel Aviv alone without exceeding Manhattan densities. Manhattan is a nice place to live.<\/p>\n

According to his logic this should be just fine. Ask him why this would be a bad idea. Perhaps density is not the only concern? What could possibly be wrong with this idea, hmmm?<\/p>\n

* I\u2019ve seen the liberal argument being made that there are half a billion people in Europe, so another million or more don\u2019t matter. The place is already crowded, so adding more people won\u2019t matter, they already know how to live crowded there!<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a silly argument, but it does raise the point that it\u2019s not just about geographical size. Aren\u2019t Israelis supposed to be smart? Surely they can figure out a way, in particular if there is a moral imperative. Syria is not much bigger than Israel and most of it is uninhabitable desert. Also, can they continue to let in any Jews, while not letting in any Syrians? That tells you all you need to know. Is it really all about ethny? If that\u2019s good enough for Jews, why shouldn\u2019t that be good enough for others? Jews get a special pass on certain moral issues, or what?<\/p>\n

* Syria is a neighbour of Israel. If your politics are right, you can just walk from Syria to Israel. Even with the current troubles, Israel is probably closer to any other realistic destination for the Syrian refugees in Turkey, with the important exception of Greece and perhaps Lebanon. Good neighbours look out for each other. Of course we all know that Israel and Syria are bitter enemies. But these refugees aren\u2019t the Syrian government, they are the good people of the opposition, so these refugees are potential friends of the Israelis. Israel should be a good neighbour and lead by example in demonstrating to the average Syrian the benefits of peaceful open borders.<\/p>\n

Since Israel is much closer to Syria than Australia, why subject the refugees to the troubles of travelling half-way around the world? Why not do the easy thing? In particular if the war ends and these people want to go home?<\/p>\n

Straight out ask if the real goal of the Israelis is to de-populate Syria and not pay any price. (Or point out that it seems like a reasonable supposition and therefore a policy of accepting Syrian refugees would demonstrate that this is not the case.)<\/p>\n

* Yes \u2013 how many of those \u201crefugees\u201d weren\u2019t Jews or their spouses? His \u2018hundreds of thousands non-Jewish\u2019 is rubbish. He\u2019s probably referring to the spouses of Jews, or to people who were ethnically but not religiously Jewish.<\/p>\n

The real point about Jewish immigration policy isn\u2019t that they don\u2019t take in immigrants \u2013 they take in plenty \u2013 but that they\u2019re allowed to take in only Jews. Ask your man if he would be fine restricting Australian immigration to Anglo-Celts or their spouses. Ask him if he\u2019d be fine with an immigration policy exactly like Israel\u2019s but for that.<\/p>\n

* Actually, Israel\u2019s population is 8 million, not 12 \u2013 although claiming the latter figure, which includes the population of the West Bank, is revealing of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry\u2019s attitude towards Israel\u2019s occupation of that land. This results in a population density of some 400\/km^2, which is comparable to European countries like the Netherlands, Belgium and England \u2013 all of whom are expected to accept refugees in addition to their legally mandated annual immigration inflow.<\/p>\n

Although it\u2019s true that much of Israel\u2019s territory is arid, almost all refugees settle in urban zones. And in any case, expanding settlement into previously uninhabited arid regions should not pose undue problems for a country which prides itself on its ability to \u201cmake the desert bloom.\u201d Settling Syrian refugees here would clearly facilitate their straightforward repatriation once hostilities in their homeland cease.<\/p>\n

The Executive Council claims that Israel has accepted some 2.5 million refugees over the decades. Clearly such a claim conflates \u201crefugees\u201d with Jews exercising their so-called Right of Return, but even if as many as half of those could reasonably be described as refugees, any humanitarian accounting must balance that total against the number of refugees Israel has created: over one million (750,000 in 1948, 250,000 in 1967, and yet more during its two-decade occupation of southern Lebanon), assuming we do not follow the UN\u2019s example and count as refugees second and third generation descendants of the people originally expelled by Israel, which would swell the total to over four million.<\/p>\n

* But\u2026but\u2026white Australia policy, and rabbit proof fences, and some stuff they did to the Aborigines. They owe it to the Syrians to make up to the Aborigines!<\/p>\n

* He also told me that Israel, unlike Australia, is an ethnically based state. But Australia was an ethnically bases state up until the 1970s, the decade in which the white Australia policy was officially abolished and in which the cultural Marxist propaganda prompting multiculturalism was set into overdrive.<\/p>\n

* Hungarians kick ass at math.<\/p>\n

Most Americans probably can\u2019t even find Hungary on a map, much less identify what really was all of Hungary before globalists moved the borders.<\/p>\n

They had their country decimated by the Treaty of Trianon, and again by WWII, and again by communist domination.<\/p>\n

In 1956, when they rose up against communism, against the Soviets, against the leftists that held them down, nobody came to help. They begged the West to come, stood ready to fight with the West, and no one came.<\/p>\n

They\u2019ve been kicked around \u2014 and kicked around again \u2014 and still they\u2019ve maintained a sense of themselves, even while possessing only about a third of what was their rightful land.<\/p>\n

They were deliberately cut to pieces so as to weaken them, so they could offer no competition to the powers that be. This was done to them precisely because they are so smart and strong.<\/p>\n

Hungary is one of the few countries right now that is acting with any semblance of intelligence, and of course most people don\u2019t understand. It is a land of some intelligence in a world full of idiots.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Link: I asked the head of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry why he thinks Australia ought to accept 12,000 Syrian refugees but Israel 0. This is his response: \u201cThe size of Israel\u2019s territory is less than one-third, of one … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[182,37,29639],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-74473","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-australia","category-israel","category-syria"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t