The public outcry over the deportation of illegal infiltrators from Israel and south Tel Aviv is based on a campaign of lies. And now that the state has finally, after years of deliberations in the courts, decided to rid us of the young, the unmarried, the criminals and all those infiltrators whose requests for asylum were rejected, we are witness to a nasty and well-oiled propaganda campaign whose entire aim is to ensure the "moral elite" get to keep their busboys.
The New Israel Fund has announced it will award prize money to any organization that helps prevent their deportation.
In a post on January 11, the American CEO of the New Israel Fund, Daniel Sokatch, wrote, "There are Israelis who are mobilizing to prevent this [government] policy [of deportation] from being implemented. You better believe that they are being supported – financially and with expert advice – by the New Israel Fund."
Immediately following the publication of this post, dozens of new organizations emerged and began to set up emergency conferences, and petition people and urge them to go out and protest in the name of what they call "Jewish values."
But truly moral people would not have sit idly by for a decade as the situation in south Tel Aviv deteriorated. Truly moral people would have cried out in the name of those residents whose lives were destroyed, whose dignity had been stolen and whose places of residence had been turned into disaster areas. Truly moral people would have signed the petitions demanding a solution to the infiltrator and migrant worker problem be found outside these neighborhoods. They would have organized a campaign to instead bring the refugees to them. They would have done everything they are doing now, but they would have done it before the threat of expulsion became a reality and before it became the fashionable thing to do.
Truly moral people would not have lied so brazenly. They would not have talked of people being "deported to their deaths," when they know that the High Court of Justice, which they hold so dear, has deliberated the issue for two years, during which they received all the necessary assurances that the countries taking in the infiltrators were safe. They speak of women and children in chains on the way to the airport when they know that women, children, those earning a living and the sick are excluded from the deportation. They note that these migrants constitute less than half a percent of the state's population, but omit the fact that this entire half a percent is concentrated within a few slums, where they constitute some 50 to 70% of the population. They speak of torture and death when they know full well that the torture camps are located in Libya, thousands of miles from Rwanda, and that none of the deportees would have any reason to even head in that direction unless they have decided Africa is no longer to their liking and they prefer to live in Europe.
So let's talk about humanity, compassion and morality, shall we? It doesn't cost a thing, and it is so easy to grow a conscience at the expense of people they do not and do not want to see – the residents of these neighborhoods and the infiltrators alike.
So here is what I have to say to the pilots and the academics, the filmmakers, the doctors, the authors, the managers, the lawyers, and so on and so forth: We are keeping your letters with the lists of your names. And we will soon demand you put your money where your mouth is. Because all those exempt from the deportations – the women, children, earners and the sick -- will not remain in our neighborhoods. You will be taking them home instead.
