Update August 11th: A Washington Post reader asks Hetfield and Schwartz, why the Israel bashing?
Honestly, I don’t get it. Why would the likes of Mark Hetfield (Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society) and Eric P. Schwartz (formerly the Asst. Sec. of State for Population, Refugees and Migration for Obama) want Israel to become overloaded with African migrants? Anyone in their right mind can see that a small country (no matter how prosperous) overwhelmed by needy people will eventually fall.
Why do they want Israel to die?
Those Israelis working and paying taxes will not be able to sustain the social services needed by large numbers of poor and uneducated migrants as the numbers grow and they begin to vote. The destabilization of government (this is the Cloward-Piven strategy) will happen in Europe (is happening!) and in the US too, just over a longer time frame.
Here Hetfield and Schwartz pen a joint scolding of Israel in the Washington Post. (Israel Turns its back on African refugees) The Op-ed is a week old (I don’t see where it got much attention). You might first want to visit our category on ‘Israel and refugees’ to get an idea of the huge problems and public tension being created by the African illegal aliens there.
There is a lot of boiler-plate guilt-tripping in the piece (kind of like the ‘nation of immigrants’ propaganda we get in the US), so you can go read most of it yourself.
Hetfield and Schwartz:
The Israeli government sent 14 Eritreans back to their country of origin last month after they formally abandoned their requests to remain in Israel. Many more such returns are expected. Israel is seeking to address its refugee challenges by promoting the fiction that it hosts few, if any, Africans fleeing persecution, only “infiltrators” and “illegal work migrants.” The action is a troubling departure from Israel’s proud tradition of refugee protection.
Gee, maybe this is about whacking the Netanyahu government? Hetfield and Schwartz surely don’t like the fence! The two continue:
With the Netanyahu government’s recent construction of a 144-mile Sinai border fence between Israel and Egypt, the flow of asylum seekers has been reduced to a trickle. But Israel must still deal with the 55,000 asylum seekers within its borders, and the government’s statements, record and plans are troubling. Eli Yishai, who served as interior minister until this year, recklessly stoked anti-immigrant sentiment and xenophobia by repeatedly referring to asylum seekers as “infiltrators” and urging large-scale detention of migrants. In May 2012, he declared that south Tel Aviv, where many migrants reside, “has turned into the garbage can of the country.”
Read it all (if you feel like it).
Taking the sugar off the table!
As for the detention business, recently a commenter to one of RRW’s other posts said a country must “get the sugar off the table” in order to stem the illegal migrant tide and that is exactly what detention could do.
The WaPo gives us this bio for Hetfield and Schwartz:
Eric Schwartz was assistant secretary of state for population, refugees and migration from 2009 to 2011. He is dean of the Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota and a board member of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS). Mark Hetfield is president of HIAS.
We have written a lot on Schwartz (another Soros protege’) over the years, click here. And, Hetfield (President of one of the top nine federal refugee contractors) has become increasingly visible and vocal especially as he has taken a leading role in backing the Gang of Eight amnesty legislation (before and after some donors questioned whether HIAS should be involved in pushing amnesty).