Federal contractor, Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, lectures Israel

I have a question for Mark Hetfield, CEO of one of nine major federal refugee resettlement contractors:  Is there any number of “asylum seekers” or “refugees” that is too many for you?   If 60,000 migrants wanting to stay in Israel is not very many in your eyes, where does it stop?  Would 100,000 be the upper limit?  How about a quarter of a million?

Is there any number of infiltrators that is too many?

Or, should Israel simply do away with borders altogether and let any Africans (or Arabs) who wish it, go to tiny Israel?

I get so ticked-off by these do-gooder big mouths telling another country what to do, whether it’s Israel, Bulgaria or tiny Malta.  Do those countries and their citizens simply say—come one and all and destroy our country?

Here is Hetfield at the Washington Jewish Week last month (Jewish values*, refugees, lost opportunities):

Nearly 60,000 Africans fleeing war, oppression and violence have sought refuge in Israel, a prosperous and democratic country established in 1948 by refugees themselves.

These asylum seekers were not just fleeing from oppression, but to a prosperous and
democratic country. While Israel’s courts have protected them and new Israeli friends have defended them, the welcome asylum seekers have received has been less than warm. In fact, the official government term for these individuals is “infiltrators,” and they are unofficially known as “illegal work migrants.” Concentrated in the poorest neighborhoods, supporting themselves by working only on the gray market, labeled a threat by the government, and living on the margins of society, their treatment has exacerbated social tensions in places like South Tel Aviv.

The Israeli government’s response was to build a fence to prevent new unauthorized border crossings. By all accounts, the fence has been a success, with crossings now close to zero.

The success of the fence, by limiting the potential for new arrivals, presented Israel with an opportunity to demonstrate the Jewish values of human dignity, refugee protection and treating the stranger among us as thyself. The Israeli government could have pursued this opportunity simply by ceasing to call asylum seekers “infiltrators,” and by allowing those already in Israel to remain and work legally, until it is safe to return home.

There is more if you care to read it.   And, Hetfield knows damn well they will never go “home” to Africa!

Come on Mark, what is YOUR upper limit?  And, where is your editorial about Saudi Arabia, did I miss it?  They deport tens of thousands of Africans weekly we are told.  Got a lecture for them too?

I wonder how many ‘leaders’ like Hetfield it took to bring down the mighty Roman empire.

For our complete archive on Israel and the problems it is having with economic migrants (faux asylum seekers), click here.

* LOL! Have you noticed that the latest hip word for the open borders crowd is “values.”  Grover Norquist used it here just this week as well.  “Jewish values!”  “American values!”  Blah, blah, blah!