Category: Israel and refugees

Arab groups say Jewish contractor HIAS a big help in getting more Syrian Muslims admitted to US

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I think my head is going to explode!
Why do big news outlets like the Washington Post republish such biased news from lazy reporters?
Here is an article written by Jacob Wirtschafter for Religion News Service (whatever that is) and published at the Washington Post that leaves one very large piece of the story unreported.  And, that is that HIAS (Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society), as one of nine major federal resettlement contractors, has a financial stake in the decision to admit large numbers of Syrian (mostly Muslim) refugees.

Mark Hetfield HIAS
Doing well by doing good!

More than half of their $31 million dollar budget*** is from the federal government (you!) which pays them (BY THE HEAD) to resettle refugees.
They have every incentive to increase the number!  HIAS doesn’t focus attention on persecuted Jews and Christians/other minorities as a first priority, they help bring Somali, Iraqi and soon Syrian Muslims to your towns and cities.
And, how dare CEO Mark Hetfield now feign concern for Israel when he has been bashing Israel for years over the illegal alien problem Israel has been trying to cope with!  See here and here.
Here is the “news” about how happy Syrian Americans are that HIAS is helping get their people into America.
At the Washington Post:

LOS ANGELES — Advocates for Syrian refugee resettlement found unexpected allies as major Jewish groups have called on President Obama to open America’s gates to 100,000 asylum seekers from the war-torn Arab nation.

The American Jewish resettlement agency HIAS has launched a petition drive calling on Obama to resettle 100,000 Syrians in the U.S., and Reform rabbis pledged to make refugee assistance a key theme for High Holiday sermons and congregational activism.

Jewish American groups, saying they can’t be bystanders as the worst refugee crisis since World War II unfolds, are joining Arab-American leaders in a critique of existing policies, which have sharply limited the numbers of refugees settled in the United States.

The nerve of Hetfield now saying we should bring Syrian Muslims to America to ensure Israel’s safety! Why? Presumably just to pander to the American pro-Israel community when Hetfield has been a leading critic of Israel on the immigration issue urging them to let in more ‘refugees’ which anyone in their right mind knows will kill Israel.

HIAS President and CEO Mark Hetfield said the request for additional Syrian refugees is also a matter of ensuring Israel’s safety.

“The crisis in Syria threatens to destabilize Jordan, Lebanon, and perhaps even Turkey and Egypt,” he said. “This cannot be good for Israel.”

[….]

“HIAS has consistently called for more resettlement and pushed back against discriminatory rhetoric opposing the opening of doors to Syrian refugees,” said Omar Hossino, public relations director for the Syrian American Council in Washington, D.C.

It took 5 seconds to find this linking the Syrian American Council to the Muslim Brotherhood.
And, btw, HIAS was a leading activist group pushing the ‘Gang of Eight’ amnesty bill in the Senate (we have many posts on their lobbying activities on these pages over the years).

If the US brings in 100,000 Syrian Muslims as HIAS is demanding, they will be rolling in the green stuff!  So come on lazy reporters, do your homework!

*** Have a look at the most recent Form 990 for HIAS (which re-branded itself and dropped the word Hebrew from its name awhile back).  It is a $31 million dollar a year supposed ‘non-profit’ group that receives 55% of its funding from the US taxpayer.  Federal grants total just over $16 million and that is to resettle refugees!  And they receive other funds related to their refugee resettlement efforts including over $500,000 in processing fees for loans (refugee air fare loan collections).
Hetfield pulls down a salary (and related income) of just over $300,000 per year and there are 5 other employees in the six-figure range.
Go here to see if HIAS is working in your city.

Israel will begin to deport illegal alien Africans

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Israel is one of the only first world countries on the planet attempting to save itself from the onslaught of migrants demanding asylum after illegally entering the country.  Australia is attempting to save itself as well.  Of course, most European countries have their borders wide open, as do we here in the US.

These African men all want to stay in Israel. http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2014/02/13/Asylum-seekers-rally-outside-UN-office-in-Tel-Aviv/58161392319764/

By the way, one of Israel’s critics is the US refugee resettlement contractor—Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society.

From The Guardian:

Israel will begin deporting asylum seekers from Eritrea and Sudan to unnamed third countries in Africa even if against their will, the immigration authority announced on Tuesday.

The assumption is that the third countries are Rwanda and Uganda, although Israel has not revealed details.

According to the interior minister, Gilad Erdan, the move will “encourage infiltrators to leave the borders of the state of Israel in an honourable and safe way, and serve as an effective tool for fulfilling our obligations towards Israeli citizens and restoring the fabric of life to the residents of south Tel Aviv”.

Until now, the state exerted pressure and provided a one-off monetary incentive for asylum seekers to leave voluntarily, but only if they signed written consent. Now the state will give them 30 days to leave; those who refuse will face a hearing to determine their indefinite imprisonment.

People in Holot, a detention facility in the Negev, currently requesting asylum will not be immediately affected by the new measure.

Mutasim Ali, a detainee in Holot who fled Darfur and is a leading activist in Israel’s African asylum seeker community, said the new policy was not that different from the current grim reality.

[….]

Eritreans and Sudanese are entitled to collective protection under the 1951 UN refugee convention, to which Israel is a signatory, because their lives would be in danger if they were sent back to their countries of origin.

An estimated 42,000 Eritrean and Sudanese nationals currently reside in Israel, of whom about 2,000 are being held in Holot. According to the immigration authorities, 1,500 left with consent to a third country in 2014 and 7,000 returned to their home countries.

See our complete archive on Israel and refugees, here.

 

Palestinian human rights activist says UNRWA is using Palestinians as pawns

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

He wants the UNHCR to come up with a plan to permanently resettle the Palestinians and forget the “right of return.”

Bassam Eid. Photo: http://israelmatzav.blogspot.com/2010/07/bassam-eid-iran-perpetuating.html

Unbelievable that a Palestinian would have the guts to say that the special UN agency (UN Relief and Works Agency) set up more than sixty years ago to supposedly care for Palestinian refugees, is basically corrupt, too cozy with Hamas, not being watched closely enough by donor countries like the US, and is using the Palestinians as pawns.  Whew!

From The Algemeiner (emphasis is mine):

Bassam Eid, a prominent Palestinian human rights activist, has issued an urgent plea for a serious overhaul of UNRWA, the UN agency tasked with caring for the Palestinian refugees of the 1948 war in which Arab armies failed to prevent the creation of the State of Israel.

Eid, the Director of the Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group, is currently visiting London, where he addressed a meeting at the British parliament organized by the Henry Jackson Society, an international relations think-tank, entitled “Perpetuating Statelessness? UNRWA, Its Activities and Funding.” In that presentation, Eid, who was raised in the UNRWA refugee camp in Shu’afat, east of Jerusalem, harshly criticized the agency for perpetuating the plight of the refugees as well as for its political relationship with Hamas.

“Sixty-six years after it was created, UNRWA is still promising Palestinians that they will return to their homeland,” Eid told The Algemeiner by telephone. “In my opinion, causing five million Palestinian refugees to suffer more and more under the umbrella of the ‘right of return’ is a war crime. They are being used as pawns in a war strategy.”

Eid, however, does not advocate the dissolution of UNRWA, which operates on a budget of $1.2 billion provided by donor nations led by the United States, which donated nearly $300 million in 2013. Doing so, he argues, would create a vacuum that would inevitably be exploited by wealthy Arab states like Qatar, the principal funder of Hamas. Instead, he is urging a reform program ambitious enough to transform the agency’s core mission.

“As a refugee, I want to see UNRWA submitting audited reports to donor countries,” Eid said. “I want to UNRWA to present to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees a plan for the permanent resettlement of the Palestinian refugees. And I want UNRWA to abolish the curriculum they teach in their schools, which promotes war and terror and jihad.”

Eid is particularly concerned by UNRWA’s relationship with Hamas, advocating that all UNRWA employees with Hamas ties be dismissed from their posts. “During the war in Gaza over the summer, it was well known that Hamas was hiding rockets in UNRWA schools,” Eid said. “So what did UNRWA do? They called Hamas on the phone and said, ‘please come and collect your rockets.’ This by itself shows the degree of cooperation between them.”

For all of our previous posts on UNRWA see our ‘Israel and refugees’ category.

 

American Jews beat up on Israel for not allowing African migrants to stay

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment
African protesters at US Embassy in Tel Aviv in January demanding to be allowed to stay in Israel. https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2014/01/07/waiting-for-the-unhcr-to-blast-saudi-arabia-as-they-did-israel-yesterday/

Whew!

This article in the Jewish Times featuring Jewish leaders in Maryland leading a campaign against Israel on the issue of asylum for tens of thousands of African migrants who got into Israel illegally is just too much.  I’ll let you read it yourself.

We have covered the issue extensively in our category ‘Israel and refugees.’

The gist of it is that tens of thousands of African migrants that many believe are in Israel as economic migrants (not legitimate refugees) are seeking asylum claiming they will be persecuted if returned to Africa.

The issue has split the country down the usual lines—Leftists want the Africans to be allowed to stay and accuse Israel of being “unwelcoming” and those on the Right believe that Israel will ultimately die if allowed to be overrun by the third world.

BTW, Israel is paying some of the illegal migrants to return to Africa.

Here is the whole story (albeit slanted toward the American Left) from the Jewish Times.

You should know that the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, one of the nine major US refugee resettlement contractors is also bashing Israel on the issue.

Israel could be overrun by refugees says professor

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

If ISIS moves on parts of Jordan, Professor Arnon Soffer, sees the real possibility that Israel could be overrun.

Professor Arnon Soffer: Israel must prepare for demographic turmoil.

From the San Diego Jewish World:

HAIFA (Press Release) — “In a region of collapsing countries that are in states of internal and external war, Israel must prepare for waves of immigrants from Arab countries to its territory, which may endanger its existence,” maintain Prof. Arnon Soffer, who holds the Reuven Chaikin Chair in Geostrategy, University of Haifa, and Dr. Anton Berkovsky, in a new article by the Chair. According to Soffer and Dr. Berkovsky, waves of immigrants already constitute a real danger to the future of Jordan, and the worst-case scenario would be if ISIS gained control of territories in Jordan and added them to its caphilate.

According to the data presented in the article, 2013 showed a global record of immigrants in the world of more than 232 million people, who constitute about 3.2 percent of the world’s population. However, according to Soffer, the picture in the Middle East is particularly clear: “We have a globally unique demographic event occurring. The population of the region doubled within 30 years (1950-1980), and doubled itself again within the 30 years following that. That is one of the main reasons why the Middle East has entered a demographic, economic and political spiral, resulting in disorder and instability.”

Read it all.

See our category ‘Israel and refugees’ for more information.