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Israel's welcome now reserved only for Jews who back Netanyahu
Jonathan Cook on March 7, 2017 22 Comments
Benjamin Netanyahu
Dustin Pfundheller, 30, an American dentist living in Singapore, was set to
become the youngest person to visit every country in the world while in a
full-time job. His globetrotting has taken him to 192 of the 193 recognised
states, bringing his medical skills to the world's remotest places. But in
January he was barred for the second time from Israel, the only country left
on his list, having previously been refused entry last year.
Despite an invitation to a dental conference in Tel Aviv, and Israelis who
vouched for him, border officials banned Pfundheller for 10 years. No reason
was given, but lawyers suspect visits to Iran and the Arab states sealed his
fate. There could hardly be starker evidence that Israel stubbornly refuses
to become a normal country.
Paradoxically, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited Singapore
last month to promote Israel as a tolerant country, one "committed to a
better world, a world of diversity."
The reality could not be more different. Arabs and Muslims have always
struggled to gain entry to Israel. Palestinians are routinely abused at the
borders, and thousands, especially from Jerusalem, have been stripped of the
right to return home after living abroad.
But new figures show Israel is excluding other groups too. Entry denials
have increased nine-fold in the past five years, topping 16,000 people last
year. Among those increasingly turned away are political activists. Israel
controls all access to the occupied Palestinian territories, and has been
regularly denying entry to solidarity activists and those who support the
boycott movement.
(Image: Carlos Latuff)
Legislation passed by the Israeli parliament on Monday night will only
intensify the exclusionary trend. The new law forbids entry to anyone who
supports a boycott, even if it is only of the settlements. As one legislator
pointed out, that means Israel may quickly find itself bound to refuse entry
to all officials from the United Nations and Europe.
In a sign of the new direction, Israel denied a tourist visa last week to
Human Rights Watch's new director for Israel and Palestine, having earlier
refused him a work permit. One of the most prominent human rights
organisations in the world was dismissed as an outlet for "Palestinian
propaganda".
Weeks earlier, Israel subjected Jennifer Gorovitz, an American Jewish
vice-president of the New Israel Fund, to a humiliating interrogation at
airport arrivals. NIF is one of the largest funders of Israeli organisations
supporting human rights and social justice. That includes assistance to
groups that monitor military abuses in the occupied territories.
This presumably explains why Gorovitz's interrogators suggested she posed a
"security threat". She finally gained admittance only after Talia Sasson,
the Israeli head of NIF and an adviser to former prime ministers, pulled
strings.
Gorovitz wrote of her experience: "My privilege as a Jew means I never
imagined that Israel could or would deny me entrance.
Such an assumption was justified. Israel's Law of Return is supposed to
guarantee Jews around the world the right to almost instant citizenship in
Israel.
For that reason, the law is grossly unjust. It privileges Jewish access to
Israel at the expense of the native Palestinian population, most of whom
were expelled in 1948.
Nonetheless, it is noteworthy that Israel, a state that invested itself with
the historical mission of offering sanctuary to Jews worldwide, is
increasingly applying a political test to those who arrive at its borders.
Israel is denying entry not only to Arabs and would-be record breakers. And
it is deporting not just those such as migrant workers and African asylum
seekers who might pollute the Jewish state with non-Jewish genes. Now it is
openly targeting Jews whose politics do not align with the far-right
government of Netanyahu.
It should be noted that many of the solidarity and boycott activists turned
away are Jewish. Famous Jewish critics of Israel such as Noam Chomsky and
Norman Finkelstein have been barred too.
On Monday, Rebecca Vilkomerson, the US executive director of Jewish Voice
for Peace, observed that, despite her husband and children being Israeli
citizens, and her grandparents bured there, under the new anti-boycott
legislation she was now denied the right to visit.
In Israel's eyes, it seems some Jews are more equal than others.
The pulling up of the drawbridge comes as Israel's leadership has remained
largely silent in the face of a rising tide of anti-semitism in the US,
fuelled by Donald Trump's election as president. Dozens of Jewish centres
have received bomb threats, and Jewish cemeteries have been vandalised.
There are growing rumblings among American Jews that their interests are
being overlooked by the Netanyahu government to avoid damaging relations
with the new US administration. But another reason for the lack of response
should be considered.
The principle of the "ingathering of the exiles", according to Israel's
official ideology, Zionism, assumes that Israel is the rightful home of Jews
everywhere. And the largest Jewish population outside Israel resides in the
US.
In November, Yaron London, a popular TV host, welcomed Trump's election,
pointing out that "a worldview which supports white supremacy matches our
[Israeli] government's interests."
Last week opposition leader Isaac Herzog urged Israel to prepare for an
influx of US Jews fleeing persecution.
But will Israel's arms really be open to all Jews equally, or only to those
willing to contribute enthusiastically to the tribal project?
And can Jews of conscience ignore the true cost of their migration? They can
leave behind anti-Jewish bigotry in the US, but only if they bolster the
Jewish bigots of Israel who lord it over the native Palestinian population.
