Members of the Olof Palme Centre's Old City Youth Association

A Jewish-Palestinian joint dialogue group arrived from Sweden’s Olof Palme Centre for a visit to Israel. You might think they would have no problems gaining entrance into Israel. You would be wrong. Here’s the Ha’aretz editorial on the subject.

Last week Israel deported three Swedish women from Ben-Gurion International Airport who had arrived in a group of seven young people of Jewish and Palestinian heritage, active members of a Jewish-Palestinian education group in Sweden. The three women – all Swedish citizens of Palestinian background, two of whom were born in Sweden – were loaded onto a plane home after being held at the airport for eight hours of intermittent questioning.

It went a bit easier for one of the Jewish members of the group, who was allowed in on the condition he not actually try to visit any Palestinians with his message of coexistence and pay a ransom.

Amira Hass reported in Haaretz Hebrew Edition on Friday that a Jewish member in the group, Tigran Feiler – whose father is the Israeli-Swedish artist Dror Feiler and whose grandmother was among the founders of Kibbutz Yad Hanna – was also delayed in his arrival. In addition, he was asked to sign a statement that he would not enter Palestinian territory and was ordered to provide NIS 5,000 in collateral. Feiler ultimately signed under protest, stating that in his 25 previous visits to Israel he had never received such hostile treatment.

The editorial goes on to imagine if it had been the other way around.

One can only imagine the scandal that would erupt in Israel if Sweden had prevented West Bank settlers or rightist activists from entering its territory.

Hopefully, the Israeli government’s increasing fear of anyone promoting coexistence will become a scandal all by itself.

Haaretz conducted an interview with her this week following the poll, she was very eager to speak about teenagers’ racism towards new immigrants, but the more interesting part is how little she had to say about any another form of bigotry. Really, how could she be critical when her party’s future depends on the blossoming hatred of these teens? Here are some cherry picked questions and answers from the Hebrew interview.

Q: MP Michaeli, would you allow your children to attend school with Arabs?

A: Once when on vacation near the Kineret I took a photo of my children. Behind them there were Arab kids, and it was fine. They played a bit together, with certain caution.

Q: 16% of Jewish teenagers don’t want Russian immigrants in their classrooms, and 19% are not interested in Ethiopian classmates. Is Israeli society racist in your opinion?

A: In Israeli society there is a racism phenomena, but not just among teenagers and children. They heard these prejudices on the street or at home, where everything begins. Actually, it’s not only there, it’s on TV too.

…

Q: 56% of teenagers believe that Arabs should not be allowed to run for office. Are you concerned about this figure?

A: I would not like to comment on that.

Q: Nonetheless, this is a denial of civil rights.

A: In our elections campaign we said “No loyalty, no citizenship”. Whoever is not loyal to the state should not have voting rights.

…

Q: Could there be a connection between the youths’ opinion regarding Russian and Ethiopian immigrants and their opinion regarding Arabs?

A: There is no connection. I have yet to see an Ethiopian or Russian terrorist. We don’t kill Jews with a desire to kill.

Ya’akov “Katzaleh” Katz is a local war hero, who not unlike Anastacia joined Israeli politics during the 2009 elections, riding in on his star status as a settler leader. He heads the National Union party, and is chairperson of the Knesset’s Committee on Foreign Workers. A more accurate translation of the committee’s name would be “The Foreign Worker Problem Committee” (הוועדה לבחינת בעיית העובדים הזרים), it more accurately reflects the attitudes and motives behind the committee: “These people are a problem that we must solve”.
In a column that he wrote for Arutz Sheva, a settler media outlet, he speaks alarmingly about the “infiltration” of Israel’s southern border with Egypt by Sudanese and Eritrean refugees. The entire article is riddled with bigoted and racist “gems”, so it was hard to choose these paragraphs. Really hard..

The State of Israel is facing a hard problem: Between 1,000 and 2,000 persons infiltrate each month through the porous southern border. The public is not aware of the amount of people who have already entered the country: Somewhere between 22,000 and 25,000, about 20,000 of them live in Tel Aviv. Next year there will be at least 35,000, in two years 50,000 and in an increasing arithmetic progression we will reach in six or seven years to 75,000 or 100,000 African infiltrators, most of which will live in Tel Aviv and it’s area…

In the committee I have suggested to the ministries’ representatives to start a city that will be a decent distance from the border, where only there the infiltrators will be allowed to live. They will be employed in government projects for building the city itself, building the border fence, and paving roads that are badly needed for the residents in the country’s south.

It may be that this kind of labor would take it’s toll on the infiltrators in a way that they will advise their relatives not to follow in their footsteps to Israel. They may even wish to pay again $2,500 per head to the corrupt guides who brought them here, this time in order to  return them to their home.

For some time no one is surprised how many of Tel Aviv’s residents are willing to sell Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem. But it is unbelievable for me to behold how it does not bother them that their own city is becoming Eritrean and Sudanese. A thought sneaks to my mind that this secular, liberal and elitist community has simply lost all will to live. I call it to take it’s head out from under the blanket and look around. Is this what they hoped for when they built their homes in Tel Aviv? That it will become an African city? What kind of person wants to sell himself and his home? On this the Torah says “foolish and unwise people“, “foolish” towards their brethren in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem, “unwise” towards themselves.

It is interesting to notice that “infiltrator” once referred to Palestinian refugees trying to return to their homes inside Israel, a small percentage of whom were violent but mostly just trying to pick crops or return to their home. It is originally a military term, but is used by most of Israeli society to refer to refugees and now that paranoia of outside threat has now infected all immigrants. Hatred knows no borders!

Eitan Isaacson grew up in Rehovot, Israel. Today he lives in Seattle and is an active member of Jewish Voice for Peace.

YNet has this sad story:

Will eight-year-old Maria Amen, who lost five of her family members when an Israeli missile hit her home in the Gaza Strip in May 2006 get a house of her own three-and-a-half years later?

The eight-year-old lost her mother, two of her brothers, her aunt and her grandmother in the strike, and was also hit herself. She was left almost completely paralyzed to this day, and currently resides at a rehabilitation hospital in Jerusalem.

During a hearing on the matter in the High Court of Justice last week the defense and interior ministers’ counsel said the State would appoint a new representative to find a solution to the girl’s living arrangements to bring the saga to an end. The girls’ status, along with that of her father and brother, who was also injured in the strike, is being discussed by the High Court. The State refuses to grant the family’s request for permanent residency in Israel.”

Attorney Adi Lustigman, who represents the Amen family, said she also hopes the family’s permanent resident status will be approved in the future, despite that State’s current position on the matter. “She can’t breathe on her own, and this will not change. Transferring her to the Palestinian Authority would lead to doom, she cannot survive there. Here, the family can rebuild its life. What we are asking for is stability for her family, which has experienced disaster.”

While I am heartened that Israel apparently admitted enough wrongdoing to provide care for this girl for years, I am baffled as to why they refuse to approve her permanent resident status. The only possible explanation seems to be that are opposed to giving any hope  or setting any precedent for other Palestinians who wish to live in Israel. It is shame that this victim of war is being victimized again by Israel’s desire to keep Palestinians out. And the care given to this girl raises the question of what happens to all the many other victims of Israel’s bombing raids or others who need medical care in Israel. Physicians for Human Rights-Israel has this story of a Gaza man denied care because he might try to move to the West Bank.

Physicians for Human Rights–Israel is aware of two other cases of patients who, like Mr. Hamdan, have recently been refused permission by Israel to leave Gaza in order to receive medical treatment based on the claim that they may settle in the West Bank. This is a new phenomenon that reflects an escalation in Israeli policy toward residents of Gaza who require medical treatment. The policy violates the basic rights of patients to receive medical care, including in emergency cases, putting political considerations ahead of Israel’s duty to safeguard the health of residents of Gaza.”

UPDATE: In researching this piece, I found a post by Tikkun Olam blogger Richard Silverstein from a year ago, in which he denounces the Peres Center (as in President Shimon Peres) for using these children for political gain while others go without care. And the Palestinian Authority for engaging in the politicization of their care.

Medical care is one of the major points of contention in the everyday low-intensity conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.  Israel’s Peres Center makes a point of subsidizing the medical care of Palestinian children in need of specialized care that can only be found at Israeli hospitals.  It then publicizes its beneficence in order to score points in Israel and the world community by highlighting how merciful Israel is toward sick Palestinian children. This of course begs the question–what about solving the conflict, instead of merely providing medical care for a few hundred sick Palestinians, much as that is to be admired?”

Silverstein tells the story of a girl who died from being denied care, which uncomfortably reminded me of the stories that surfaced in the health care debate in the United States.