Israeli PM Netanyahu beckons France's Jews to immigrate to Israel in light of recent terrorism

[Roma_Victrix]

After Paris attacks, Israel vows to welcome European Jews seeking to immigrate

I understand that Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu sees it as a political imperative to paint himself as the worldwide protector of the Jews, but his suggestion that France's Jews should move to Israel to be safer just strikes me as far more opportunistic than an honest appeal for public safety of his people.



That's an excellent question, Mr. Lazarus...er, I mean Mr. Downey, and I'm happy to answer.

Since I'm a cynical person, I'm going to assume that, given the recent rising number of French Jews immigrating to Israel (7,000 of them in 2014 alone), Netanyahu is welcome to the idea of having more Jews around in order to obtain a larger productive workforce to bolster Israel's GDP as well as its military manpower. France, home to half a million Jews and the largest Jewish population in Europe (as well as the largest Muslim minority), is a good reservoir for that. As the article makes clear, Israel is on the "front line" against hostile Islamic regimes and terrorist groups, so how exactly is it safer there for Jews than in France? Despite the recent terrorist attacks on Charlie Hebdo and the kosher grocer. The answer is that it's not particularly safer at all. Despite Iron Dome shielding Israel from Palestinian rockets, Jews are still susceptible to domestic terrorism in Israel. And terrorism in France isn't exactly a frequent occurrence. If anything, Jews moving to Israel might one day have children who are drafted into the IDF. That doesn't make them particularly safer, now does it?

I don't know, what do you guys think? Do you think I'm being too unfair to Netanyahu? If you were the PM of Israel, isn't this the policy you'd be promoting? The one that has your nation's interests in mind? Yet as the article also explains, Rabbi Menachem Margolin, the director of the European Jewish Association based in Brussels, Belgium, has France and indeed Europe's interests in mind by countering Netanyahu and encouraging Jews to stay in Europe. Cognitive dissonance!

To drive that point home, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls has even suggested that "If 100,000 French people of Spanish origin were to leave, I would never say that France is not France anymore. But if 100,000 Jews leave, France will no longer be France. The French Republic will be judged a failure." Wow! Talk about a low blow to French of Spanish descent! Geez. However, I do see what he's saying. An exodus of Jews from France is not a good thing for France. Their community has historically been an integral part of the overall French national identity. Plus it would be a huge brain drain, since, let's be honest (and a wee bit politically incorrect if not racist here), Jews represent a nice lucrative cash cow to any state. : I know, I know, I'm the bad guy here.

A small funny bonus to this story is the WaPo comments section, where I mined this precious gem:

I think this is something around 10 years at such a pace and Europe will be inhabited by Muslims only. Because all Jews will flee from a sinking ship, and all the others who are not Muslims will either leave too or die in the terrorist attack.

Ladies and gentlemen, step aside, we have an expert demographer weighing in here on the issue of Europe's Muslim population versus, well, just about everyone else. Apparently ALL of Europe's population, not just the Jews and excluding Muslims, is going to pack their bags and leave, while the rest will be destroyed in an Islamic terrorist attack or two...in the span of a decade.

[anonimo272]

you dont come to a country and ask to some of it's population to leave to your country, thats a bite rude
to a jew it still is safer to live in france than israel
if he has the best interests in mind then he should try to not break international law every 10 days...

this will only "isolate" even more israel in the palestine "problem"
this smell politics, france will eventualy recognize palestine and they know it the swedish opened that door in the west and now the public opinion is changing

honestly our support in pretty much everything to israel is ridiculous, israel actions are our fault too, 6 months of sanctions and israel would behave

[Caligula's_Horse]

I'm pretty sure France's Jews won't be safer in Israel, unless a genocide takes place on French soil sometime in the next couple of years (which needless to say, seems highly unlikely). We have a lot more terrorism in Israel then France ever will, and a lower quality of living to boot (mostly for economic reasons).

Not that our government likes to say so out loud. With the Israeli arabs and orthodox Jews breeding faster then the secular Jewish majority, we need all the outside reinforcements we can get. Hell, we've shipped in thousands of tribal Ethiopian Jews in the 80's that we knew would take decades to make up for the economic deficit of bringing them in (mostly due to being completely uneducated) and have difficulties fitting into the army until a new generation comes along (military discipline clashes quite badly with tribal social norms, in addition to the language barrier), and now we're bringing in Indian Jews we've missed in the past that aren't looking to be much better in that regard.
A new wave of western Europeans that can start contributing to the economy and military right away is a bargain compared to that, much like the eastern Europeans were when the USSR fell and they started coming in droves.

I honestly wouldn't be surprised if we start cloning secular Jews in a decade or two as the demographic situation shifts further and further against us. Either that, or Israel as a secular western nation becomes less and less viable as time goes by.

[Sphere]

I'm pretty sure France's Jews won't be safer in Israel, unless a genocide takes place on French soil sometime in the next couple of years (which needless to say, seems highly unlikely). We have a lot more terrorism in Israel then France ever will, and a lower quality of living to boot (mostly for economic reasons).

Not that our government likes to say so out loud. With the Israeli arabs and orthodox Jews breeding faster then the secular Jewish majority, we need all the outside reinforcements we can get. Hell, we've shipped in thousands of tribal Ethiopian Jews in the 80's that we knew would take decades to make up for the economic deficit of bringing them in (mostly due to being completely uneducated) and have difficulties fitting into the army until a new generation comes along (military discipline clashes quite badly with tribal social norms, in addition to the language barrier), and now we're bringing in Indian Jews we've missed in the past that aren't looking to be much better in that regard.
A new wave of western Europeans that can start contributing to the economy and military right away is a bargain compared to that, much like the eastern Europeans were when the USSR fell and they started coming in droves.

I honestly wouldn't be surprised if we start cloning secular Jews in a decade or two as the demographic situation shifts further and further against us. Either that, or Israel as a secular western nation becomes less and less viable as time goes by.

And lets be frank. There are members of Bibi's coalition who would like to see large scale Jewish emigration to Israel so that the Palestinian territories (or at least Judea and Samaria) could be annexed without threatening the Jewish majority of Israel. In a perverse way they welcome growing antisemitism in places like Russia as it serves their myopic political concerns.

I am getting rather concerned that the Israeli center and left haven't got their together enough to get Bibi out of the Prime Ministership.

[Roma_Victrix]

I'm pretty sure France's Jews won't be safer in Israel, unless a genocide takes place on French soil sometime in the next couple of years (which needless to say, seems highly unlikely). We have a lot more terrorism in Israel then France ever will, and a lower quality of living to boot (mostly for economic reasons).

Not that our government likes to say so out loud. With the Israeli arabs and orthodox Jews breeding faster then the secular Jewish majority, we need all the outside reinforcements we can get. Hell, we've shipped in thousands of tribal Ethiopian Jews in the 80's that we knew would take decades to make up for the economic deficit of bringing them in (mostly due to being completely uneducated) and have difficulties fitting into the army until a new generation comes along (military discipline clashes quite badly with tribal social norms, in addition to the language barrier), and now we're bringing in Indian Jews we've missed in the past that aren't looking to be much better in that regard.
A new wave of western Europeans that can start contributing to the economy and military right away is a bargain compared to that, much like the eastern Europeans were when the USSR fell and they started coming in droves.

Given the recent flight of so many young Israelis to live in Berlin, Germany of all places probably raises alarm bells for Netanyahu and the Israeli government. They don't want a full-blown exodus on their hands, so they are clearly trying to use this latest event as a call for those Jews to come back home, or rather, a newly-adopted home. After all, the vast majority of the Jews in France are Frenchmen, born and raised. It's not so easy to just leave your entire life behind and go someplace else, especially when the economic prospects, as you allude, aren't better off in the hypothetical new home country.

I agree with anonimo that such a move seems pretty rude on the part of Netanyahu, but then again national interests must trump niceties. I don't think the situation is as drastic as you, Caligula's_Horse, have presented it, though. I respectfully disagree and I think Israel has a nice long future ahead of her. However, you are right to believe the secular nature of Israel may diminish in coming decades as radical Orthodox Jews (along with Israeli Arabs) become larger minorities. At the moment, however, the secular Jewish community enjoys a comfortable majority of 85% of Israeli Jews.

I honestly wouldn't be surprised if we start cloning secular Jews in a decade or two as the demographic situation shifts further and further against us. Either that, or Israel as a secular western nation becomes less and less viable as time goes by.

Well, in the future, you're going to need secular Jewish clones to counter the Orthodox Jewbots.



South Park FTW.

And lets be frank. There are members of Bibi's coalition who would like to see large scale Jewish emigration to Israel so that the Palestinian territories (or at least Judea and Samaria) could be annexed without threatening the Jewish majority of Israel. In a perverse way they welcome growing antisemitism in places like Russia as it serves their myopic political concerns.

I am getting rather concerned that the Israeli center and left haven't got their together enough to get Bibi out of the Prime Ministership.

Good luck reversing the enormous approval and popularity of the Likud party in Israel at the moment. Right wing movements everywhere are most comfortable and successful in political environments with heavy national security concerns.

[Sphere]

Good luck reversing the enormous approval and popularity of the Likud party in Israel at the moment. Right wing movements everywhere are most comfortable and successful in political environments with heavy national security concerns.

My take on Israeli politics is quite different. If you look at the rise and fall of Kadima and in the recent rise of Yesh Atid, you see a centrist/secular majority in the electorate desperately looking for some sort of credible political leadership they can get behind. Likud and the religious parties have that in Bibi, as such they can put together a governing coalition. Leaders in Labour Hatnuah/Kadima are discredited right now, but looking at the polls and the recent election history, if an Israeli Tony Blair came along I could see a center-left coalition taking power and governing for a long time, much as UK Labour was able to do even after the seemingly stranglehold conservative politics had during the Thatcher years.

In short it is the lack of a strong center/secular leader which is allowing Bibi to govern.

[hellheaven1987]

In short it is the lack of a strong center/secular leader which is allowing Bibi to govern.

Not like it matters; no political party in Israel can pull back all settlements in West Bank, since it would be a political suicide. The only option secular faction can do is not to build new settlement, but there is nothing they can do about old settlements and hence the quarrels between Israel and Palestine continue, which simply paves the way for the eventually return of conservative faction.

[Roma_Victrix]

Not like it matters; no political party in Israel can pull back all settlements in West Bank, since it would be a political suicide. The only option secular faction can do is not to build new settlement, but there is nothing they can do about old settlements and hence the quarrels between Israel and Palestine continue, which simply paves the way for the eventually return of conservative faction.

So in that case, the proposed center-left coalition is damned if they do, and damned if they don't. Yikes. No wonder Obama wants to back away from getting in the middle of the peace process.

[Sphere]

Not like it matters; no political party in Israel can pull back all settlements in West Bank, since it would be a political suicide. The only option secular faction can do is not to build new settlement, but there is nothing they can do about old settlements and hence the quarrels between Israel and Palestine continue, which simply paves the way for the eventually return of conservative faction.

Well, it could curtail this whole "Jewish Nation" nonsense and establish a more secular path for Israel. Israel is at a bit of crossroads in terms of the secular nature of the country, and the policies concerning orthodox Jewish communities. Bibi and his lot want to keep them "more equal" than everyone else, while Yair Lapid and secular Israelis and not fond of this idea. And I think the outcome of that internal dispute has some relevance to the Palestinian question in the long term.

[mongrel]

(military discipline clashes quite badly with tribal social norms, in addition to the language barrier)

I'm sure General Baratieri thought much the same before his entire army was wiped out in the Battle of Adowa.

[Yayattasa]

Bibi is a warmonger, he wants more people so he can hand more guns. Obviously, he's also racist, seeing how French jews are treated way better than Ethiopian and Arabian jews in Israel.

[Caligula's_Horse]

Given the recent flight of so many young Israelis to live in Berlin, Germany of all places probably raises alarm bells for Netanyahu and the Israeli government. They don't want a full-blown exodus on their hands, so they are clearly trying to use this latest event as a call for those Jews to come back home, or rather, a newly-adopted home. After all, the vast majority of the Jews in France are Frenchmen, born and raised. It's not so easy to just leave your entire life behind and go someplace else, especially when the economic prospects, as you allude, aren't better off in the hypothetical new home country.

I agree with anonimo that such a move seems pretty rude on the part of Netanyahu, but then again national interests must trump niceties. I don't think the situation is as drastic as you, Caligula's_Horse, have presented it, though. I respectfully disagree and I think Israel has a nice long future ahead of her. However, you are right to believe the secular nature of Israel may diminish in coming decades as radical Orthodox Jews (along with Israeli Arabs) become larger minorities. At the moment, however, the secular Jewish community enjoys a comfortable majority of 85% of Israeli Jews.

Good luck reversing the enormous approval and popularity of the Likud party in Israel at the moment. Right wing movements everywhere are most comfortable and successful in political environments with heavy national security concerns.

The minute our secular nature is gone is the minute we're screwed. The Orthodox jews don't serve in the military, are more interested in studying scripture then finding work, and are averse to all things modern like science or learning English. They're only 15% now, but they breed like rabits--10 kids per family is not unusual, that they usually can't feed without state support, never mind finance them a proper education, perpetuating the system.
Some of them will inevitably modernize when the system supporting them starts to collapse under their ever growing weight, but too few, and too late.

Looking some 30-40 years ahead, when we loose our secular majority, we'll loose our technological, economic and military edge along with it. Surrounded by people who at best barely tolerate us, and at worse state their goal is to drive Israel into the sea, you can understand why I'm worried. At best a combination of the economy tanking and religious coercion will make for a miserable state to live in, at worst, we're defeated militarily and face a genocide.

I much prefer to live among the lab grown pod people. Its looking more and more like its either that or immigrate somewhere else.

Bibi is a warmonger, he wants more people so he can hand more guns. Obviously, he's also racist, seeing how French jews are treated way better than Ethiopian and Arabian jews in Israel.

You'd be surprised, but Bibi is no warmonger. The name he was called by a confidential source at the white house a few months ago is a lot more accurate--chicken.
His Likud party is hawkish enough, I'll give you that, but Bibi himself is more concerned with keeping his seat then anything, and usually lacks both the initiative and the guts to start anything himself, too cowardly to face anything but the status quo.

He talks the part of hawk well enough, but when the time comes to act, he's more of a chicken. So we take all the diplomatic crap you get for a warmongering leader, with no decisive military action to show for it. The worst of both worlds.

[hellheaven1987]

I bet Netanyahu wants to rebuild Judaism, but as a Zionist heretic he simply has no option to build Third Temple and appoint new High Priest...

[Treize]

/care

[Stavroforos]

If I were a Jew, I would always feel uncomfortable living in Europe, where people still look down upon the Jews. In Israel at least I'd be in a community of similar people, but then again, I'd be even more hated as an Israeli than a French Jew.

[Treize]

If I were a Jew, I would always feel uncomfortable living in Europe, where people still look down upon the Jews. In Israel at least I'd be in a community of similar people, but then again, I'd be even more hated as an Israeli than a French Jew.

It amazes me how Jews go to all places around the world and every single time they manage to get themselves hated wherever they go.

There could be two ways to explain this. One would be that all people from all kinds of different cultures in different timeframes all happen to be nasty racists towards a single group of people, seemlingly by chance. Or there is something about Jews themselves that puts people off.

I wonder.

[Roma_Victrix]

It amazes me how Jews go to all places around the world and every single time they manage to get themselves hated wherever they go.

There could be two ways to explain this. One would be that all people from all kinds of different cultures in different timeframes all happen to be nasty racists towards a single group of people, seemlingly by chance. Or there is something about Jews themselves that puts people off.

I wonder.

If what you say is true, that they have been hated in not only every time period but in every location, then how does one explain the success of Josephus, Maimonides, Sigmund Freud, Franz Kafka, Albert Einstein, Isaac Asimov, Peter Sellers, Don Rickles, Mel Brooks, Garry Kasparov, Milton Friedman, Joseph Stiglitz, Barbara Walters, Harrison Ford, Sacha Baron Cohen, Daniel-Day Lewis, etc. These aren't exactly hated figures; in fact all of them are celebrated in addition to being well-known Jews (although admittedly Harrison Ford doesn't bring up his maternal ancestry very often).

[Stavroforos]

It amazes me how Jews go to all places around the world and every single time they manage to get themselves hated wherever they go.

There could be two ways to explain this. One would be that all people from all kinds of different cultures in different timeframes all happen to be nasty racists towards a single group of people, seemlingly by chance. Or there is something about Jews themselves that puts people off.

I wonder.

My theory is that people simply don't like being confronted with a group of people who willingly refuse to fully integrate into a society while maintaining a close-knit and successful community of their own. Though in Europe, antisemitism is so deeply embedded in European culture that it's hard to remove it regardless of how modern Jews may act.

[Nicov55]

My theory is that people simply don't like being confronted with a group of people who willingly refuse to fully integrate into a society while maintaining a close-knit and successful community of their own. Though in Europe, antisemitism is so deeply embedded in European culture that it's hard to remove it regardless of how modern Jews may act.

I do not agree, the antisemitism you refer to tends to disappear. That was the old catholic antisemitism "justified" by the fact that "the Jews killed the Christ" even if Jesus was jewish himself...
I can only speak for what i see in my country, France: that old antisemitism only concerns a few thousand people, mostly old far right ultra catholic aristocratic end of lines after too many cousin-cousin weddings. You'll know what i mean if you see one, they meet every sunday at the St Nicolas du Chardonnay Church in Paris.
It is stronger in some central european countries, but since there are not that many jewish people left there...

The new antisemitism i observe in France develops among the muslim community, it is fed by the israelo palestinian conflict and the fact that many jewish figures have important responsabilities while there are very few muslim people in the high spheres of society. Though different in the way that the antisemitic people are not the same, at the end it uses the same old slenders: money, world-ploting domination crazy theories, etc...

[hellheaven1987]

even if Jesus was jewish himself...

Jesus was not a follower of Judaism.