Neo-Nazis in Israel!
The existence of a neo-Nazi Russian youth gang in Israel, and in Petah Tikva of all places, has shocked Israelis.
Ten youths were arrested in the past few days. This gang went around beating up foreigners (Asians) and Orthodox Jews, and they photographed their activities, so that makes the police case much stronger. They always preyed on isolated and vulnerable individuals. They also have Nazi tatoos on their bodies and Nazi memorabilia in their homes. It would be difficult for their parents to deny that they were aware of their actions. In some cases the grandparents of the youths were Holocaust survivors!
We know that there are many non-Jews among the 1 million of so who have immigrated from the former Soviet Union, although the exact percentage is uncertain (say 10-30%). These include spouses of Jews and their children, some of whom have no Jewish identity. Judaism as a religion was proscribed in the USSR for 70 years. Most of those who came under the Israeli "Law of Return," were accepted under the condition that they had a minimum of one Jewish grandparent. Why did the Jewish State adopt this policy, because it was the condition for defining Jewishness under the Nazi race laws, and the theory was that if a person could be persecuted for being one eighth Jewish, then they could also be allowed to emigrate to the Jewish State without conditions.
Many of the non-Jewish immigrants have identified themselves as Christians, but this includes only a small minority of true Christian believers and a lot of disaffected and unaffiliated youth. Many of them serve in the IDF, and do so honorably. But, a very small fraction are disloyal and justify violence.
Now however, the Knesset is looking at amending the Law of Return to make a more positive statement about the person's identification, rather than a purely genetic percentage. But, the definition of "who is Jew" can be complex, because the term "Jew" defines both a people and a religion, and they are not completely overlapping. What happens if the Law is amended, but then someone applies who claims to identifiy as a Jew but has no Jewish antecedents and has not converted? Orthodox converts are accepted under the Law of Return, but not any others. All this makes for a difficult definition. However, the margins are always more difficult to define than the center.
There is another aspect of the youth gang, they had made contact with similar pro-fascist gangs in Russia. So there is a move to revoke their citizenship, for having been disloyal to the State. The Minister of the Interior, Meir Sheetrit, has announced that they are investigatring the legality of this process. However, Israel has not revoked the citizenship of many Arabs who have openly and publicly proclaimed their opposition and enmity to the State of Israel. For example, Sheikh Salah, the Head of the Northern Region of the Islamic League in Israel, held a huge public prayer meeting in Jerusalem recently, in which he called for the destruction of the State and the takeover of the Temple Mount by the Muslims. Although he has previously been arrested for anti-Israel comments, so far in this case nothing has been done about him. So we tolerate Islamists but not neo-Nazis, when everyone acknowledges that the latter are a tiny fringe element while the former are a serious threat.
Ten youths were arrested in the past few days. This gang went around beating up foreigners (Asians) and Orthodox Jews, and they photographed their activities, so that makes the police case much stronger. They always preyed on isolated and vulnerable individuals. They also have Nazi tatoos on their bodies and Nazi memorabilia in their homes. It would be difficult for their parents to deny that they were aware of their actions. In some cases the grandparents of the youths were Holocaust survivors!
We know that there are many non-Jews among the 1 million of so who have immigrated from the former Soviet Union, although the exact percentage is uncertain (say 10-30%). These include spouses of Jews and their children, some of whom have no Jewish identity. Judaism as a religion was proscribed in the USSR for 70 years. Most of those who came under the Israeli "Law of Return," were accepted under the condition that they had a minimum of one Jewish grandparent. Why did the Jewish State adopt this policy, because it was the condition for defining Jewishness under the Nazi race laws, and the theory was that if a person could be persecuted for being one eighth Jewish, then they could also be allowed to emigrate to the Jewish State without conditions.
Many of the non-Jewish immigrants have identified themselves as Christians, but this includes only a small minority of true Christian believers and a lot of disaffected and unaffiliated youth. Many of them serve in the IDF, and do so honorably. But, a very small fraction are disloyal and justify violence.
Now however, the Knesset is looking at amending the Law of Return to make a more positive statement about the person's identification, rather than a purely genetic percentage. But, the definition of "who is Jew" can be complex, because the term "Jew" defines both a people and a religion, and they are not completely overlapping. What happens if the Law is amended, but then someone applies who claims to identifiy as a Jew but has no Jewish antecedents and has not converted? Orthodox converts are accepted under the Law of Return, but not any others. All this makes for a difficult definition. However, the margins are always more difficult to define than the center.
There is another aspect of the youth gang, they had made contact with similar pro-fascist gangs in Russia. So there is a move to revoke their citizenship, for having been disloyal to the State. The Minister of the Interior, Meir Sheetrit, has announced that they are investigatring the legality of this process. However, Israel has not revoked the citizenship of many Arabs who have openly and publicly proclaimed their opposition and enmity to the State of Israel. For example, Sheikh Salah, the Head of the Northern Region of the Islamic League in Israel, held a huge public prayer meeting in Jerusalem recently, in which he called for the destruction of the State and the takeover of the Temple Mount by the Muslims. Although he has previously been arrested for anti-Israel comments, so far in this case nothing has been done about him. So we tolerate Islamists but not neo-Nazis, when everyone acknowledges that the latter are a tiny fringe element while the former are a serious threat.
posted by Jack Cohen at 10:13 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home