British columnist Oliver Kamm succinctly
stated in a worth-reading recent article in the Jewish Chronicle concerning Jeremy Corbyn and the Corbynistas: “The left now tolerates bigotry
and embraces terror …. It's no longer possible to assume that a declared
progressive will defend free speech, secularism, women's rights, homosexual
equality, cosmopolitanism and the spread of scientific inquiry. Those are the
values that cause me to admire Israel – a nation whose pluralist ethos will be
fulfilled when there is an eventual two-state solution with a sovereign
Palestine. Yet now we have a left that
tolerates bigotry, allies with theocratic reaction, embraces terror groups and
espouses irrationalism.” (http://www.thejc.com/comment-and-debate/columnists/142780/corbyns-deplorable-allies)
Australia’s
most-read columnist and scourge of the Left Andrew Bolt, as usual pulling no
punches, has observed during this past week: “There is now
something close to panic in Europe…. Europe has not had so many refugees since
World War II, but this time the danger is greater, since many come from
cultures and a faith so alien and sometimes hostile. That danger is real. The Charlie Hebdo
terrorists were sons of Algerian immigrants; the jihadist who tried to shoot up
the Paris-Amsterdam train last week was from Morocco; immigrant areas of Paris
and Sweden’s Malmo are repeatedly rocked by riots; and some 4000 Europeans,
mainly the children of immigrants, have joined the Islamic State… Unless the
Islamists are stopped, millions more refugees will join this invasion of
Europe, including parents of tomorrow’s jihadists. And after a decade or two of that, how safe
will Europe be for Europeans — and us? Already
Jews are fleeing France and Sweden for the comparative safety of Israel. The stakes have got much higher. Defeating
the Islamic State is critical” (http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/opinion/this-is-a-war-we-must-win-quickly/story-fnj45fva-1227500080892)
But try telling this to the Left, even
left-wing Jews. There is something
particularly pernicious about the “progressive” Jews – whether progressive in a
political or religious sense – when they argue, as many do, for open borders
regarding this “refugee” influx.
In its statement of purpose, an
Israel-bashing British group of “as-a-Jews” calling itself Independent Jewish
Voices (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_Jewish_Voices)
makes, inter alia, the curious claim: “There is no justification for any form
of racism, including … Islamophobia, in any circumstance.” A curious claim indeed, given that Islam is
not “a race” and given that there are women and at least one prominent gay
among the signatories, all of whom must surely be aware of the trespasses
against females and against gays that are often committed by Islamic regimes,
Islamic families, and Islamic persons in the name of Islam.
I know of at least one of those signatories
who has admitted that coming together with other Jewish and Jew-ish critics of
Israel has been his first and only “Jewish communal” activity, while another,
the offspring of a mixed marriage, was raised an Anglican and has been
described wryly as “an occasional Jew”.
Truly unhelpful is the statement emanating
a fortnight of so ago from 200 British Jews, including 20 rabbis, which
castigated the Cameron government’s necessarily harsh response to the Calais
crisis (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/jewish-community-leaders-speak-out-against-governments-calais-refugee-policy-10450367.html)
“Many of us in the Jewish community are appalled by the UK’s response to the
ongoing situation in Calais,” said the letter (http://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/your-response-to-migrant-crisis-is-appalling-british-jews-tell-cameron-a2487361.html),
sent from the Jewish Council for Racial Equality (JCORE). “Our experience as
refugees is not so distant that we’ve forgotten what it’s like to be demonised
for seeking safety.” This week Foreign
Secretary Philip Hammond described migrants attempting to cross over to Britain
as “marauding”. Last week about 200 tried to storm the Channel Tunnel, while
hauliers say drivers have been threatened by stowaways. Britain has paid for a
£7 million security fence. The letter
said: “People fleeing conflict and persecution are not to blame for the crisis
in Calais; neither is our welfare system, nor the French government. Above all,
we in the UK are not the victims here; we are not being invaded by a ‘swarm’.”
The Jewish leaders said refugees were usually seeking a safer society and were
not attracted by benefits. Britain
accepted almost 10,000 predominantly Jewish children from Nazi Germany,
Austria, Czechoslovakia and Poland in 1938 and 1939. Among those saved were
artist Frank Auerbach, now 84, and Labour peer Lord Dubs, 83. Dr Edie Friedman, executive director of
JCORE, said: “The Jewish refugee experience is still a vivid memory for many in
our community. The Government’s failure
to even consider helping those fleeing conflict and persecution today shames us
as a nation. Rather than shut ourselves off from the world, it is vitally
important that we work with the rest of Europe to create safe and legal routes
for refugees to claim asylum.” Since June, nine people have died in the Channel
Tunnel while attempting to gain access to the UK. However, 2,000 have died in
the Mediterranean trying to enter Europe by sea. Rabbi Laura Janner-Klausner said: “No country
has a perfect record on immigration. No country could do, such is the
complexity of the issue and the lives of those it affects.’ (See also this nice but naive statement by
Liberal rabbis (https://jcoreuk.wordpress.com/2015/07/22/rabbis-call-for-government-re-think-on-cuts-in-aid-for-asylum-seekers/).
The letter creates a false analogy between
the refugees from Nazi persecution and the hordes of economic migrants,
including thousands and thousands of testosterone-fuelled young single men from
benighted lands attempting to reach Britain illegally today, as pointed out in
by several commenters blow the line in the Evening
Standard’s report. To quote just
one commenter: ‘I am Jewish and wish to disassociate myself from the 200 Jews
who have signed JCORE’S letter suggesting that the Prime Minister’s handling of
the Calais migrant crisis is “appalling”. You quote (12 August) Dr Edie
Friedman, Director of JCORE, as suggesting that the government has “failed to
even consider helping those fleeing conflict and persecution”. The truth is that the refugees in Calais are
a mixture of asylum seekers and economic refugees. The problem of migration is a global one and
no Western country accepts unlimited migration. In the US the “progressive” Obama
administration has removed around 2 million “illegal aliens” and Germany is in
the process of removing 94,000 asylum seekers.
JCORE seems to suggest that the government grants no asylum applications
at all. The truth is that some 8,000 were granted in 2014. JCORE also appears
to imply that all Jews who wanted a refuge in the UK from Nazi persecution in
the 1930s and 1940s were accepted. This is far from the case, as historians …
have shown.”
And then, as one perceptive non-Jewish
commenter has observed, with admirable brevity and sound common sense, the
signatories are "Licking the Hand That Would Cut Their Throats”.