Ukraine, Israel, racism and refugees

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine exposed so much hypocrisy in Aotearoa New Zealand and the Western world that it is hard to keep track.

Israel has racism as an art.

As the world raised its hand for Ukrainian refugees, Israel raised its hand only for Jewish Ukrainian refugees (at least one grandparent must be Jewish)

As early as January 2022, Israel began Planning transfer Ukrainian Jews to become settlers on Palestinian land. Israeli Ministry of Aliyah and Immigrant Absorption proclaimed: “We call on Jews from Ukraine to immigrate to Israel – your home.”

the refugees/settlers started to arrival in early March, receiving preferential treatment, while Ukrainians who could not prove their Jewishness under Israel’s racist criteria for refugees face a myriad difficulties.

Meanwhile, the World Zionist Organization’s Plantation Division has started to prepare 1,000 homes for Ukrainian Jews on stolen and occupied Palestinian and Syrian land in the occupied West Bank and occupied Golan Heights.

When there was an outcry from Israeli liberals saying, rightly, that this did not reflect Jewish values, the government said it would also accept non-Jewish refugees. the predictable reaction of racist Israelis was “We are a Jewish state – why are we welcoming these Gentiles?”. The government, however, says non-Jewish refugees will not be able to claim Israeli citizenship – they will have to leave when the fighting stops.

It is important to emphasize here that Israel is NOT a Jewish state. 20% of Israeli citizens are Palestinian. Israel is a multi-ethnic, multi-religious and multi-cultural state dominated by a racist regime that has made the native Palestinians second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth class inhabitants of their native land and the land of their ancestors, Palestine. This is well described in Short video from Amnesty International on Israeli apartheid.

Jewish Ukrainian refugees are welcomed because it helps Israel maintain a majority Jewish population. It is a country obsessed with demographics and determined to maintain what Israel’s largest and most respected human rights group, B’Tselem, calls “A Regime of Jewish Supremacy from the Jordan to the Mediterranean”.

Most Jewish Ukrainian refugees are proposed to be settled in illegal Jewish-only settlements on stolen Palestinian land as Israel’s apartheid government continues to refuse to allow Palestinians to return to their homes and lands after an estimated 800,000 people were ethnically cleansed from large swaths of historic Palestine by Israeli militias in 1948 – a process that continues to this day.

And Jewish Ukrainian refugees will be entitled to automatic Israeli citizenship — something denied to the vast majority of Palestinians in their homeland, Palestine — which has been occupied by the Israeli military since 1967.

Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali “I killed a lot of Arabs in my time and there is nothing wrong with that” Bennett introduced himself as an international mediator. Israel has not joined in the international condemnation of Russia and repeatedly refused Ukrainian calls for military aidbut Bennet flew to Moscow for a three-hour meeting with Putin and then phoned Zelensky suggesting he think about the cost of death and destruction in Ukraine and agree to Russian terms. Bennett went on to try to bring the parties together for a mediation meeting in Jerusalem.

This is the same Israeli leader who refuses to meet with Palestinian leaders, refuses to negotiate any peace agreement with the Palestinians and says he will never agree to a Palestinian state being established under his leadership. Not the credentials of an international mediator.

And in case readers missed the recent news, two other high profile groups have joined in the international human rights condemnation of Israel as an apartheid state.

A brief summary of the most prominent groups that have portrayed Israel in this way over the past 18 months is here:

• Many Palestinian civil society organizations

It is racism on steroids in Israel as it was in apartheid South Africa. And more and more Jews around the world see it as such. According to a public opinion poll conducted last year, 25% of American Jews already consider Israel an apartheid state and 38% of young American Jews say the same.

We need regime change in Israel and all who live in historic Palestine with equal rights.