Senate bill to stop Palestinian refugee scam

FrontPage Magazine reports:

The US Senate Appropriations Committee has approved an important amendment to a bill. Proposed by Republican Senator Mark Kirk of Illinois, the amendment would change the definition of “Palestinian refugee” such that the number of people now given that status would shrink from about five million to about thirty thousand.

The U.S. currently contributes annually about $250 million of the approximately $600 million budget of UNRWA, the UN agency that provides housing, education, and welfare to Palestinian “refugees.” The U.S. has funneled a total of $4.4 billion to UNRWA since it was founded in 1948.

Unlike all other refugees in the history of the world, Palestinian “refugees” include all descendents of the people who left Israel during the war of 1949. The war was initiated by the Arab states, who told their brothers living within Israel’s boundaries to leave and they could return after the Arabs destroyed Israel.

Whoops! They didn’t destroy Israel, and the UN gave the Palestinians who left their own refugee agency, UNRWA. All other refugee groups decline in numbers over the years as they are resettled or, in the long term, die off. The Palestinians continue to grow in number. UNRWA is truly a scam; it scams money out of civilized nations to support the “refugees,” it saves the neighboring Arab countries from having to take them in, and it provides a continuing mass of people festering in hatred and misery which its leaders direct toward Israel.

Meanwhile, those Arabs who remained in Israel in 1949 became Israeli citizens. They and their descendents now constitute about 20 percent of the population. They have full civil rights, have a party in the parliament, and have people in high positions.

This bill is long overdue, and bravo to Senator Kirk for introducing it.

More on those anti-African migrant riots in Israel

Netanyahu:   Africans threaten the social fabric of Israel.

See my earlier post here on the riots.   This one is from the LA Times:

It was the latest in a string of attacks, disturbances and incidents of harassment in the last month, after three Eritrean migrants were arrested in connection with the rape of an Israeli woman.

Amid a national uproar over the rape, Interior Minster Eli Yishai called most African immigrants “criminals” and vowed to either deport or jail them. He said on Israel Radio that a firm response was the only way to discourage more refugees from entering the country. “Once they’re in jail, they won’t want to come over here anymore,” he said.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu echoed the sentiment, saying the presence of African migrants in Israel “is extremely serious and threatens Israel’s social fabric and national security.“

Most of the African refugees walk into Israel via the Sinai desert, paying Bedouin smugglers thousands of dollars to deliver them from Egypt. In response, the Israeli government has begun construction of a massive fence along the border and an 8,000-bed detention facility in the southern Negev desert to hold those who get through. Both are expected to be completed this year.

Political correctness has definitely not taken hold in Israel!

Israel swamped with African migrants, Israelis riot

This is a story from this past week that I hadn’t had a chance to post until now.

From Reuters:

JERUSALEM, May 24 (Reuters) – Surging street violence against African migrants, including a rampage that an Israeli broadcaster dubbed a “pogrom”, drew empathy for the rioters from the interior minister on Thursday.

Waving Israeli flags and chanting “Deport the Sudanese”, residents of a low-income Tel Aviv neighbourhood where many of the border-jumpers from Eritrea, Sudan and South Sudan live held a march late Wednesday that turned violent.

Police said 20 people were arrested for assault and vandalism. Trash cans were set alight, storefront windows were broken and a crowd attacked an African driving through the area, breaking his car’s windows. No serious injuries were reported.

Interviewing Interior Minister Eli Yishai, Army Radio likened the incident to pogrom attacks on Jews in 19th century Europe. Yishai bristled at such language, citing police findings that Sudanese and Eritrean migrants were a crime risk.

[....]

Fleeing poverty, fighting and authoritarian rule, some 60,000 Africans have crossed illegally into Israel through the relatively porous desert border with Egypt in recent years.

[....]

Unchecked, the number of Africans illegally in Israel could reach millions and overwhelm the citizenry, Yishai predicted.

“So what, the State of Israel, as the Jewish state, in the name of democracy, in the name of honouring U.N. resolutions, (should accept) a recipe for suicide?” he said.

“The truth has to be told, and believe me it is hard and it hurts, as we are the Jewish people, a merciful people.”

A recipe for suicide—indeed!

Update:  Yikes!  I hadn’t thought of this, but Patrick Cleburne writing at VDARE suggests we could get some of Israel’s illegal alien Africans.  After all, that is precisely what I’ve predicted could happen elsewhere as we continue to tout the Malta-model of resettlement—illegal aliens arrive on Malta and we take them off Malta’s hands because we want something from Malta!

Israel: Climate refugees are coming! Close the borders!

I can think of a lot more pressing reasons for Israel to close its borders, but climate change works.

I hadn’t seen any ‘climate refugee’ stories lately (but I kind of thought the “crisis” had gone away!).   This is a very worthwhile read from the Jerusalem Post in which the “deterioration” of Africa is discussed.   In the US, mainstream environmental advocates (so entwined with the hard Left) would never use saving the environment of the homeland (or saving the country!) as a reason to close the borders.

JPost:

In order to combat increased waves of illegal migration that will likely accompany climate change, Israel must secure its borders through impassable barriers, including “sea fences” along the Mediterranean and Red Sea, experts have concluded.

“The lack of water, warming and sea level rise, even if it will occur on a different schedule, will bring migration movements from all impoverished regions to every place where it is possible to escape this,” wrote a team of academics, led by Prof. Arnon Soffer and Dr. Anton Berkovsky of the University of Haifa’s Geography Department.

The team’s conclusions appeared in just one “geo-strategy” chapter in a nearly 200-page report of recommendations toward adapting to climate change, submitted collectively by about 100 experts at the Israel Climate Change Knowledge Center to Environmental Protection Minister Gilad Erdan on Monday.

Be sure to let the snakes through!

Among its suggestions for how to handle the geo-strategic implications of climate change, the team led by Soffer called for a complete enclosure of Israel from all directions, including establishing sea fences along the Mediterranean and Red seas. In addition, the experts said that additional law enforcement will be required to deal with the ramifications of securing the Egyptian and Jordanian borders, as economic crisis might ensue for Negev Beduins who trade across these turfs. While securing Israel from all sides, however, the authorities must ensure for the safe passage of animals and plants.  [Snakes needing free passage are mentioned later in the article---ed].

“The migration wave is not a problem for the future. It is today, it is going on now,” Soffer told The Jerusalem Post on Monday evening. “It will just increase from day to day.”

Read the article.  There is some discussion about how European countries are ruthlessly turning back immigrants, but frankly I don’t see that.  Heck, just as one example, Africans are landing on Malta it seems every day—some are then being moved on to other European countries (here is one story about France giving the red carpet treatment to new French voters from Malta).

The real Palestinian refugee problem

Clifford D. May writes at National Review Online today on The Real Palestinian Refugee Problem. He shows the idiocy of UN (and world) policies toward the Palestinians.

After World War II, the British left Palestine, which was to be partitioned into two independent nations. One would have a Jewish majority, the other a Muslim majority. About 750,000 Muslims left the territories that became Israel. A similar number of Jews left Arab/Muslim lands. Today, not one of the Jews remains a refugee. But there are still Palestinian refugees — indeed, their number has mushroomed to almost 5 million. How is that possible? Through two mechanisms. First of all, a refugee, by definition, lives on foreign soil, but for Palestinians the definition has been changed, so that a displaced Palestinian on Palestinian soil also receives refugee status. Second, the international organization responsible for resettling refugees, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), was cut out from the start. A new organization was set up exclusively for Palestinians: the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).

So there are more and more Palestinian “refugees” all the time, and we continue to fund them, even though they are not refugees by any normal definition of the word. Now, possibly for the first time, there may be something sensible done about this absurd and costly situation.

A few members of Congress have figured out what’s going on and plan to do something about it. Senator Mark Kirk (R., Ill.) is working on an amendment to the Fiscal Year 2013 State-Foreign Operations Appropriations bill that, for the first time, would establish as U.S. policy that only a Palestinian refugee can be classified as a Palestinian refugee — not a son, grandson, or great-grandson, and not someone who has resettled and taken citizenship in another country. The Kirk amendment would require the secretary of state to report to Congress on how many Palestinians serviced by UNRWA fit the traditional definition of a refugee.

It’s a good start. Let’s hope it gets somewhere.

Israel building border fences, detention facilities

As we have written in previous posts (archive here), Israel is struggling with large flows of illegal immigrants and asylum seekers largely from Africa.  Fearing the lose of their country, they are taking action.

From Breitbart:

Israeli planning authorities on Tuesday approved construction of a detention centre for illegal immigrants, at a projected cost of 250 million shekels ($67 million, 51 million euros), the defence ministry said.

The formal authorisation follows a November 2010 cabinet decision to build a facility for mostly African migrants smuggled across Israel’s borders but who for legal reasons cannot immediately be deported to their countries.

[....]

Israel is erecting a giant security barrier along its 240-kilometre (150 miles) border with Egypt’s Sinai peninsula and plans to put up a similar structure along its 238 kilometre (148 miles) frontier with Jordan.

Work on the Egypt barrier began a year ago, in a project initially aimed at stemming a growing tide of African migrants, as well as clamping down on cross-border trafficking in drugs and women.

Before you liberals get all worked up about an Israeli border fence keep in mind that the Saudis were way ahead of them with a state of the art border fence of their own (LOL! the Saudis want to keep those African Muslims out and aren’t shy about saying so!).

Christian advocacy group blasts Israel for new bill to stem illegal immigration

I guess one man’s illegal immigrant is another man’s refugee. 

I’m posting this article about Christian Solidarity Worldwide blasting the Israeli government over a bill passed recently that would restrict access to Israel of many immigrants streaming through the Sinai because for me it poses a problem—how do you separate illegal alien economic migrants from legitimate refugees?  And, what happens to a country that says—borders are open, come one and all!

Interestingly the bill goes one step further and includes punishment for any Israeli helping illegal immigrants/refugees get into Israel.  (Something to consider here in the US!)

I don’t know this group—Christian Solidarity Worldwide— but when the words “solidarity” and “justice” are mentioned I immediately think religious Left political activists are involved.  Perhaps I’m jumping to conclusions about that, but if you know anything about them, please comment.

Here is the story:

Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW), a UK-based human rights group, says that it is concerned that the desperate plight of refugees and asylum seekers in the Sinai will be exacerbated by the passage of the Illegal Migrants Bill in the Knesset last week, which allows for the arrest and imprisonment of any crossing into Israel.

[....]

The majority of those who would fall foul of the proposed Israeli legislation are from sub Saharan Africa and are fleeing brutal regimes, such as those in Eritrea and Sudan.”

[....]

According to the terms of the Illegal Migrants Bill, refugees can be imprisoned without trial for up to three years, or deported back to their country of origin or a third country. Not only does the bill effectively criminalize genuine refugees, it also carries a prison sentence of between five and 15 years for Israelis who assist them in any way. Prior to the passage of the bill, refugees were subjected either to a “Hot Return” border policy or imprisonment on arrival and subsequent legal limbo, due to the absence of a system of refugee status determination (RSD) in Israel that meets international standards. The Illegal Migrants Bill will further curtail the limited protection and assistance available to them from the state or from concerned individuals and humanitarian NGOs.

Shouldn’t the UN just run a camp on the border, gather all the migrants and sort them out?

In defense of Israel, at what point does a country literally die when its population is completely impoverished trying to care for the massive flow out of Africa.  With no cultural or historic glue to hold all these people together, what happens to Israel?  Indeed, what will happen to the US eventually?

Simon Deng: no one tells the truth about Darfur—Arab Muslims are the enslavers

….and the UN is an accessory!

I’m still taking a break, but thought this was important to post without comment.

From Simon Deng writing about Durban III:

Like you, I came to this conference, The Perils of Global Intolerance to protest this third Durban conference which is an effort based on a set of lies, and organized by nations who are themselves are guilty of the worst kinds of oppression.

Durban III will not help the victims of racism. It will only isolate and target the Jewish state. It is a tool of the enemies of Israel. The UN has lost its way. Its obsession with the Jewish obvious: . For over 50 years, 82% of the UN General Assembly emergency meetings have been about condemning one state – Israel. Hitler could not have been made happier.

Given all the good Israel does in the world, given its democracy and its striving to follow the highest standards of human rights, even in the face of the most brutal, the most fanatic enemies, the Durban Conference is an outrage. All decent people know that.

But friends, I come here today to make a different case. I come with what you might at first think is a radical proposition: I come to tell you that there are peoples who suffer from the UN’s anti-Israelism even more than the Israelis. I belong to one of those people.

By exaggerating Palestinian suffering, and by blaming the Jews for it, the UN has muffled the cries of those who suffer on a far larger scale.

For over fifty years the indigenous black African population of Sudan — Christians and Muslims alike — have been the victims of the brutal, racist Arab Muslim regimes in Khartoum.

In South Sudan, my homeland, Sudan, about four million innocent men, women and children were slaughtered from 1955 to 2005. Seven million were ethnically cleansed, and they became the largest refugee group since World War II.

Everybody at the United Nations is concerned about the so-called Palestinian refugees. They dedicated a separate agency to provide for them; this agency, UNWRA, treats them with a special privilege.

Meanwhile, my people, ethnically cleansed, murdered and enslaved, are relatively ignored. The UN even resisted using the word “slavery” to describe the enslavement of tens of thousands of my people. Why? Because slavery is a crime against humanity, apparently no one committing it wanted to end up before an international court. When Khartoum insisted that the term “abducted people” be substituted for the word “slaves,” the UN, caved to Arab pressure and agreed. Try that in America. Try calling Frederick Douglas an “abducted person.” It is outrageous.

The UN refuses to tell the world the truth about the root causes of Sudan’s conflicts. Take Darfur, for example. Who knows really what is happening in Darfur? It is not a “tribal conflict.” It is a conflict rooted in Arab colonialism, as it has typically been practiced in Africa. In Darfur, a region in the Western Sudan everybody is Muslim. Everybody is Muslim because the Arabs invaded the North of Africa and converted the indigenous people to Islam In the eyes of the Islamists in Khartoum, the Darfuris are not Muslim enough. And they also do not want to be Arabized. They like their own African languages and dress and customs. They resist Arabization. The Arab response is genocide. But nobody tells the truth about Darfur.

Read it all.

Palestinian refugees would not become citizens of a Palestinian state

This is the most unbelievable item I’ve seen in a long time. No, I guess it’s not that unbelievable, since it concerns Arab leaders.  The Daily Star of Lebanon reports:

BEIRUT: Palestinian refugees will not become citizens of a new Palestinian state, according to Palestine’s ambassador to Lebanon….

The ambassador unequivocally says that Palestinian refugees would not become citizens of the sought for U.N.-recognized Palestinian state, an issue that has been much discussed. “They are Palestinians, that’s their identity,” he says. “But … they are not automatically citizens.”

This would not only apply to refugees in countries such as Lebanon, Egypt, Syria and Jordan or the other 132 countries where Abdullah says Palestinians reside. Abdullah said that “even Palestinian refugees who are living in [refugee camps] inside the [Palestinian] state, they are still refugees. They will not be considered citizens.”

Abdullah said that the new Palestinian state would “absolutely not” be issuing Palestinian passports to refugees.

In addition, such a state would not settle the conflict over the “right of return.” That is the claim by Arab leaders that all the descendants who claim descent from an Arab who lived in what is now Israel has the right to move to Israel. The intention is to destroy Israel, since millions of new Arab residents would either vote or terrorize Israel out of existence.

Oops, that’s the old definition. Now there’s a new game:

The right of return that Abdullah says is to be negotiated would not only apply to those Palestinians whose origins are within the 1967 borders of the state, he adds. “The state is the 1967 borders, but the refugees are not only from the 1967 borders. The refugees are from all over Palestine. When we have a state accepted as a member of the United Nations, this is not the end of the conflict. This is not a solution to the conflict. This is only a new framework that will change the rules of the game.”

Furthermore, we’d still be paying billions to the corrupt Palestinian leaders:

The Palestinian Liberation Organization would remain responsible for refugees, and Abdullah says that UNRWA would continue its work as usual.

I’m focusing on the refugee situation here because that’s what RRW is about. But the article that pointed me to the news, by  David Meir-Levi  at FrontPage Magazine, contains quotes from other leaders showing that a Palestinian state is only the next stage in the continued fight to destroy Israel.

Lebanon: Nah, we don’t want any permanent Palestinian “refugees” either

All Middle Eastern (Muslim) countries know they need to go along with the plan—no permanent home for any Palestinian so-called “refugees” because then they won’t be able to harass and pressure Israel or get the western bucks for Gaza.

From the Palestinian News Agency:

BEIRUT, August 16, 2011 (WAFA) – President Mahmoud Abbas and his Lebanese counterpart Michel Suleiman Tuesday asserted their total rejection to permanent resettlement of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon.

In a meeting in the Lebanese Presidential Palace, Abbas said, “The Palestinian refugees’ existence in Lebanon is temporary, which is under the Lebanese law.”

He added, “Palestinian refugees are temporary guests, who abide by the Lebanese law and Sovereignty. We believe that there are no Palestinian weapons to protect Palestinians, but they are under the protection of Lebanon.”

Temporarily that is.

This reminds me that I haven’t watched “We Con the World” lately.  If you haven’t seen it (or even if you have!) watch it here.