Night unto the nations
Op-ed: Ben Gurion's aspiration of creating a state that will be a 'light unto the nations' is facing its toughest challenge yet: the planned mass expulsion of African immigrants. But let it be clear: this is naught but a test, a tool, a means in the revolution of values that is washing over Israeli society.
The issue of asylum seekers was not supposed to be partisan. After all, the 35,000 Africans who had 'infiltrated' the country did not claim ownership of our holy land. They do not threaten the Jewish majority, the social order, the peace of our children or the rule of the Right. All they want is to move far away from murderous regimes and to subsist on minimal pay from hard labor.
The fence, whose construction began during the Olmert administration and was completed during the previous Netanyahu administration, completely stopped the flow of immigrants. In their current numbers, they make up less than half a percent of the country's population. Israel knew and was able to cope with more difficult and complex challenges.
In the past I thought that the problem was the concentration of the population of work immigrants in southern Tel Aviv. The African ghetto that was created there forced the veteran residents, some elderly and hard-working, into a reality they did not want. The state created the ghetto; the state must disperse it.
But in early February I met Shula Keshet, a social activist who was born, raised and now lives in south Tel Aviv. Keshet is one of the initiators of the "South Tel Aviv against the Expulsion" movement. We stood at the corner of Chlenov and Matalon Streets, in the heart of what might be called the settlement of Eritrea.
Keshet hoisted a sign saying "South Tel Aviv Against the Expulsion" in red and black. I assumed that Israelis living in the neighborhood would argue with her, threaten her, maybe even get into a fight with her. To my surprise, passersby stopped to greet and encourage her. It turns out that the Israelis living in the neighborhood are divided.
Some of them want mass deportation. Others understand that after the Africans are expelled, real estate sharks will arrive, and they will be next in line for expulsion. There is no left and right here, only poor Israelis who have nowhere else to go.
No, the problem is not 35,000 Africans; The Africans are only a tool, a means in the revolution of values that is washing over Israeli society. Russian communist revolutionary Vladimir Lenin once said, "When wood is chopped—wood-chips fly." Africans are chips. The values on which the state was founded are the trees that are about to be cut down.
One has to acknowledge the truth: The current Israeli government is not much different from a series of right-wing governments in Central and Eastern Europe and Trump's administration in the United States. The ideological common denominator connecting these governments is xenophobia. They hate foreigners because of their religion and because of their color. In Europe and America, this movement has an anti-Semitic tone—not because Jews are a problem, but because of habit.
Xenophobia is favorable to a regime. It reinforces the shared identity, strengthens the sense of superiority of the white majority, and whitewashes the failures of the government and its entanglement in corruption affairs.
This hatred is joined by hatred of the existing order, the legal and media establishment, and liberal values. Not only is the stranger an enemy—the Left is, too, and anyone who criticizes the regime is a foreigner, a leftist and an enemy.
Take away the anti-Semitic tone and you get the new Israeli Right, that of (Education Minister Naftali) Bennett and (Justice Minister Ayelet) Shaked and (Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu in his fourth term. Africans are coming in droves. The New Israel Fund is at the helm.
Bennett, who is actively seeking to annex four million Palestinians to Israel, cannot live with 16,000 foreign workers from Africa. This is what raises the ire of the minister in charge of the education of the children of Israel.
Shaked cannot live with the values represented by the High Court. She has to terminate it. And she will. The notwithstanding clause that the Knesset is supposed to approve this week is only the first step on her way there.
Kahlon cannot live with 16,000 Africans either. He reads talkbacks and gets scared. He was so frightened that he was betraying the only principle that was a cover for his pretense of being the leader of a centrist party—the defense of the High Court of Justice. His betrayal in principle is the price he is willing to pay to survive.
The Arabs are easy to hate: There is a long bloody reckoning between us; they and we are fighting for the same land. The issue of asylum seekers is the ultimate truth test, a polygraph of our values.
Ben-Gurion aspired to establish a society here that would be a light unto the nations. Well, tough luck.
