Israel Matzav

Is Israel Denmark or Sweden?

This morning's JPost weighs in with a sensible editorial regarding yesterday's Supreme Court ruling, in which the Post says that Israel has the same rights as Denmark to restrict those who acquire Israeli citizenship whether or not they are likely to become involved in terrorism. The Post notes:

It is striking that the narrow minority of justices did not consider that Israel has the same right to preserve its character as countries far less imperiled, like Denmark. Realizing that if present immigration trends continue unchecked, Copenhagen will become a city with a Muslim majority in two decades, the liberal Scandinavian state instituted severe limitations on the entry of foreign spouses who marry Danish citizens. Similar get-tough legislation has been enacted in other European countries such as Holland.

There is no comparing Israel's acute vulnerability with the situation in Western Europe. Israel is openly threatened with annihilation - not just physically, by a potential Iranian nuclear capability, but demographically, by Palestinian claims of a "right of return."

But consider a second - more frightening - possibility: that the court did consider that Israel has the right to preserve its national character like Denmark, and instead decided that Israel is required to act like Sweden and allow itself to be overrun by Islamic 'immigrants' - in this case under the guise of being married to Israeli Arabs. Do we really want to allow the likes of the Muslim Brotherhood into Israel, knowing how quickly we could be overrun? Perhaps, someone should present the Supreme Court with copies of While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam is Destroying the West from Within, so that they too can realize that we have other reasons for denying 'Palestinian' entry into Israel aside from terrorism (which in itself is a good enough reason).

On Saturday afternoon, I was talking to an American friend who just returned from the US where his daughter is undergoing chemotherapy. His recently-married son was supposed to travel to the US to take my friend's place (along with the girl's mother) at the daughter's bedside. But the son's new wife is Israeli, and apparently they were having trouble getting a visa for her because they had to prove to the American government that they have no intention of staying in the United States, since the wife has no right to stay there. Contrast that with the views of five justices on Israel's Supreme Court that enemy nationals have a right to live here because they are married to Israeli (Arab)s.

If the law really says what Chief Justice Barak thinks it says then the law needs to be changed - quickly. Otherwise, we too could R"L be 'destroyed from within.'

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 10:37 AM