Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Meet Me in St. Louis

Refugees from Darfur who arrive in Israel have a couple of problems:

1. They are refugees

2. They are black

3. They are Muslim

For these three reasons they will not be received here, in a land populated by many former refugees and victims of racism, with open arms. In fact, this week we gleefully kicked a couple of them out to Egypt, "back where they came from". I hear that Egyptian soldiers beat several of them to a state of unconsciousness before the eyes of the deporting Israeli soldiers.

My view of the world while growing up was marked by the story of the ship "St. Louis". In 1939 that ship took close to a thousend Jewish refugees from Germany to Cuba. By the time it arrived, Cuba's government changed its mind and allowed only 22 of the passengers on shore. The ship continued to sail around the world. Its passengers were denied entry to every country they approached, including the United States. This country was at the time under British rule which forbade Jewish immigration on the onset. The refugees were eventually taken back to Europe and put on the trains to the slaughterhouses.

I understand the governments of Cuba, the U.S. et al. Is it their fault that the Jews are hated in Europe? What, is Cuba a dump site for unwanted people? When the African refugees were to be settled in the Israeli town of Hadera, its mayor notified the press that "Hadera is not Israel's trashcan." Amen to that, I certainly hope none of these politically dangerous, money sucking members of an inferior race gets dumped on my lawn. I hear that they carry a revolting and highly infectious disease called P.T.S.D.

2 comments:

Théodore Berg Boy said...

I thought Hadera WAS one of Israel's trash cans... not that we are trash, but we could go there and take a leak on the Iriat or, rather, on the mayor's car. If you're claiming not to be a garbage bin, you might hope to be something else, something better, one that washes itself automatically, a toilet. I've done this before (in fact I burnt a city hall car once... no I didn't, wasn't me, I was intoxicated and like Brel would say: it stunk... however I took a leak on another one of those mobile machines in a random parking lot, same excuse, but it's nice to see it flow down on the cracks on the hood; we're not dogs, we wouldn't just drain it on one of the wheels). Fuck people's lack of hospitality. Kisses to Newsome. Peace.

Rahul said...

Hi - I'm sorry to comment about something other than your post, but do you by any chance have a larger picture of the Estonian beaches? I'd like to post it on my own blog - I'd of course credit you. Thanks.