I think you're not being entirely honest by not mentioning that while being a citizen of Israel doesn't make you Jewish, being Jewish in Israel does give you an access to citizenship that no other identity can give you.Originally Posted by wiggin
An oath of allegiance to the Jewish character of Israel reinforces the inequalities that already exist.
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And being German in Russia allows you to move to Germany while your Russian neighbor cannot do the same.
Hope is the denial of reality
Really? Like, you just claim to be German and you're in? Carry a tour book of Berlin or something? Linky?
I think you have to show that one of your grandparents is ethnically German (I know speaking German isn't a requirement). The Germans in question settled in Russia centuries ago.
Hope is the denial of reality
He is not entirely wrong, or right for that matter. You have to be of German stock and you have to prove that you have maintained your German heritage. Not every eastern european who claims to be German gets a passport.
It also isn't exactly as if German ministers can convert you to Germanity and thus give you the right to German citizenship.
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When did I claim that?I said being a German, not claiming to be one.
Hope is the denial of reality
Speaking German isn't a requirement, but if you have entirely assimilated then you're no longer considered German.
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Yeah, because a group that spent three centuries in Russia, including the entire reign of the communists would still be "German".
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4076245.stm
Germany is far from the only country that has a "right of return" law by the way. Greece allows in "Greeks" who left ancient Greece. Hungary allows in ethnic Hungarians that lived anywhere in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Etc.
Hope is the denial of reality
Hazir, you seem to think it's somehow easier to claim the 'right of return' than other ethnically/nationally based citizenship programs. That's incorrect. You have to show convincing proof that one of your grandparents was Jewish to get citizenship. Beyond this, if you convert you have to meet the Israeli Rabbinate's standards for conversion, which invalidate the majority of non-Israeli conversions (even some conversions carried out by a major Orthodox organization in the US whose conversions are generally accepted with no questions asked). If you want to be considered Jewish for civil law purposes (other than getting citizenship; e.g. you want to marry a Jew or whatever) you have to show pretty convincing evidence that you're Jewish by Jewish law as interpreted by the Israeli Rabbinate - again, a difficult proposition for many Jews outside of Israel.
Furthermore, it makes a sort of sense. Israel is in many ways envisioning itself as an extension of 2000-year old governments in current-day Israel during the Roman period. In that context, they're just taking the principle of jus sanguinis to its logical conclusion. People who conclusively identify for the Jewish nationality get citizenships, but the standard for either (a) joining the nationality or (b) being considered Jewish from a theological standpoint are both much stricter.
Instead we make people swear to this:I am against having "under God" in the pledge and I am against having "In God We Trust" on our currency but at least we don't force persons of different religions to swear to not conflict with our Christian identity. It's kinda lame to make anyone swear to an identity they don't share.
'True faith and allegiance to the constitution', 'so help me God', etc. Plenty of things to consider problematic here. I'd bet it would give the US legal grounds to revoke the naturalized citizenship of, say, an anarchist or other politically objectionable creatures.
Regardless, the planned Israeli oath of citizenship doesn't ask people to refrain from conflicting with a Jewish personal identity, but rather a national one. The US is by its very definition a secular nation; Israel by its very definition is not. The very founding of the country (as evidenced by the entire Declaration of Independence and Israel's Basic Laws) is predicated on the explicit establishment of Israel as a Jewish state. It is not unreasonable to expect new citizens to sign on to this identity. (Again, from a practical standpoint I object to the specific application of this law, but in principle I don't think it's so crazy.)
Not necessarily easier than other ethnically based citizenship programs. But definately easier than programs that lack such an element. The non-Jewish candidate Israeli has no easy way in, the Jewish candidate Israeli does. When I compare this to my favorite yardstick, the Netherlands, I see that whoever wants to obtain Dutch citizenship has to jump through the same hoops, regardless of where his forefathers came from or which religion they followed or to which ethnicity they adhered.
We take the 'ius sanguinis' to its opposite conclusion; once you have opted out of it in any way at all, you are no longer 'one of us'. And if you want back in you can join the line at the back. No preferential treatment at all.
Which doesn't mean that I think that Israel is necessarily wrong, but it could try to be honest all the preferential treatment rules for Jews.
@Loki, the German legislation on nationality has been changed because of criticism of the law being too open to abuse. It is no way as easy as it was during the cold war or immediately after the collapse of the Soviet empire.
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So they did it after getting over a million Russian Germans? As for it being difficult to get into Israel while not being a Jew, you should talk to the hundreds of thousands of non-Jewish Russians who currently live there.
Hope is the denial of reality
The answer to that would be "then they shouldn't be living in Israel!"
You know as well as I how that came about.
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Shows that the Israeli requirements in practice aren't any more stringent than German ones (as long as one's European; but that applies to both states).
Hope is the denial of reality
That doesn't matter, the fiction was that they were Jews.
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And that's different to the Russians pretending to be Germans?
Hope is the denial of reality
Are you speaking for all Israelis or just the non-Arab ones?
Faith is Hope (see Loki's sig for details)
If hindsight is 20-20, why is it so often ignored?
I don't know what it is you're exactly trying here, but we are not talking about Germany or its laws, but about Israel giving preferential treatments to Jews, real or percieved.
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I don't think I get what you're trying to say. Who has been dishonest about the preferential treatment Jewish immigrants receive when getting Israeli citizenship? Far from being dishonest, the Law of Return is one of Israel's most important laws and widely accepted. You said earlier that an oath of allegiance 'reinforces inequalities that already exist'. If you mean that it reinforces that Israel is indeed a Jewish state, I'm not sure what the problem is here. Many other countries (though apparently not the Netherlands) have similar rules for expedited citizenship for certain national groups. So?
I didn't say I have a problem with it at all that Israel is reconfirming it's raison d'être.
What annoys me is that people who know better are trying to sell this as pretty much the same as in pretty much any other country where they know this is not the case. Being Jewish is a lot more complicated than being of Jewish stock. The dishonesty I am talking about it the kind of dishonesty Loki is displaying when he tries to sell off the eastern Germans vis a vis Germany as the same as Jews vis a vis Israel. It is not. Germany wasn't founded to offer a homeland to all Germans in the world. Its immigration policies are not intended to re-inforce the German character of the German state. Only in the minds of the most paranoid the Germanity of Germany is under attack.
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Not what you were talking about, but funny coinkydink anywayMore than 30 percent agreed with the statement, “foreigners come to abuse the welfare state,” said the FES, which is backed by the centre-left Social Democrats.
Even more people - 31.7 percent - said that in a limited job market “one should send foreigners back home,” and that too many immigrants put Germany in danger of being “overrun” (35.6 percent).
[...]
The study results come as the debate over immigration and integration reaches a fever pitch in Germany. Since June, Thilo Sarrazin has made a number of anti-immigrant statements aimed mainly at Turks and Arabs, coinciding with the publication of his controversial book Deutschland schafft sich ab - Wie wir unser Land aufs Spiel setzen, or “Abolishing Germany - How we’re putting our country at jeopardy.”
While many politicians have condemned Sarrazin’s position, polls have shown that public support of his views is growing. In early September a poll conducted by Emnid for daily Bild revealed that 18 percent would vote for a party headed by Sarrazin, who was forced to resign from his Bundesbank position over his hot-button views.
In the future, the Berlin wall will be a mile high, and made of steel. You too will be made to crawl, to lick children's blood from jackboots. There will be no creativity, only productivity. Instead of love there will be fear and distrust, instead of surrender there will be submission. Contact will be replaced with isolation, and joy with shame. Hope will cease to exist as a concept. The Earth will be covered with steel and concrete. There will be an electronic policeman in every head. Your children will be born in chains, live only to serve, and die in anguish and ignorance.
The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.
The thing is lots of countries have specific and exclusive rules for obtaining citizenship. For example, if you are employable and speak English at a high level, you are often "bumped to the head of the line" for Australian citizenship.
States set all sorts of requirements for citizenship, which usually piss off the vast majority of people who don't fit in those categories. But in Israel's case there aren't even many people who explicitly want to become Israeli citizens.
True, but being of 'Jewish stock' is the only requirement for easy citizenship, and the major understanding of a 'Jewish state'. While religion plays a role in Israeli politics, it was not founded as a theocracy and the majority of Jewish Israelis are not religiously observant.
I can't really speak to the German case since I don't know enough about it. But I think your comments belies an understanding of Israel that is not shared by most Israelis. You seem to view Israel as an entirely new homeland manufactured to deal with the political issue of Jewish persecution. While there is some truth to that understanding, there is a reason why the Zionist establishment rejected other proposed sites for a Jewish state (e.g. Uganda). They saw the mission of establishing a Jewish homeland less an exercise in creating something new but more a reestablishment of something very, very old in a modern context.The dishonesty I am talking about it the kind of dishonesty Loki is displaying when he tries to sell off the eastern Germans vis a vis Germany as the same as Jews vis a vis Israel. It is not. Germany wasn't founded to offer a homeland to all Germans in the world. Its immigration policies are not intended to re-inforce the German character of the German state. Only in the minds of the most paranoid the Germanity of Germany is under attack.
In such a light, I believe that Israel's law of return makes more sense and is more applicable to similar rights of return across large swaths of the world.
Also I would question whether Israel's immigration policies are intended to reinforce the Jewish character of Israel. Immigration barely contributes to the growth of the Jewish population in Israel; most is now domestic birthrate. While certainly Israel encourages aliyah, the reality is that it only appreciably changed the demographic dynamics in the decade after its founding and the occasional spurt since then. Those spurts were not motivated by a big push by Israel to recruit Jews, but rather Jewish persecution in the rest of the world (e.g. the Iranian revolution, the ending of emigration restrictions from the FSU, etc.). Most demographic change is now based on child subsidies (as they decrease, Arab birthrate declines much faster than Jewish birthrate) and improving education/living conditions in the Arab sector.
When you take out that statement, I think it's harder to argue for the rest. Germany may not have been founded to offer a homeland to national Germans, but it sure as hell is a homeland to national Germans - and one could argue from above that Israel is similar.
edit:
Actually, that last bit isn't really true. There's a big issue in Israel about two groups that would like to gain citizenship but can't - illegal immigrants from Africa (mostly Sudanese; they voluntarily undergo the threat of being killed by Egyptian policy in order to get to Israel) and foreign workers (mostly from the Philippines; they come to do lower-class jobs the Palestinians used to do). Furthermore, there are plenty of people from other poor countries who would love to come to Israel but generally can't because of the tight immigration restrictions.
This is a similar issue to what happened to the Jewish faith in the last 200 years. For several millennia, pretty much no one was interested in becoming a Jew. That meant that in Jewish law and communities the presumption was that a visitor claiming to be Jewish was treated as such. Yet in recent years, as Jewish identity has changed, Jews have become emancipated, and Jewish values and ideas have at times become 'cool' (e.g. Madonna's bullshit), it has become much more difficult to have conversion 'gatekeepers' who use a common set of standards. This results in the current debate over 'who is a Jew' and which conversions are acceptable. *shrugs* Not the worst problem to have, I guess, but it definitely was easier when no one chose to become a part of the 'Chosen People'.
Last edited by wiggin; 10-15-2010 at 12:37 AM.
Mmm, I know those are important issues but in terms of numbers where do Sudanese and Philippines rank in actually asking for citizenship? Economic migration from very poor countries to Israel is a bit different sociologically than people from relatively developed countries who want to move to Israel.
There are about 100,000 illegals in Israel, which would be the equivalent of over 4 million here. Not as many as the US, but still a substantial amount.
Hope is the denial of reality
Yes, I'm well aware.
But my point is many of those people are economic migrants. Many are also there illegally. If we're talking about immigration laws and the path to citizenship, it seems worthwhile to consider [mostly illegal] economic migrants a bit differently. Just a bit.
True, but to be honest most of the immigration pressure in the US is also from the developing world and not, say, Europe. I'm not sure where you're going with this.
That's a bit of a deadpan argument, of course Aliyah is becoming a lesser influence now that Israel has a population of 6 (?) million and most Jews living outside of Israel need conviction to move to that land rather than being pushed by anti-semitism in their present home. That doesn't mean that it was put in place for a certain reason and didn't lose that function yet.
Congratulations America
Right, but the reason wasn't to keep the country Jewish; it was to provide a haven for Jews. In fact, many early Zionist thinkers would have been appalled at the idea of trying to make Israel entirely Jewish.
Even today, those arguing that aliyah is a partial solution to the demographic issues threatening Israel (not just a problem with the percentage of Jews in Israel) recognize that the major adjustments are going to have to happen inside Israel, and will mostly deal with economic reforms to increase the incentive to work and have fewer children.
Also: I don't think deadpan means what you think it means.
U are right, that wasn't exactly what I was looking forwas too literal in my translation. clincher.
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