Trump is a racist because he wants to build a wall, right? If that is so, I would like to see Trump's critics also condemn Israel and India for their new massive wall-building projects. We are one world, after all, right? Why are North American migrants more important than South Asian or Middle Eastern migrants?
The European and American media have been nearly dead-silent on this news and for good reason: it would make them look like the utter hypocrites that they are. There have been no stern denunciations of what Israel and India are doing the way there have been for Trump's proposal. The BBC does not have front-page news stories about how India or Israel have turned “fascist.†There is no belittling of the Israelis and the Indians for wanting to control the inflow of those saintly “migrants†and refugees. We are not told that Holocausts and internment camps in Israel and India are on the horizon. None of this is being said, and the reason is simple: leftists, like all human beings, have prejudices and biases, and theirs slant in favor of anything that does not come from the white Christian West. Leftists hate traditional Christianity and they use charges of “racism†to bash anything affiliated with traditional Christian culture. They make a pretense of rising above prejudice, but they are infused with it. They just happen to be using pseudo-Christian Enlightenment rhetoric to mask their antipathies.
So let's start with Israel: it is surrounded by 4 countries - Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan - as well as Palestine. It has a 240 km barrier along the border with Egypt, barriers already built on parts of its northern border with Lebanon, a security fence on the border with Syria, a wall within the West Bank, and wall in the Golan Heights. In September of 2015, Haaretz and other news organizations reported that Israel, acting on the consensus of Prime Minister Netanyahu and the opposition leader Isaac Herzog, would be building a new security fence along the border with Jordan, Israel's only border without a security barrier. And in March of this year, the Israeli government announced the construction of an additional good old-fashioned 30-foot-high concrete wall along a portion of the northern border with Lebanon that does not have a fence or wall already.
You see, all of this walling and fence-building in the case of Israel is fine. Netanyahu can freely cite the protection of “demographic purity†as his reason for building new walls with Lebanon and Jordan and proudly declare Israel’s intention to “encircle itself with fences.†There is nothing racist or problematic about this because Netanyahu is Jewish. This double standard is even more glaring when you consider the heavy make-up of leftist Jews in the American media (including neocons). They pay close attention to everything having to do with Israel and they know exactly what Israel has done and continues to do with its borders. But they won't say a peep about it because of their prejudices and the reality that they actually agree with Israel's restrictive border policies. Consider these inflammatory quotes from Netanyahu and imagine the reaction to Trump saying anything similar:
“At the end, in the State of Israel, as I see it, there will be a fence that spans it all. I’ll be told, ‘This is what you want, to protect the villa?’ The answer is yes. Will we surround all of the State of Israel with fences and barriers? The answer is yes. In the area that we live in, we must defend ourselves against the wild beasts.†(Newsweek 02/09/2016)
"In the state of Israel as I see it, there'll be a fence around all of it. We're surrounded by predators and we need to protect ourselves." (Al Jazeera 02/10/2016)
Or how about this acknowledgment from Haaretz last September about the plan to build a new fence along the Jordan border? "The speed with which the military formulated the plan and with which the government approved it indicates that Israel is eager to completely surround its land borders with physical barriers. The Jordanian border was Israel’s only land border not reinforced by a fence." (Haaretz 09/06/2015)
Apparently there isn't much of a debate in Israel about the need for barriers on the border and no one calls Israel a bigoted, racist nation for it!
Shifting gears now to the land of Ghandi and ultra-tolerant mystics, let’s consider how India is handling the threat of Islamic terrorism from illegal immigrants. In response to an Islamic terrorist attack (excuse me, an attack by violent extremists in South Asia) earlier this year, the Indian government in April activated satellite-monitored “laser walls†along the India-Pakistan border in the northeastern state of Punjab. These “laser walls†employ infra-red and laser beam detection systems to pick up suspected movements. Loud sirens are set off if the walls are breached. As of late April, 12 such walls were made operational, with plans to install a total of 45 laser walls along the IB (International Border) in Punjab and Jammu. (Indian Express 04/28/2016)
Once again, imagine if Donald Trump put forth the suggestion that on the Southern border America should devise walls that use laser beams to trigger sirens when illegal immigrants cross. He would immediately be compared to Hitler and the fences would be compared to Auschwitz.
So, allow me to ask, are Israel and India racist for building walls and barriers on their borders?
The European and American media have been nearly dead-silent on this news and for good reason: it would make them look like the utter hypocrites that they are. There have been no stern denunciations of what Israel and India are doing the way there have been for Trump's proposal. The BBC does not have front-page news stories about how India or Israel have turned “fascist.†There is no belittling of the Israelis and the Indians for wanting to control the inflow of those saintly “migrants†and refugees. We are not told that Holocausts and internment camps in Israel and India are on the horizon. None of this is being said, and the reason is simple: leftists, like all human beings, have prejudices and biases, and theirs slant in favor of anything that does not come from the white Christian West. Leftists hate traditional Christianity and they use charges of “racism†to bash anything affiliated with traditional Christian culture. They make a pretense of rising above prejudice, but they are infused with it. They just happen to be using pseudo-Christian Enlightenment rhetoric to mask their antipathies.
So let's start with Israel: it is surrounded by 4 countries - Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan - as well as Palestine. It has a 240 km barrier along the border with Egypt, barriers already built on parts of its northern border with Lebanon, a security fence on the border with Syria, a wall within the West Bank, and wall in the Golan Heights. In September of 2015, Haaretz and other news organizations reported that Israel, acting on the consensus of Prime Minister Netanyahu and the opposition leader Isaac Herzog, would be building a new security fence along the border with Jordan, Israel's only border without a security barrier. And in March of this year, the Israeli government announced the construction of an additional good old-fashioned 30-foot-high concrete wall along a portion of the northern border with Lebanon that does not have a fence or wall already.
You see, all of this walling and fence-building in the case of Israel is fine. Netanyahu can freely cite the protection of “demographic purity†as his reason for building new walls with Lebanon and Jordan and proudly declare Israel’s intention to “encircle itself with fences.†There is nothing racist or problematic about this because Netanyahu is Jewish. This double standard is even more glaring when you consider the heavy make-up of leftist Jews in the American media (including neocons). They pay close attention to everything having to do with Israel and they know exactly what Israel has done and continues to do with its borders. But they won't say a peep about it because of their prejudices and the reality that they actually agree with Israel's restrictive border policies. Consider these inflammatory quotes from Netanyahu and imagine the reaction to Trump saying anything similar:
“At the end, in the State of Israel, as I see it, there will be a fence that spans it all. I’ll be told, ‘This is what you want, to protect the villa?’ The answer is yes. Will we surround all of the State of Israel with fences and barriers? The answer is yes. In the area that we live in, we must defend ourselves against the wild beasts.†(Newsweek 02/09/2016)
"In the state of Israel as I see it, there'll be a fence around all of it. We're surrounded by predators and we need to protect ourselves." (Al Jazeera 02/10/2016)
Or how about this acknowledgment from Haaretz last September about the plan to build a new fence along the Jordan border? "The speed with which the military formulated the plan and with which the government approved it indicates that Israel is eager to completely surround its land borders with physical barriers. The Jordanian border was Israel’s only land border not reinforced by a fence." (Haaretz 09/06/2015)
Apparently there isn't much of a debate in Israel about the need for barriers on the border and no one calls Israel a bigoted, racist nation for it!
Shifting gears now to the land of Ghandi and ultra-tolerant mystics, let’s consider how India is handling the threat of Islamic terrorism from illegal immigrants. In response to an Islamic terrorist attack (excuse me, an attack by violent extremists in South Asia) earlier this year, the Indian government in April activated satellite-monitored “laser walls†along the India-Pakistan border in the northeastern state of Punjab. These “laser walls†employ infra-red and laser beam detection systems to pick up suspected movements. Loud sirens are set off if the walls are breached. As of late April, 12 such walls were made operational, with plans to install a total of 45 laser walls along the IB (International Border) in Punjab and Jammu. (Indian Express 04/28/2016)
Once again, imagine if Donald Trump put forth the suggestion that on the Southern border America should devise walls that use laser beams to trigger sirens when illegal immigrants cross. He would immediately be compared to Hitler and the fences would be compared to Auschwitz.
So, allow me to ask, are Israel and India racist for building walls and barriers on their borders?
