Poll: "Foreigners" (i.e. Arabs, Sudanese, Asian guest workers) jeopardize Israel's Jewish character

[ilaughatrightwingers]

Not only the orthodox oppose assimilation of non Jews: A joint Ynet-Gesher poll reveals that some 78% of Jewish Israelis think migrants and refugees endanger the Jewish character of the State of Israel.

The poll, conducted by Panels Institute, included 501 respondents who represent a statistical sample of the adult Jewish population residing in Jewish towns across Israel. The maximum sampling error is ±4.4%.

Some 57% of respondents said the influx of immigrants and foreign workers greatly endangers the Jewish nature of the State of Israel, while approximately 21% thought the danger was only moderate.

Edited to conform to DU's fairuse policy for copyrighted material. Lithos, DU Moderator
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http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4008290,00.html

[Loudmxr]

1. Really some Jews in Israel would consider Jews in my favorite temple not Jews.

[Name removed]

2. Deleted message

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[LeftishBrit]

3. Sigh. It sounds like the UK these days...

immigrants as the scapegoat for everything. A lot of it is the usual response to economic hard times, but there was always a fair bit of plain old racism which is readily whipped up by demagogues. In the UK, and no doubt in Israel too.

[bemildred]

4. Divide and rule is an old, old game. nt

[Igel]

5. Sounds like lots of places.

There's always a push to defend any state that sees itself as the protector of a given ethnicity or culture.

There used to be the same kind of rants about Americans in Prague, Chinese in Tibet, or the British in colonial Africa. You still hear it concerning how necessary it is to preserve indigenous Aboriginal cultures, the purity of Amazonian cultures, or why we can't let some Mixtec or Andean cultures be corrupted.

Recently I read how the Israelis were responsible for corrupting Palestinian culture and that his was intolerable.

Even overlooking that the dominant Israeli state culture is probably more Ashkenazi then of long-standing in the Levant and so doesn't count as "indigenous" (well, not really all that less than Chagossian culture is indigenous, but that's a quibble, no?) most people wouldn't call for its protection. Some cultures can be reflected in the state and it's okay; some cultures can be protected and that's okay. Some cultures are apparently just superior. (And that's without actually stating whether I think protecting state cultures is a good thing or bad thing.)