Thomas L. Friedman is using the old idea, "the boat is full."
This argument was made many times since Thomas Malthus wrote, "the Principle of Population," 1798. Or Paul R. Ehrlich's book, "the Population Bomb," 1968.
What makes Friedman's argument better than the arguments of Malthus and Ehrlich? Do we need big intellectuals to teach us to be bigoted against immigrants?
3
There are 65.3 million refugees. None are Jews because Israel takes in all Jewish refugees.
Before complaining that Israel doesn’t take in enough gentile refugees, let the majority-Christian & majority-Muslim countries take in Christian & Muslim refugees. Also, let’s remember that 6 million Jews died because majority-Christian & majority-Muslim countries refused to take in Jewish refugees.
Furthermore, let’s remember why Israel was created. Israel was created to be a majority-Jewish country because majority-gentile countries had failed to provide safety for their Jewish citizens. If Israel takes in too many gentiles, it will no longer be majority-Jewish. Unfortunately, there still is a need for a majority-Jewish country because Jews are still targeted for being Jews.
6
The world is not going to get better until women are firmly in charge. History is showing us that men are just not up to the task.
3
Great job again and as usual. Tom understands Middle East better than our politicians. Maybe he should be involved in developing our policy for Middle East.
I was in Irael two years ago and visited an area where African refugees were settled. I was shocked at the very poor physical environment, and as a Jew I am embarrassed that immigrants are treated so poorly.
5
Friedman’s column shows that these people aren’t escaping out of fear but are economic migrants as the Israeli government has stated. As such they have no right to enter Israel illegally and stay. It also shows that for all the demonization of Israel, these people, regardless of religion, choose Israel over countries matching their religious background.
Israel was founded as a homeland of Jews, not a homeland for displaced persons, particularly not Christians or Muslims who have persecuted Jews for over 1,000 years. It is not Israel’s responsibility for refugees. It is the responsibility of all other countries who either denied Jews a safe haven from death or countries of the co-religionists of these people.
Should Israel take on the responsibility for these Muslims or Christians who in a few years will be denouncing Jewish bigotry and racism.
Rather than denouncing Israel on the issue, why don’t the critics offer up their homes and their countries or try to find homes for these people in Muslim and Christian countries. It is so much easier to sit back and demonize Israel than to take ownership and DO SOMETHING.
3
You ask "how can Israel turn them away" but conveniently ignore the fact that Israel is built on a nationalism of the "folk" or "chosen people" - unlike the USA, Israel was set up for one group exclusively - Jews.
I can decide to up and move from NYC to Israel and get my 'birthright' citizenship while these productive members of Israeli society get threatened with deportation.
A democracy based on religion or membership in a particular group cannot survive as a democracy.
3
Tom, you do not understand that the problem is that a world of order is being turned into a world of disorder.
6
How can Israel turn them away? But how can Israel take them all, which will only invite more, and the supply is now endless? That’s what’s playing Off Broadway. And unless the World of Order comes up with a collective strategy to help stabilize the World of Disorder — not just build walls — this play will have a long, wide run.
[ An excellent essay, but as for the world of disorder I wonder how much of that we are creating or at least contributing to with our endless military interventions. The NYTimes recently wrote that we have soldiers in 172 countries:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/22/opinion/americas-forever-wars.html
October 22, 2017
America’s Forever Wars
This cannot be helping, rather the reverse. ]
4
The state of Israel has a lot of issues including global warming and access to water. A bigger threat is an unwillingness to get along with other groups who also lay claim to the same land. Israel may implode from within by its own people.
2
Friedman tells the story of a Sudanese man named Haroun who left Darfur in 2003, during the height of the war there. Now 15 years later, when the war in Darfur is fading into history, Friedman still refers to him as a refuge.
He goes on to state; What Haroun’s story underscores in miniature is the excruciating moral dilemma that countries in the World of Order are going to be facing in the coming years,
The clear fact in this case is that the sole reason that those African illegals prefer to be in Israel is because of the money making opportunity. There is little doubt that if he had the chance to go to some poor country like Yemen, he would have stayed put in Egypt. And if he was in some dirt poor country and not making money he would not even bother to contest a deportation order back to Darfur, claiming that his life would be in danger if he had to go back there.
So while there are many cases where people are genuinely running for their lives and truly qualify as refuges, this case is anything but a person whose life would be in danger if he was deported. As such whether or not to allow him to stay does not in any way constitute a "moral dilemma".
So Friedman's using the case of an African who fled a war that has long been over, and is only Israel because of his financial prospects is a terrible an example of the idea that what first happens in Israel is an Off Broadway version of what's to come in the rest of the world
6
A moving article, but Haroun is the exception. The situation in southern Tel Aviv is not simply different languages and colorful dresses as Thomas asserts. Please also tell us about the huge increase in crime there, by the young immigrants who survived the arduous smuggling operation, crime that preys on poor elderly Israelis, making the area uninhabitable for them and forcing them to move from their homes - and become refugees themselves in their own country. The crime wave has not come from those like Haroun seeking seeking stability and a job.
Israel has rescued "dreamers" from Africa, tens of thousands of Ethiopians claiming to be Jews, whose integration into Israeli society has been EXTREMELY difficult because of their primitive backgrounds. No other country has welcomed Africans.
The New Israel Fund cannot be fairly described as "supporting social programs in Israel". It funds radically anti-Israel organizations and has raised money for years by only by criticizing Israel - to the point of country abuse. I take Netanyahu's word over theirs.
Israel is a spec of a country, 8 million people, 6 million Jews, in a world of billions. It punches well above its weight in humanitarian and other contributions to the world which could also be mentioned in articles like this.
8
Well written.Exploring a global issue:What to do about tagged-unlawful-danger-attributed THEMs.By policy making WEs making choices while not being personally responsible for outcomes.Mr. Friedman chooses Israel as the site of this ongoing global human tragedy, associating it with America’s “Dreamers.”Adding a case study, which humanizes when one moves, scientifically, from number-data to analyzed information, judged for decisions which need to be made.In terms of…Menschlichkeit being only one criteria.One focus.But what if this labeling exemplifies semantic surrealism.Not about dreamers;but a waking nightmare.Fettered by anxieties' irreality and a place’s realities.Its uncertainties.Unpredictabilities.A scenario in which total control is confronted by a diverse different-WE who choose to risk a “fail better” script. In which nightmares are not a resolvable-wake up for many.But mutual caring is seeded.Is harvested. Mtual respect and trust are cared for.Temporarily or more permanently managed as acknowledged-nightmares.For nameless random individuals WE don’t know.Decisions need to be made.Not only in Israel.Not only by judges; Supreme or lessor ones..By…About... For...As best as each of US can.Which may not be good enough.Wherever WE are. Whoever each of US is. Humanely flawed. Choosing to go beyond words.When an action is needed.When questions are no longer a bridge to…When resolutions no longer resolve the confusion of semantic surrealism.When we need to live with US.
1
The implication is that Israel is the only country in the whole region that feels safe. That’s worth writing a column about.
12
By allowing in non-Jewish refugees, Israel would be accepting the goal of the "one state solution": make Jews a minority in the one and only Jewish state on this planet, then you will have achieved no more Jewish state, and no more Jewish refuge on this planet. On a day when Jews in Berlin are marching to counter a new resurgence of anti-Semitism in Germany, when French Jewish children are being run out of public schools, when the head of the British Labour Party invites grafitti artists for tea in Parliament in recognition of a street mural that would have delighted Goebbels, this is really an unacceptable choice except for those, like the UN General Assembly and the EU, who are delighted to have found an argument under which the Jewish state of Israel can be destroyed while pretending to the highest ideals of compassion for all.
8
The state of Israel is formed by refugees...a huge crush of refugees in the 20th century that overtook Palestine's own population, aided by decisions of the European countries within the League of Nations. I read this and I see astounding hypocrisy by the Israeli right, that it pushes out immigrants from land to which it lays claim, unjustly.
4
Recently I had my ancestry genetic studies done. It was not surprising to see where my ancestors had come. They traveled the same routes that today pressures of need (and greed) are taking us. The primitive man did the same. The Science section of The Times had nice articles about Caribou and Pronghorn migrations not too long ago. They too seem follow the migration routes that their ancestors took for same reasons that we took. The cycle of life! The Earth is an unique planet. It stays at a certain distance from the sun, its tectonic plates shift, and when they do cataclysmic changes occur. Life gets extinguished and rejuvenated. It is best we share what we have well so that we may be part of that rejuvenation rather be extinguished. Human history is not just a 100 hundred years old nor is it a thousand! It much more than that and we should reflect on all of it.
Beautifully written. Many thanks for your stimulating-sharing. Reaching out to "the other," known or as yet unknown.In order to better reach in to a known, or insufficiently known, Self, and to make a much needed difference about...For...
1
If people have too many kids in a country that cannot support the current population how is that my problem?
Folks have to start having the number of children they can care for- and no more.
9
Israel can turn all of them away if it wants to. It is a sovereign state which has a functioning legislature which gets to make the rules regarding admissibility and entry. Its citizens make the laws, not aliens who admit by asking for asylum that they have no legal means of entry.
Like it or not, only those whom first world governments deem admissible to their countries have an entitlement of a developed world lifestyle.
10
The elephant in the room continues to be overpopulation, something few people or governments seem comfortable discussing except for conservatives like Ross Douthat who would like everyone to go forth and make more babies. So these swarms of refugees are like herds that have grown too large to be supported by their environment, physical and political. We continue to strain resources including fresh potable water, clean air, fertile soil and capital. I use to joke that we need to put contraceptives in the drinking supply, I don't joke anymore.
10
There are 7 billion people in the world.
.
If anyone has any sense, then they want to move to a 1st World Country - like the United States, Canada, West and Central Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Israel.
.
The majority of the world's population is now in 3rd World or impoverished countries - like Uganda, Chad, West Africa, Ethiopia, Sudan, Samalia, Mexico, Latin America, Central Americal.
.
It's only natural that they want to move and live the same life that the rest of us enjoy. However, the consequence will be a temporary, albeit long period of cecline, chaos, and conflict in the western world. We will be transformed into a new multi-cultural and multi-ethnic society. Whether that is good or bad is besides the point. That is what will happen.
2
Do you really think that 7.6 billion people can migrate to all of those countries.
"Do you really think that 7.6 billion people can migrate to all of those countries"
.
Probably not. But they're trying to.
I’m glad that the population explosion, especially in poor African and Middle Eastern countries, was cited as a cause of these disruptive migrations. That is the basis of almost all the other problems mentioned that spur mass migrations. Something has to give, or this will continue to a violent breaking point. When migrants relocate and settle, they tend to continue having large families. Perhaps the welcoming host countries need to place procreation limits on new arrivals. Justice and human rights advocates will howl, but the alternative is that we all go down with the over burdened ship of Earth. It’s perfectly obvious, but seldom addressed honestly.
9
I am a strong believer that people should stay were they are.
Leaving the "World of Disorder" for the World of Order" is not the solution. The rich countries of the world should create jobs in the poor countries so that there will be no need for them to leave.
But most important there is a strong need for population control. Having nine or more children per family is not a viable solution if they cannot be supported and then being forced to find work outside their country. No wonder there is a strong backlash against immigration in the more developed countries.
9
Friedman nailed it just right. This is an excruciating moral dilemma, "How can Israel turn them away? How can Israel take them all...?" While love and compassion is infinite, the resources of any one country is not.
It is an utmost imperative the world of order as Friedman put it, find ways to stabilize the world of disorder. Together they can use their collective economic power to compel clean governments in the Third World, but this can be done only if they themselves are correct. The rich First World countries need to examine the corruptions in their own backyard so not to export it to the poor countries.
At one point, we were all dreamers.
4
Thanks for this view of something I did not know much about until recently.
The novel "Waking Lions", by Israeli author Ayelet Gundar-Goshen, offers a fictional version of this phenomenon.
It is a dilemma for us all. The planet is overpopulated, and few people seem aware of the consequences of that.
9
Israel , a nation of 9 million, declares that 40 000 refugees arriving over the years are unmanageable .
Germany, with a population of 81 million, took in 1.1 million in one (1) year .
That's three (3) times as much per population than Israel.
So, Israel can handle it - easily
7
Germany is 17 x the size and Israel has taken in millions of refugees. From the beginning.
3
The problem is that there are hundreds of millions more where those 40,000 came from.
What a terrific column. what a mess and really what a wasted opportunity for economic forces to help the African countries. As the young man, Haroun said, they could be the ambassadors to their home counties and help create economic links for business and job in the home countries.
also showed what a mess there is between the majority of the people (the friendly folks helping Haroun as well as the wealthy American who is helping sponsor these people in Israel). People need to differentiate between the person in power and the people of the country).
4
Obviously the 'world of order' has to engage with the 'world of disorder' in a very interventionist manner. Attempts to deal with the symptoms -- migrants, refugees -- by paying bribes to corrupt regimes doesn't work. Neither does economic development without responsible governance. Westminster democracy alone will not deliver it. What will is not clear and depends on the context. But perhaps another look at the old League of Nations Mandate system with African/UN implementation is worth considering.
2
Israel is sovereign, Jewish state and has every right to defend its territorial and cultural integrity. It's time for Africa to get it's act together and embrace sustainable family planning (e.g. a fertility rate of 1.5 or less).
14
There are lots of suggestions as to how best solve the issue of African migration, but one thing that nobody talks about is the people of Africa solving their own problems there. Why is there no expectation whatsoever that Africans themselves solve the issue?
16
The solution isn’t for developed countries to permanently absorb refugees from war torn countries. The solution is for developed nations to band together and create mini Marshall Plans for the countries the refugees are coming from.
12
How many immigrants from Iran will Israel take in if Netanyahu pushes ahead with his plan to go to war with Iran?
3
When I was a young man protesting the war in Vietnam, we protestors were often asked this question: "How can we possibly bring the troops home?" Our answer: "Turn the ships around." I think the following comments quoted in this column deserve the same answer: “I heard about Dafuris who had gone to Israel and were safe and protected and were not being deported back to Sudan. When I heard that I said, ‘That is my place.’” Did he know anything about Israel? “Only that it was safe,” Haroun said.
So here we have a non-Jew who knows zero about the Jewish state and who went there (not from a combat zone but from Egypt) SOLELY because he heard that "Dafuris ... were not being deported ... ." Fine. So deport them. Then others like this young man (and he is clearly a fine young man, but that's not the point) won't hear that Dafuris are not being deported, and won't come.
Jews should make no apology for Israel being a Jewish state -- a place of refuge for Jews. It's a small place, and the need for one place on planet Earth under the control, and protection, of Jewish arms has not diminished one iota since the Holocaust. Just look at France. Or Germany. Or Poland. Or Trump's "fine people." Or ... You get the idea.
13
"Israel’s Got Its Own Refugee Dilemma"- only xenophobes think refugees pose a dilemma! It is absolutely amazing that people who fled the holocaust could have this attitude.
7
It has to get much worse, doesn't it, before it can get better.
3
This 'tsunami' of population growths (as one commentator calls it) requires drastic change of attitudes to girls and women, to procreation in general.
Time for a UN accord on population growth. 1-child policy, liberal birth control + abortion, marriage at 25.
It worked for China.
10
No, it didn't work for China. The one-child policy resulted in demographic distortions - many more males than females because of infanticide, too few people in the cohort born during the one-child policy to support China's economy and an aging population without enough young people to support the aged. The CCP has dropped the one-child policy for those reasons.
1
Sometimes a police state does the right thing as in China's one child policy. If they did not have it, there would probably be another half-billion humans on Earth. The argument that society must have continuous population growth to take care of the aged will result in the destruction of the biosphere. It is true that men in China may not be able to find mates because of the one child policy, but we can not all have what we want in life.
3
Immigration is not solely happening from the “disordered world” to the “ordered world” but also from the “disordered world” to the “less disordered world”, like the Venezuelans to Brazil immigration, raising (get this) xenophobia of all sorts. Unbelievable. Regardless of the immigrants, unless we the people of Brazil do something, the country will collapse. Brazil has no clear goal of what the country wants to be like or to get at in the future. The country goals and government policies in all areas change periodically with the exchange of the parties in power or economic and politic problems. The parties are too many and they do not even know what it means to compromise for the better of the country and of the people. Got an ever increasing concentration of wealth tendency, bad and deteriorating education and health systems, no respect for nature and important natural resources, widespread, thorough and comprehensive corruption and no justice. So, expect 200 million more on the road pretty soon.
6
This analysis totally fails to specify the differences between "failed states" in Central and Latin America on the one hand and in Africa on the other. Africa is undergoing a very long process of dealing with the relationship between its enormously complex ethnic diversities and the basis of statehood, as well as the relationships between these states, akin in some respects to what happened in Europe leading up to the Thirty Years War and its aftermath. Latin and Central America especially have not yet put behind them the problems of integrating native populations to the religious and cultural ideals of mostly Catholic Europeans who have ruled those nations since the European advent. Moreover, the instability in Latin America is enormously intensified by the filthy U.S. drug rot that is a gigantic problem of disorder in its own right. A day will come when some of these failed states, so-called, will get their act together and retain the loyalty of their populations. In that day, will the U.S. and Israel still dominate the world as our leaders wish us to do? We have some very, very big surprises yet ahead of us, when the whole story is written. Stay tuned, world. America and Israel are not God's special pets.
5
What many of these articles seem to miss, including this one by the great Thomas Friedman, is that you cannot look at this issue in a vacuum. Anyone who says these are poor immigrants and the Jews as former refugees should have compassion, and international law says they have to accept migrants fearing for their lives, completely miss the point that this kind of large scale immigration is completely unsustainable in a country like Israel. Really it is unsustainable in much larger European countries that have allowed millions of like refugees in and are suffering the consequences for it. Of course these migrants would love to go to Israel or Greece or Italy or France, why not life is good there, built by hard work and sacrifice of generations of natives. One commenter rightly asks here would these migrants be willing to give their lives defending Israel against Hezbollah, or do they expect to sit back, practice their own religion, many of whom are Muslim themselves, and let Israel fight its own battles while they enjoy the beach and free healthcare. At some point tragic and terrible as it is, these people will have to dig in and save their own countries, do the hard work and stay there. They cannot expect the world to save them all, especially a country like Israel that has all it can do in the face of extreme worldwide hostility against it to save itself.
32
It's very unhelpful to lump refugees and economic migrants together. A very small portion of the new arrivals in Europe are refugees, pretty much nobody when you use the actual Geneva Convention definition, but let's not go that far.
The larger point is that while accepting actual refugees is not really controversial, it's very much an open question if countries do more harm than good when they accept large numbers of economic migrants from struggling countries. The arrivals tend to be younger, healthier, more educated, more wealthy and with more options than the population they left behind. Their country looses GDP and economic potential, has a harder time repaying debts, infrastructure suffers, instability goes up and it creates disincentives to invest in human capital, just to name a few problems.
I love how you call for a collective strategy from the "World of Order" to fix their issues, since we can't even stop throwing gasoline into the fire or find good leadership for ourselves. Remember, policies regarding this issue on both sides of the Atlantic are the result of gridlock, polarization and impotence, not intelligent debate.
10
Many people have commented about population growth. Maybe I am missing something but our country has lots of room. So much open space. A flight to LA will show you so much open space. All the small towns in rural America can take in infinitely more people. We are by no means at capacity.
4
Population explosion + reducing airable land + lack of economic opportunity = survival of the fittest (Boko Haram, Al Queada, dictatorships, gangs, MS 13, etc) ... or run for the North.
What we need to do: Population control (no it isn't racist), effective economic aid, technical, farming & land management aid, and support of police actions instituting rule of law. And use the bright, resourceful refugees like the one identified in the article to serve these purposes locally.
Complaining, mis-treatment of refugees and/or doing nothing will eventually lead to genocide as the problem gets too big and Trump/National Front/Lukid types put on their reactionary caps and call out the national guard to put down those criminals.
3
thoughtful article, thanks.
One thing that continues to perturb me is that the concept of refugee is supposed to be first safe haven. The Dafaris (who clearly deserve asylum) came through Egypt. Why does no one remark that Egypt could accept them? The idea of Asylum is safe haven: not best safety net. Egypt is not a very wealthy nation—but not the most impoverished either. What about tye other arab nations some very very wealthy that make up 99% of the middle east land mass...? One might also wonder why the “caravan”folk seem to have little interest-nor are they apparently allowed —to stay in Mexico. economic migrants-I understand and feel for them, but they are not the same as persecuted refugees.
15
Finally, someone daring to say that overpopulation is the root of every problem there is in the world. And yet it is never acknowledged by governments, agencies, NGOs or religious orders.
12
A quick wiki check reveals we are adding 1,000,000,000 people every 12 years, 80 million per year, and 225,000 per day. overpopulation related horrors await us down the road. Civilization, where it exists, will come apart unless we all become like Israel. These are facts, not my wishes.
16
"Paleolithic migration prior to end of the Last Glacial Maximum spread anatomically modern humans throughout Afro-Eurasia and to the Americas."
What really stopped the Huns from conquering central Europe?
Israel- nothing new here. Eventually the nations being invaded or swarmed with immigrants become defensive as financial pressures mount.
Elon Musk thinks we should become an interplanetary species.
Perhaps someday it will be go or die!
3
African Dreamers? How about SETTLERS DReamers? The United Nations created an illegal state after WWll to appease the powers that be then. This illegal occupation has continued with reprehensible oppression, hatred, and deceit. The US taxpayers have and are paying this bill. Let's send all the occupiers, the real dreamers to their homelands . Bet no one wants to go home including those and their descendants who arrived in the Americas since 1492 and in Israel since 1948.
4
Israel is the Jews' homeland and has been for over 3,000 years. Read some history and maybe even the Bible.
9
Arafat pointed out, "the womb of the Arab women is my strongest weapon." He is being proven right. Israel as we know it will be gone in 50 years. So will Europe. Muslims understand the force of population growth. They castrated their African slaves and accepted a horrendous mortality rate centuries ago. This was unlike the English in America. The recent killings and rioting between Muslims and Sinhalese in Sri Lanka over the fear of "sterilization pills" illustrates the difficulty of population control of any sort. If we can just get past the next 150 years without destroying the habitability of the earth and eliminate races and religions by interracial and interreligious mixing the human race might survive. Is the human race ready to give up its phenotypic and religious diversity to survive? Is Israel ready to intermarry with the Palestinians and the Africans over the next century. Is Europe ready to do the same with Africa and West Asia? Is Saudi Arabia ready to intermarry with Africa? Are the Han Chinese ready to intermarry with Indians and wipe out their race? Are all Americans ready to randomly couple? Are we all ready to share in an average world standard of living? Why should an African kid have less of a future than a black kid in Chicago? Why should a Muslim kid in Afghanistan have worse prospects than a Muslim kid in Berlin or Tel Aviv?
2
Your dream world is one of more chaos. Read some history, study anthropology.
3
The alternative is genocide. At some level of stress our rational pre- frontal cortex gives way to the impulsive emotions of the amygdala. We humans, are, in my view, two species - one “civilized” the other “savage”
5
Tom Friedman is a very astute observer and analyst. And he is still struggling to recover his moral credibility after his personal disaster as cheerleader for the Iraq War.
In this column he had a major opportunity to do this, and he stepped right up to the brink. But then he backed away in an on the one hand on the other almost David Brooksian fashion.
And it all comes down to one word, the R word.
Let me illustrate.
Friedman writes:
"Many Israelis on the right believe there is no place — culturally, religiously or financially — for these Africans. Other Israelis believe it a moral imperative to let them stay. Sound familiar?"
What's explicitly missing from the triumvirate of "culturally, religiously or financially" as a reason why the Israeli right, or, indeed, one suspects, even some bien pensant Upper East Siders, might reject these Africans and their children?
Clearly it is the word which dare not speak its name in Israel, of all places.
"Racially."
"Oh," that's included in "culturally" a righteous Israeli might respond.
"Included in"?!
No, it is the very substance of the word "culturally," and it is being disguised by the use of the C word in the hopes that no one will really notice that:
Yes, Benjamin, there are plenty of Israelis who do not want to see their daughter go to university and come home with a black boyfriend.
Racism, by any other name, even "cultural," would smell as foul.
You know it, so just say it, Tom. And prepare for the faux outrage.
6
Friedman leaves out the crimes committed by these migrants against the local population, many of whom are too poor to move from South Tel Aviv.
11
When Westerners settled in Africa it was called colonialism and imperialism.
When hordes of third-world people flood the West they are called poor migrants.
16
The only humane answer to stopping mass migrations is to improve the quality of life and bring order to the countries where disorder reigns.
8
And how, exactly, do you propose restoring a continent whose populations overran its resources years ago? And whose people resist birth control out of ignorance and fear?
7
Ask Madelaine Albright: Education, Global Economic Order, support for democracy, foreign aid!
1
This looks like a prescription for the entire world and you said it, "So many new nations that were created in the last century are failing or falling apart under the stresses of population explosions, climate change, corruption, tribalism and unemployment." That's America, that's every country.
32
Western nations need to put ALL our efforts into making unstable African countries better. The alternative is exploding migration of third world trouble into the west, dragging us all down to that level. This is not hyperbole, it's already happening in too many European cities.
38
Lucy, I agree with you in principle. But the problem in Africa is mostly corruption in government. Two of the largest and potentially richest countries in Africa (Nigeria and South Africa) are being drained of their wealth by thieves who run the government. This corruption must be dealt with by the people in these countries. Money sent in by outsiders will be largely stolen by people with high connections. The same holds true for Latin America. If people had jobs and a low crime rate in their country, they would much prefer to stay in their own country.
13
Also, not much can be done to repair the ravages of climate change that underpin, for example, the conflict in Sudan/South Sudan. As desertification spreads on the African continent, conflicts and humanitarian crises in impacted countries will only increase, driving more migration. Getting people to stay in these countries is probably not a viable or humane solution.
3
Lots of money has been spent to stabilize Africa. It is all lost to corruption. Most see no benefit, hence they leave.
4
Israel won't let these folks stay for the same reason it expelled most Palestinians from their land and continues to bar these refugees from returning: it wants to maintain a majority Jewish population. It therefore discriminates against its non-Jewish population and maintains an apartheid system of governance that ensures non-mixing of Jews and non-Jews in order to uphold the Jewish character of the country. It's an untenable policy (as the South Africans learned), yet this continues to this day thanks largely to American backing.
6
Israel is a great example of needing to pay attention to countries other than your own. How about the Arabs and many others before who dont support what is necessary fo a Palestinian state? As well as better lives for Their people by recognizing,making peace, and trading with their neighbors Let’s not forget Trillions that have gone to Saudi Arabia for oil and weapons made in the USA. Too easy to blame Israel.
3
“… is the excruciating moral dilemma that countries in the World of Order are going to be facing in the coming years, because this World of Disorder will continue to widen …”.
I notice that Mr. Friedman chooses to refer to Israel as a Jewish State and at the same time as a country in his ‘world of Order’.
As a Jewish state Israel has its own ‘excruciating moral dilemma’ how it believes it can be part of a world of Order and at the same time evolve as a rabidly Apartheid country. That excruciating moral dilemma is today hemmed in by the Gaza Border fence, where the ethnically cleansed Palestinians are contained, in the Gaza Ghetto.
No Mr. Friedman, most of us do not agree that a World of Order shall tolerate Apartheid and Ethnic cleansing. The success of the BDS movement is testimony to that truth.
3
I advice to everybody including Thomas to buy an apartment in South Tel Aviv around the bus station and go for a walk around the neighborhood.
Please be remainded that Israel has the size of NJ.
10
Over 15% of the Jews living in Israel are of African origin, the majority immigrating from Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Ethiopia. These folk believe in the rightful existence of this 70 year old Jewish homeland.
Do the Sudanese and Eritrean illegal immigrants that Mr. Friedman spoke with understand that Israel is a safe haven for the world's persecuted Jews? Would they be willing to put their lives on the line to fight Arab Muslim aggression against Israel in return for full citizenship?
This question of Israeli demography is not Off Broadway media entertainment, Mr. Friedman. It's about survival of The Promised Land...a Jewish controlled homeland. And, this show has been playing to sold out audiences under the Big Top of antisemitism... uninterrupted ...for over 2 thousand years.
19
In summing up Israel’s illegal refugee issue, Thomas Friedman inaccurately and irresponsibly states: “Many Israelis on the right believe there is no place — culturally, religiously or financially — for these Africans.” That is not the issue.
Israel is a tiny Jewish State which provides a place of refuge for Jews when every nation in the world turns its back on us, as happened during the Holocaust. Although all of Europe was either apethetic or complicit, the United States also turned its back on Jewish refugees.
Today many Jews are fleeing Europe due to an upswing in violent anti-Semitism by Muslim migrants. European nations do little to help, expressing an apathy darkly reminiscent of the Holocaust. A number of these Jews have chosen to migrate to Israel.
It is nothing short of hypocricsy for a world that turned its back on Jewish refugees, and does everything possible to compromise its existence, to now insist that Israel use its limited resources and space to take in African refugees. Thomas Friedman has a lot of chutzpah in misstating the issue.
17
Right. But nothing hypocritical about being a country based on refugees and fleeing ethnic cleansing to claim people fleeing ethnic cleansing are "illegal."
The irony. I assume you are what, Cherokee or Navajo?
1
Mr Friedman, have you checked your facts? Have you visited Eritrea? Have you enquired about the motives of the Eritrean work migrants? Have you considered the suffering of impoverished (or not) residents of south Tel Aviv where these migrant congregate? Have you seen proposals to employ Eritrean young men in special industrial complexes in nearby Ethiopia? Are you aware of the excellent relations between these 'refugees' and the Eritrean embassy in Israel? I expect you march to the drumbeat of your heart -- your empathy with the downtrodden. That is excellent, but what of us Israelis -- do we need to further complicate our demographic problems? Are we a suitable venue for the millions of unfortunate Africans? And please set aside talk of racism -- it is a label we do not deserve, despite the smear campaign of the Israeli elite, devised under the shade of their green boulevards or leafy settlements.
Best
ASE
12
The dilemmas posed in the article offer no easy solutions. Famine, climate change, lawless governments certainly are factors to be noted. What about the exploding number of people needing asylum due to lack of birth control? While they are starving and sick, somehow many in Africa manage to get pregnant and give birth. Seeing the photos of the sick, emaciated children is heart wrenching. Why in the world are they bringing children into the world who will live a short, tortured life? Can anyone answer that question? Unless this procreation issue is seriously dealt with, governments will not be feasibly able to absorb the increased number of refugees, including Israel.
53
The population will continue to grow, because the US government cut off funding for birth control. The pope went in and reinforced the concept.
9
Populations go out of control in ares of " disorder" because the balance of power does not exist between men and women. In many cultures, women (or young women or girls) have very little control of their own lives, with little to no options to improve their situation. Nobody wants to have children into a world just to see them starve and be sick. Many of these mothers have no control and are victims themselves.
10
It's men who are driving that population explosion. These societies, in which women's preference carries no weight, condemns them to servility and pregnancy after pregnancy. Masculinity, proven by numbers of children, plus some imagined economic benefits they will eventually provide, plus plain irresponsibility is at the core of the problem IMO. Men also drive the cultural and religious mandates to have more children.
Jared Diamond predicted this mass migration many years ago as climate change, corruption and warfare drove people to pick up and try to move to the temperate and law-abiding West. Short of abandoning our comfortable social ethics in one way or another (either restrict their entry by means of armed borders, or allow in some numbers and institute an apartheid society), there is no real way to deal with immigrants. If I were in their position, I would hope I'd try to get my children a better life rather than subside into anomie and poverty.
7
I am no T.F fan. He's been wrong too many times for me. But, WOW! He hit a home run with this column. He clarified a complex problem in the world today better than anything I have read or heard. This is why I subscribe to the nyt.
2
With full and heartfelt sympathies to migrants worldwide, there are a few factors that differentiate Israel's dilemma from that of the EU, USA, and other islands of "world order."
Whereas many migrants to the EU and US already have family established in those would-be host states, such familial connections to Israel are not (yet) as developed. Because it's reasonable to expect that all immigrants have family on the outside, ensconcing a non-citizen community in Israel would open up a multitude of compelling "Dreamer" scenarios, exacerbating Israel's dilemma well beyond its current relatively small "off-Broadway" scale.
Israel is a diminutive and crowded parcel of land scarce in key resources, particularly open land, water, and housing. Moreover, there is a hyper-sensitivity to demographics as Israelis and Jews worldwide understandably view Israel as a tiny life raft in an otherwise inhospitable and shark infested sea. The stewardship of our little life raft and our own oft-repeated collective refugee experience are playing tug-of-war with our conscience. As with so many dilemmas, a perfect policy may not exist.
50
The key to global migration is global peace, global economic prosperity, global education, and global birth control. This is also the likely solution for global warming. Daunting but worth the effort.
2
I like how the country the size of your finger nail has to take in what represents 1% of their population in refugees when there are a dozen other larger countries in the area. Hmmmmmmm
12
We are all refugees on Mother Earth. She shelters us gives us refuge, we visit her again and again. Astronauts circling above earth have always remarked wondrously, the magnificent earth has no boundaries, she is open all around. We humans have created physical boundaries, walls, based on tribes ethnicity religion race color superficial features of nose hair skin. The earth did not require us to create divisions, we did it anyway. And now we have legal immigrants illegal migrants and refugees. Back in Africa we were free to explore, we roamed to the high mountains, across deep seas, thick ice glaciers. Everyone was welcome.
Israel had good karma, but it’s losing its stock of good karma, unless it stops itself from committing any more bad karma. Of all humans on earth the Israelis would know what suffering means, yet their cold amnesiac hearts choose to become selective when it comes to sharing their good fortune which they protect with nukes and American weaponry, America military aid. That’s makes us complicit.
2
Do you want to take in some of these "refugees", MOST of whom are economic migrants? Look at a map of Israel, and tell me why it should take these people in. And while you're looking at that map, tell us why these people are passing through other countries, with populations they'd have much more in common with, to get to Israel.
9
Politics aside, why is it that these African refugees have the desire to settle in Israel when there are so many other counties to choose? It is because deep down the moral fiber of the Jewish state is intact. I hope the Israeli government will do the right thing and find a way to absorb these people who will not only help the economic engine to run, but show the rest of the world that Israel is a nation of dreamers who when the UN partitioned the land into two states in 1947 (which the Arab population rejected), made a desert bloom into a place where despite its belligerent neighbors, has made amazing strides in medicine, technology, agriculture, science and other fields, positively affecting millions of people around the world.
6
"How can Israel turn them away? But how can Israel take them all, which will only invite more, and the supply is now endless?"
By replacing "Israel" with "Sweden" in those sentences we frame the questions that fill my newspaper, DN, today and every day. You might even think that is the top concern of voters. It is not.
In DN today, Ola Larsmo writes that we Swedes must listen to the ideas in Thomas Mann's 1939 "Das problem der Freiheit" and speak out on following the moral principles we profess to believe in. Mann wrote that the core of democracy is to realize by meeting people different from us that their experiences and lives are just as important as ours. Therefore we must speak out for them.
Here is how a few of us at the Red Cross learn the truth of Mann's position. Yesterday we four (SE citizens born in Iran, USA, SE x 2) who provide "Träna svenska" spent two hours in conversation with people who fled from Eritrea, Somalia, Iran, Syria, and Iraq. Those two hours are among the best we four experience each week. We all agree: We want each of the 10 to be able to stay if they have not already been granted that right.
But we know that the supply is endless in the countries I name and know that little Sweden cannot take all who want to try to come here. And I, also American, know that the USA played a trillions-of-dollars role in creating the conditions that force these people to leave.
Draw your own conclusions concerning those $$
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
1
During the era of Nazi Germany, countless Jews that were fleeing Nazi persecution attempted to illegally enter other countries as refugees - and many of them were turned back or deported back to Germany, where they faced torture and death at the hands of Hitler and his flunkies.
Israel has forgotten the lessons that led to its own creation. It's been a powerful regional force for so long that it's forgotten what it's like to be powerless and face unavoidable persecution simply for who you are. "Never Again" cannot be a privilege reserved exclusively for Orthodox Jews - refuge from genocide should be a human right, one to be offered without regard for economic considerations.
4
“Never again” means preserving Israel as a refuge for Jews when no one else will have us. None of these European countries who were apathetic or complicit in the Holocaust are rushing to take in these African migrants.
You learned the wrong lesson from the Holocaust. Undermining the tiny Jewish State by loading it with illegal migrants so it will be less available to Jews who need refuge in the future is not what the Holocaust teaches us. Nor do the UN resolutions delegitimizing Israel’s right to exist by those same Europeans who looked the other way while Jews were being exterminated.
6
Germany took over a million Syrian immigrants. Most European countries realize they need immigrants to have functioning economies. Countless Israelis in Berlin now too.
1
Israeli Dreamers will remain marginalized regardless of any residency permit absent the opportunity for full citizenship. This requires the offer of a rabbinical process conversion to Judaism as a prerequisite. The Jewish state, as a major power on the world stage, wielder of nuclear ballistic weapons, with unstated borders, client in good standing and recipient of billions of dollars of largess from the world superpower United States, is long past the point of casually distinguishing the merit for citizenship for, say, a Marc Rich over an African refugee seeking in good faith to join the tribe.
10
In what way are Israel's borders "unstated"? Egypt is also the recipient of billions in largesse from the superpower United States, and oddly, no one ever talks about the power of the Saudi lobby. The fact is, demographics are rapidly becoming a sore point throughout the West due to the migrant crisis. Antisemitism is on the rise across Europe now, and the "immigration discussion" that Europe refused to have over the last four or five decades, preferring to close its eyes and kick the can down the road, is now exploding in its face.
These migrant "events" are, in fact, the opening wedge in the struggle between the arguments for "open borders" and nation statehood - there is a growing perception that anyone has the right to walk into anyone else's country "in search of a better life" and expect welcome, taxpayer support for health, education, shelter, and language assistance for years, and that no country has the right to think about demographics, numbers, jobs (they now have robot bartenders on luxury cruise ships, did you know?), etc.
Demographics matter. They reshape culture. Sweden is trying desperately to cope with levels of crime that were unheard of in its nice little country 50 years ago, without calling much attention to the elephant in the room-see politico eu last week:
https://www.politico.eu/article/sweden-bombings-grenade-attacks-violent-...
Israel has as much right as Denmark to consider demographics.
13
Huh? Marc Rich went to Switzerland. How many African refugees did Switzerland take?
2
The Israeli government has consistently had a "problem" with African citizens. Before commenters start coming to the defense of Israel's stark racist policies; please acquaint yourselves with the belligerence of Israel's position on Ethiopian Jews; who- despite confirmation of their lineage, Israel drug its feet in recognizing the "Law of Return in the the 1980's. Ethiopian Jews are treated as second-class citizens; and widely discriminated against. Far too many Americans have a complete blind spot when it comes to Israel's policies because of our own Judeo-Christian "political" philosophy.
29
While many are not as yet fully integrated (irs only been one generation} I'd much rather be an Ethiopian Jew living in Israel than a black Christian in the USA. Sephardic Jews in the 1950s and sixties faced similar struggles which have been for the most part overcome. All Jews are one family. Outside of Israel as well but many Jews there are unaware unless reminded.
8
Israel is the only country that brought black people back from Africa & made them citizens. All the other countries that brought black people back from Africa made them slaves.
There were extremely important non-racial reasons for deciding whether Ethiopian Jews were Jews e.g. Jews every where else in the world had a Torah written in Hebrew. The Ethiopian's Torah was not. Jews derive meaning from the numeric value of the Hebrew letters. Also, there is no Talmud so religious practice was very different.
8
Rabbi Avi Weiss was honest enough to acknowledge this Israeli problem with Ethiopian Jews over 30 years ago. I see racism as the essential problem. If Israel were now flooded with a staggering number of white Europeans, they all would be welcomed–even if they weren't Jewish!
4
Maybe the fact that so many black Africans are willing to risk everything for a chance, no matter how slim it is, of calling Israel their home should finally dispel the myth that Israel is a hideous racist apartheid enclave. I'm not holding my breath that this will happen but it's nice to dream that this apartheid nonsense just might die a horrible screaming death.
7
I'm glad that Mr Friedman mentioned, albeit briefly, "overpopulation" as a root cause, usually ignored by ideologs on both left and right. Unsustainable population growth (for example Uganda going from about 12.3 million in 1980 to over 40 million now) will swamp Europe, Israel and even the US. Fences can't keep them out, the decent people that want to help the refugees will encourage more to come, without end until conditions in the west are as bad as conditions in the countries of origin. The situation is getting worse as Trump's minions are cutting off aid to birth control programs in order to pander to the religious zealots. So millions of women are having children they don't want and cannot afford because for reasons of poverty, ignorance, religious extremism, and patriarchy they have no access to birth control. Unless that is addressed, the situation can only get worse.
90
Israel has to retain its Jewish identity, that is its heritage. If they accept migrants from Africa, the Jewish population will be overwhelmed. It is interesting that naysayers are calling Israel a nation of immigrants who should welcome other refugees, when the US, with a much larger land mass, is also a nation of immigrants, and we don't welcome refugees. Israel should not be the bad guy in this when our behavior is no different.
5
In 2016 the USA admitted more refugees than any other country.
1
Not by percentage of our population.
How anyone can think that mass immigration all over the globe is a solution is simply not thinking logically, it cannot, will not work. Reducing the issue to its inevitable conclusion we have all the people who are suffering in countries where the government is corrupt and ineffective fleeing to the West. Leaving those countries to become lawless states exploited by the worst people on earth who have no problem with murder and plunder.
This is what Trump's policies will exacerbate. We, the West have to involve ourselves in these countries struggle to develop. We have to revamp all the world aid organizations to more effectively help the disadvantaged.
We also have to ditch the idea that we are not the world's policeman. The world requires a policeman and we are the only possible choice. Without global police you see vary plainly what is and will continue to unfold. We have no choice but to play the strongman in many of the worlds conflicts. We should use our military to prevent or stop conflict even if it means assuming an authoritarian role. I never thought I would arrive at this view but someone has to stop the insanity.
And in case you do not get it and many of you do not we are on a trajectory to certain global ruin and disaster in every sphere of human activity from our economies to our environment.
1
The sad truth is that most of the billions in aid given over the last 50 years, to Africa, by our country, was given to despots, and dictators, who used very little of it to further advance a decent life for all the people in their countries, no matter the culture or religion. However, the fundamentalists, and fanatics of religion, has undermined stable societies, as too many men are deciding that only one type of religion is acceptable in too many parts of Africa, they get too many young men to do their dirty killing, even if they aren't really for that type of civil uprising. Actually, it is little different than what has happened with the Orthodox Jews in Israel, who have only maintained a middle class lifestyle because of the all the money that this country has poured into Israel, over the last 70 years, and to end up both in Israel, and Africa, with a majority of the people blindly following dogmatic, and dangerous religious ideas, doesn't bode well for the future of either Israel or Africa.
2
The Orthodox are not killing people.
They're not being funded by the US government, but by their relatives.
1
Continual growth of the human population will eventually result in a culling -- dieoff is an apt term. The longer 'leadership' ignores the growth, the more severe the consequences. One viable scenario is a repeat of the influenza pandemic of 1918 to 1920 -- 50 to 100 million people died from the influenza. Nature bats last and always 'wins'.
Israel has already given us the model for a wall (subsidized by American tax payers to a rich country - Israel has GDP per capita, about $40,000, that is 20%-30% greater than that of Italy, Spain and South Korea, roughly the same of as France and Japan, and close to that of U.K. and Germany, but Israel is always ready to be on the dole of American tax payers - billions of dollars per year), constantly violates international law - part of that wall is built on land from occupied territory, has longest illegal military occupation (51 years), illegally annexes land without giving citizenship to those living in that land (East Jerusalem and Golan Heights) has only nuclear arsenal in the region in violation of international law. We just need a wall and get Mexico to pay for it.
Who needs laws, build walls and fences, deport all refugees instead. Have Friedman come up with oh so clever World of Order and World on Disorder and off Broadway and Broadway analogies instead.
Friedman makes a reference to a Jewish state (not a Jewish and democratic state or a Jewish ethnic homeland in Palestine) - a state for Jews only? 20% of Israelis are Muslim and Christian (the world’s original Christians, some of whom also live under military occupation or in illegally annexed land). Should we be a Christian or White state?
Friedman also forgot to mention that Israeli military snipers shoot unarmed 14 year olds in the head in Gaza.
Yes, Israel is the perfect role model for Trump and his supporters.
4
There are over 40,000 US troops in Japan to defend Japan, which costs the US approximately $29 billion per year to maintain that deployment. That's almost 9 times what Israel gets. US troops in Germany to defend Germany cost around 21 billion per year, South Korea troop deployment costs 16 billion per year, etc..
ALso all that money sent to Israel gets reinvested in the US economy. (Plus all other benefits - sharing intelligience, training US troops and police in the most current counter-terrorism methods, co-development of defensive weaponry, pre-positioning materiel, etc.)
The occupation is legal because Israel was attacked just as our occupation of Japan after world war 2 was legal because we were attacked.
In the past 30 years, Israel has annexed ZERO land.
Israel's having nukes does not violate any international law.
3
I fully support Israel as a Jewish ethnic homeland in Palestine and as a Jewish (dominant character, not theocracy/ethnocracy) AND democratic nation, and US ally - one that we should help to defend; and the 2-state solution. Israel is a remarkable, role model country (with flaws like any other country) within the 1967/Green Line borders. But it is up to Israelis to decide what to call their country - note that Israel is not formally the Jewish State of Israel and the Jewish vs. secular nature of Israel is ambiguous and hotly debated and unresolved within Israel.
I want Israel to join NATO or have bilateral defense treaty with Israel, with US troops/bases in Israel, to extend our nuclear umbrella to defend Israel and to also serve US strategic and national interests. Israel would have to meet its treaty obligations. That’s exactly what we do with Japan, South Korea and Germany - not just defend them, but also extend US power. We don’t hand billions like we do with Israel to those countries and we certainly don’t occupy them (as you stated).
Israel annexed East Jerusalem in 1980 and had de facto annexation of Golan Heights in 1981 - both illegal annexations. Not sure why last 30 years window is relevant?
Israel has violated nuclear test ban, trafficked in nuclear materials/technology in violation of international laws. Israel is 1 of only 4 countries not to sign Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. US law forbids US aid to non-NPT nuclear nations like Israel, Pakistan or India.
2
they came from Egypt to Israel. Isn't the definition of a true refugee that they arrive in the first safe country? Why does no one write about why the refugees do not feel safe or were not welcomed in Egypt? Israel always wrong; Arab countries with 99% of the middle east land (look at a map, please) have no responsibility to accept refugees.
10
Let me get this straight, this guy, who is admitting to having lived a safe life in Khartoum and choosing to go to Israel because it's safer and does not deport to Sudan, is given as an example of a dilemma? What exactly is the dilemma here? Should we accept anyone who feels that Israel is a nice place for him to live? If I now decide that the US is a nice place for me to live because there are no suicide bombers and rockets, am I allowed based on that to emigrate to the US and live there permanently?
This is basically an admission that he is not really an asylum seeker and should be treated accordingly by our immigration authorities.
10
We will in some hopefully-better future, look back upon this period and all the actors much like we now look back upon the Irish potato famine of the 1800's. True charity, humanity 101, is what you do when times are difficult...when it really matters...when it actually inconveniences you.
Once again, Mr. Friedman takes something that many are aware of and he tries to give it a name, hoping that it will catch on and he'll get the credit.
Think "flat earth."
There is one thing that Friedman forgot to mention: Israel is already unbelievably crowded and based on having the highest birth rate of any developed country in the world things will only get worse. I feel badly for Africans looking for a better life and another 40,000 people won't break the bank but it will, as previously pointed out, encourage others to attempt to enter a country that simply doesn't have the room. There are of course Muslim Middle Eastern countries that do have space but they won't even accept their co-religionists from Syria. The prospects of countries like Saudi Arabia or the Gulf states granting black Africans citizenship is of course laughable.
7
“The Israeli people are super welcoming,” said Haroun. “I have been invited for Shabbat dinners and the weddings of friends. They are giving us opportunities and fighting for our rights. But the government is working hard to push us out.”
World wide, the worlds' peoples want peace. The worlds' governments do not.
When reffering, or revering "governments" think The Times editorial board who governs this 'noose paper' right down even to this lowly page, monitoring every word.
In the words of the world famous 'media prophet,' H. Marshall McLuhan, "The Media is the Message."
The medium, especially television is controlled worldwide.
The only medium freedom we have in America is the freedom to watch, thus the rise of social media online, the final place where a potential living prophet, "waiting in the wings" potentially might rise.
In 1971, H. Marshall McLuhan was on the Dick Cavett show. At the very end, seconds left, with the show-ending music starting in the background, Cavett asked McLuhan a doozy of a question, "Who is going to turn the boob-tube into an art form and deliver the world to peace."
Marshall answered Cavett that the world solution is, "Waiting in the wings."
2
It is said that genius is the talent for observing the obvious. Once again, Thomas Friedman proves he is no genius. He says,
"...unless the World of Order comes up with a collective strategy to help stabilize the World of Disorder — not just build walls — this play will have a long, wide run."
The obvious answer is a new colonialism. By voting with their feet, the "World of Disorder" is clearly and obviously expressing their desire to live under a European socio-political order.
Well, there are two ways to do that. One, an expensive and dangerous way, is for millions of Third World people to invade the First World, a way that is guaranteed to end badly for everybody concerned. And everybody is concerned.
The other way is for Europe to resume its colonial enterprise, an enterprise that, for all its faults, greatly improved the lives of the colonized.
Oh, you don't think so? Does that sound outrageous? Then, please explain that to the millions of Africans and Latin-Americans who risk life and limb to live under European and American rule.
To paraphrase a famous Muslim saying, "If European rule does not come to them, they will go to European rule."
4
Like our occupation of Iraq? Or Afghanistan? Or Britains "decision" to leave the colonies? Brilliant.
That ended well...
So the immigration hardliners seek to be tough on refugees but soft on the factors that create refugees. They’ll build huge walls and repel desperate people with increasing levels of harshness and brutality while turning a blind eye to climate change and its resultant wars, famines and other natural disasters.
If you were fleeing death or destitution, would a wall stop you? Personally I’d find the idea of being shot by a ruthless border guard far preferable to a lingering death from starvation or watching my kids die for lack of $.50 worth of medication.
We need coordinated action on this issue but we’re cursed with short-sighted, ignorant, morally bankrupt leaders.
1
Mr. Friedman is wrong. There is not an endless stream of East African refugees that could flood in to Israel. Years ago, Israel built a southern wall and since then there have been no asylum seekers entering Israel from Africa. Don't make false equivalencies. This is a unique situation. This is not a demographic threat to Israel's existence and Israel could easily absorb this small population without threatening the character of the country.
1
This is a very instructive article even though the Broadway reference distracted from its seriousness. America should keep at least one serious eye on it.
Jewish refugees from Austria I met in Albuquerque used a more serious analogy. “If I wanted to study slavery, become a student of the Holocaust; Germans did in fifteen years what Americans took 400 years to accomplish—and the kept better records.”
Israelis are a very innovative people and some old and young, in addition to the Torah, know their recent political history. Although not seen or heard in Netanyahu, many have a profound feeling for refugees from persecution, terror and war.
If there is a solution to the world refugee problem, the Israelis are the ones most likely to find an equitable one; but it won’t be under the leadership of Netanyahu. If they do find a solution under BiBi, he won’t recommend it to Trump.
Despite how it looks now, my hope is in the Israelis and the Spirit of Golda Meir.
You ain't seen nothing yet. With continued climate change there will come increased desert formation in currently productive places throughout the world, unbearable temperature rises in many places, unpredictable rainfall patterns, and swamping of low lying lands by the oceans. There will be world-wide famine with a good deal of the world's population trying to move to a safe place with food. I am in favor of controlled migration to our country but how will we deal with more than a billion people who will try to come?
30
Economic migration is going to destroy the developed world. The sheer numbers of people are mind-boggling.
We need long-term solutions. Those solutions require that people be more responsible in their family planning. The world has finite resources- if there are too many people in a region then they have created their own problems.
A lack of jobs and stability in a foreign country is a problem for that country- not a problem for the West.
Economic migration is eroding social trust and optimism in the West. It is going to erode support for asylum policies.
Illegal economic migrants, everywhere, need to be returned to their country of origin.
12
Economic migration is going to destroy the developed world...so how do you think the developed world became developed?
Colonial masters colonized colonies and extracted wealth, for their treasure chests, not too long ago, in human history. What followed was unspeakable inequality in wealth and well being.
1
This all reminds me of Paul Kennedy's 1993 book "Preparing for the 21 Century" asking which governments are even capable of responding to the unprecedented changes heading their way. His answer is that most are not, unfortunately. We shall see soon enough.
3
Here’s an idea for Israel...
Set a limit on the number of refugees you allow in each year and allow them to become permanent residents without the opportunity of becoming citizens unless they are willing to undergo a formal conversion to Judaism and perform their military service. At that point they have the right of return and would be treated no different than any other Israeli. They also would not count against the number of refugees that Israel allows in for that year.
9
Conversion to Judaism? Forcing people to change their religion is what ISIS does. It's a violation of basic human rights. There are are many secular jews in Israel already.
2
I like this idea! Also, why not organize as many of the African refugees into a sort of 'bridge' that can bring Israel and sub-Saharan Africa into a closer relationship, perhaps even an alliance, and encourage the 'green' development of these African countries with Israel's help?
These refugees left Sudan to find a better and safer life for themselves and their families. They could have stayed in Egypt, a fellow Muslim country but they decided to head further into Israel, a state found to protect the Jewish people from further atrocities. They were not forced into Israel, they could have stayed in Egypt or could have gone to any other middle eastern country. If they want the benfits of being Israeli, they should assume the risks of being one.
Israel was a nation founded by creating refugees - the Palestinians dispossessed from their land to make way for arriving European settlers. It's no surprise that the nationalist mistreatment continues.
5
No one would have been displaced if Palestinians had not tried to exterminate the Jews.
The day after the UN Partition Resolution in November 1947, racist, xenophobic Palestinians started a genocidal war to exterminate the Jews. Haj Amin el-Husseini, Grand Mufti of Jerusalem – “I declare a holy war, my Muslim brothers! Murder the Jews! Murder them all!”
The war started with Palestinians attacking a Jewish bus driving on the Coastal Plain near Kfar Sirkin killing five and wounding others. Half an hour later they ambushed a second bus from Hadera, killing two more. Arab snipers attacked Jewish buses in Jerusalem and Haifa.
Wars create refugees!
5
PLEASE spend some time and do some research about your notion of Israel as exclusively based on "European settlers." Many Jews emigrated to then Palestine and later the new State of Israel from all over the Middle East and North Africa who faced discrimination and violence. To call Jewish survivors of the Holocaust who came from Displaced Persons camps and the ruins of the European Jewry 'settlers' is at best a mischaracterization. There is, in my opinion, much to criticize about elements of current Israeli policies but by deliberating distorting Israel's history, you dilute whatever criticism you make.
1
Not just European
Earth has passed its carrying capacity of human populations.The natural, biological impetus to mate and reproduce, which once allowed for the survival of our species over two thousand millennia, is now a clear and present threat to our future survival. The biological response to overpopulation in any species, bacteria in a nourishing Petri dish, for example, is the accelerating depletion of nutrients and other resources. In an ecologically balanced environment, forces like disease, predation, or functional resource cycles balance the population of species. Science and technology have pushed resource cycles (artificial nitrate fertilizers, for example) to the limate where disease and predation shall take over and re-balance the population to fit the ecological environment. Israel’s dilemma is the world’s dilemma in miniature. There may be no solution: the population bomb has already exploded. It’s beyond humanity’s capacity to control: while humanity dithers, biology will surely take over. Famine, disease, and war... and sooner rather than later later, is our probable future. Our probable fate.
16
Every western, industrialized nation is facing the same issue. People from war-torn, corrupt, impoverished countries willing to do anything to get into their nation.
As the birth rate continues to boom in such places, the problem grows exponentially. Arguably, a bigger concern than climate change.
14
Watch the youtube presentation of Peak Child. Peak Child, and Peak Population - Earth Science - Science Forums
https://www.scienceforums.net › Sciences › Earth Science
by Hans Rosling . He explains that we have recently reached "peak child": the number of children born per year, in an absolute sense, is at its peak.
His presentation is both educational and entertaining. Africa is (will be) the last continent to get its birthrate down to 2.1/female , the replacement ratio. The data is eye opening.
1
Whether it is Israel, as Mr. Friedman discusses here, or the EU, Canada or the US, the common theme in worldwide migration is the mass exodus of millions of Africans from their home countries. These people seek refuge from tribal, religious and governmental persecution, and western nations have been left to deal with the mess.
From World War II onward, the movement toward African anti-colonialism and self-rule was hailed. European colonists were jettisoned in favor of local leaders. The wealth of Africa was to be shared by its natives and not exported to its overlords. Democratic rule would blossom. Africa would flourish and grow.
Seventy years on, how has it worked out in Africa? Apart from a relatively small number of modest success stories, not particularly well. We've seen cruel, thieving dictators who stole as much of their country's wealth as they could while they clung to power for decades, governmental-sanctioned murder, and religious and tribal persecution and genocide.
I don't suggest that African nations were better off under colonialism, but we must face the fact that the experiment of African self-rule has been largely unsuccessful. And the result has been millions of Africans expelled, killed or escaping to seek refuge in the west. Building walls and fences does not solve the problem. How do we help Africans build the institutions of effective government under the rule of law? Is it even possible?
18
As has been said several times over, everyone dreams and deserves to earn their dream realized not by hook or crook but by determination, hard work and without disobeying the law of that land. Non violent civil disobedience by the sons and daughters of the soil is a just cause that should be supported if the laws can be changed by legislative action. Immigration reforms should therefore be passed with the urgency of now to consider the plight of the undocumented persons living all over the world.
1
Yes, it seems my professor of the exhilarating Backgrounds of Civilization course required at my college freshman year was right. (That was in 1962. Do colleges have exhilarating required courses in world history today?...) Dr. Mott told us: At the base of every societal arrangement a choice has been made weighing most heavily on the side of freedom or of order. The fact that the "Arab spring," when several countries overthrew their long time autocratic rulers only eventually lead to chaos and eventually to ISIS as the antidote may suggest... (We Western liberals don't want to hear this) ... that, of all human societal needs, order is the most important need.
4
Seems to me this refugee problem has greatly helped Trump and other Nationalist politicians in their countries gain power. People fear displacement. The hierarchy with the white male at the top is already under attack and refugees of color add to the feeling of becoming a stranger is ones homeland.
21
How do you think the "hierarchy of Asian males at the top" would react to the possibility of millions of Africans or white people wanting to relocate to Japan, China, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, etc....?
1
World of Order verses World of Disorder. I like the analogy. Here's another one. A verdant, but with heavy dead underbrush, forest with a vast wild fire approaching. What do you do to forestall if not stop the conflagration seen coming?
Do you attempt to firewall and stand behind high bastions of privilege and security to stop the onrush? Or do you try to find a way to integrate the latter into the former? Which is the most viable, longer term, option?
I suspect only the latter offers, ultimately, a true path to security and humanity for all of us. But it requires a complete reset of the mind of the species. To date we have lived as tribes. We call them Nation States. A series of enclaves within which sub-groups of the species feel secure. This needs to change.
We need to stop thinking in this tribal fashion, and begin to contemplate the fact that we are all one species. We must learn to live together as one vast herd, or hive. We need to think along the lines of one world government; one representing all the peoples of the Earth, to consider what is necessary to make this happen, organizationally speaking.
I don't say this lightly. Doing something along these lines would be the most immense undertaking the species has ever attempted. Tribal is in our bones. But though the wild fire will still burn us in the process at least a conflagration can be avoided.
John~
American Net'Zen
1
Another great article Tom. If I had to be the “Judge” and decide the fate of thousands, or millions a refugees like Haroun all over this planet, I would fail miserably. On the so-called “Liberal” side, I would be inclined to accept all of them because they could contribute to our society and make all of us better because of it. On the “Conservative” side, I might have to refuse this because it could end up being a disaster for our country economically.
Once you meet someone like Haroun, your whole attitude changes. He would be an asset to any community. But, everyone wanting asylum aren’t like Haroun. That’s why nations build walls and have borders; to protect their civilization and way of life. Is that wrong? Ponder that the next time you make rash judgements about immigration.
36
It is the human duty of every Jew to help those in need. The USA became stronger because of diversity and Israel can be stronger with a population of Africans seeking to better their lives through work and education. Imagine Israelis being characterized as welcoming, kind, giving and embracing people as we are taught to be in the Torah and Talmud! Then we can all lift our heads and say we are doing the right thing!
6
Christians as well are commanded to welcome the stranger and practice hospitality. In fact, spiritually minded people everywhere are to do just that. It seems that the "giving and embracing" just goes into the ether whenever one is elected to public office, wherever and whenever. Power and prestige and possessions and privilege obfuscate any sense of the world of Order. As Richard Haass writes: it has become a world of Dissaray.
You are right, Lee-Allison Sibley, as is DrDon, who already has replied to you. The problem is proportionality. Israel has a right to balk at absorbing a number of Africans so large that it burdens the assets and land of Israel, provided that 1) the nation accepts a significant number of those migrants and 2) finds a merciful and acceptable alternative for the others.
Obviously, Netanyahu and the Likud extremists have shown cruelty – no surprise there. Here in America, we have nothing to be proud about – particularly since Donald Trump came to power.
1
The problems are huge. How do we rid the world of hate, greed, cruelty, the reasons people are driven from their countries, and even more importantly, teach birth control?
This problem of refuges is really only starting.
5
The crisis of migrants desperately seeking safety and a decent life in stable countries is seen in Israel on a small scale and in the United States and Europe on a large scale.
There are two components to the crisis, related but different. One is the existence of incompetent, corrupt and cruel governments in Latin America, Africa and the Middle East. The other component is the harsh environment from climate change and war.
The solution is money – but not just the money from donors to help the displaced persons.
The leaders of the corrupt, failed states do not want their money to remain in the failed states they created, so the ill-gotten wealth migrates to safe Western nations, just as the beleaguered people migrate.
We need to put that money at risk in places like Switzerland and the Cayman Islands by confiscating it and placing it in a public trust to help the migrant people remain safe and, eventually, to return home.
As long as dictators in failed states can receive asylum for their money from greedy Western bankers, the people who are the rightful owners of that money will struggle to find personal asylum.
6
The West, including Israel, is apparently obligated to take all migrants.
It seems that Western countries that, although far from perfect, are relatively orderly, are placing themselves at a great disadvantage, because they are acting as a tremendously powerful magnet to draw masses of people from any and all failed state, at exponentially increasing rates, and whom they will have to financially support.
For sure there are cherry-picked migrant success stories, but by and large, the mass migrants are a tremendous drain on the host country. The MSM does not cover those cases, only the outlier successes. And the success stories translate to a brain drain and loss for the migrant-exporting countries.
Shouldn't resources and priority be placed to make the migrant-exporting countries more livable instead of advocating for mass migration to Western countries such as Israel?
The more who migrate, and are settled, the more the magnetic draw for yet more and more migration, exponentially increasing the burden on the host country.
There will be a time when the state of equilibrium will be reached, when the host countries will convert to the chaos of the migrant-exporting countries. Signs of this happening are increasing.
This is how the West will fall, by blindly feeling obligated to accept illegal mass migration. And countries who feel no such obligation to accept illegal mass migration such as China and Russia, will rise totally at the expense of the West.
18
The problem is the disorder is like entropy, or rather that it is almost literally the same thing. And the entropy can only grow overall. If you want to decrease it in some closed system, you must export the excess entropy out of the system into the surroundings. And that is exactly what the "World of Order" does - it creates chaos outside its borders via wars, regime changes, nation building, sanctions and embargoes - all in the name of preserving its own prosperity, the "way of life" and, also almost literally, the established, and allegedly "rule-based", "world order". To make the analogy even more literal the "World of Order" actually, quite literally, dumps its garbage and refuse into the "World of Disorder". To pretend that the two "worlds" are not just the two sides of the same coin is either an ignorant or self-serving blindness.
12
OK let's just blame the west for everything wrong in countries in Africa, the Mid-East, Central America (corruption and brutality at home don't count?). This attitude does not solve the problems the world faces. Blame and guilt get nothing accomplished. I must point out that Australia is not a shining light when it comes to taking in the retched of the world striving to be free. America once was but sadly is no more. Australia and the United States are protected by oceans and it is much easier to keep people out.
2
For starters, how about the West just leaving the "World of Disorder" alone? Let's just see what happens when nobody bombs, invades, occupies and colonises them. Just out of curiosity, what would happen if nobody extracted profits and resources from them, did not exploit their cheap labor, did not pollute their air, soil and waters? One can't but wonder who would be suffering all that pollution, exploitation and deprivation in their stead then? You and I - that's who.
There is an obvious irony of speaking of Israel as a "nation of refugees" and asserting that a "Jewish state" cannot displace refugees while ignoring that Israel was founded by turning an entire people into refugees and that it is actively doing all that it can to keep them as permanent refugees. But let's put that glaring, overwhelming hypocrisy aside; it seems that, for many of Israel's defenders, an absurd comfort with blatant hypocrisy is a requirement of the position. Instead, I want to point out that Netanyahu's primary justification for removing these African asylum seekers is that they are the "wrong religion" and, implicitly, based on how African Jews are treated in Israel, the wrong race. It is refreshing that the Israeli government can be so honest in its bigotry, but it is also telling. When you establish state based on the idea that a certain religion is required to make a citizen first class, then clear-cut bigotry is the outcome. Israel is hardly alone in the world on this score, but it is one of the few states that indulges in this practice yet still claims to be a liberal democracy. One of the reason that the Steve Bannons of the world absolutely love Israel is because it is exactly the kind of state they want the US to be - a place where people can be ejected or kept out if they are not the "right kind" of people.
5
Israel hasn't kept them permanent refugees - the Arab countries, using the UN, have. There's zero reason the refugees weren't resettled in place (many were refugees within Palestine) back in 1950. Then there would be no "refugee problem" today.
Israel isn't based on the superiority of a religion. It's the nation state of the Jewish people. No religious beliefs required.
The "entire" Palestinian people weren't turned into refugees. Many are Israeli citizens. Others live in the West Bank and Gaza. Some of them are in Palestine, but not in the same place they were in 1948.
The Palestinians chose war instead of peace in 1948 and the result was many ended up refugees. They've continued to make the same choice ever since.
Jews had been persecuted for centuries in majority-gentile countries. Even when not actively persecuting the Jews, the majority-gentile countries refused to give refuge to the Jews when they needed it. There would have been no Holocaust if majority-gentile countries would have allowed in Jewish refugees who were escaping from the Nazis. The idea of Zionism was that Jews would return to their homeland & have a majority-Jewish country because majority-gentile countries had failed to provide safety for the Jews.
The refugee problem in the Mediterranean area and Europe proper is the catalyst for drastic political changes which favor more conservative governments. This situation is a harbinger for restrictive immigration policies which will follow the elections of nationalistic, anti immigrant political parties. The future will witness draconian policies to thwart further migration--yes, unfortunately, even pogroms.
This problem will only get worse as long as third world countries can't provide economic or social stability for their people.
2
Nice article but I believe a huge point went unaddressed. What is causing the trend of large migration by these Africans? Isreal's predicament is a symptom. There is a complex and storied looting machine in Africa that has enriched developed economies and the obliging leadership in African states, perpetuating poverty for the masses (see the book "The Looting Machine" by Tom Burgis). The situation is only worsening with every trip I have take over the past 15 years and I fear the current migration patterns are only a tip of the iceberg.
People will flee famine, unemployment, disease and poverty. No wall, borders or laws can curtail the human will to survive. As the impoverished continue to see that the only hope of a better life for their children can only be achieved in rich countries, they will come. This issue has been generations in the making and will take generations to solve. This means the concerted effort to develop African and other third world nations for the benefit of their citizens, and not their elite, needs to start asap. Until then, brace yourself for a lot more asylum seekers my friends.
12
Thank you, Mr. Friedmann; a great piece, a good description of the situation the world, and Israel, is facing.
3
When the Syrian refugee crisis began, our response was inhumane. Many fled the violence and began an unstable, brutal life. Neighboring Arab states took in large numbers, a hardship for those nations. Obama and other Western leaders did virtually nothing.
One consequence was the breakup of the European community. The EU was one of our great accomplishments… and we didn’t defend it. Historians, and our grandchildren, will be angry at us. Obama is a minimizer. How did that work out?
The economy partially recovered. What harmed the EU was the bitter dispute over refugees. That has been the main fuel behind the rise of right wing populists all over the EU, and the weakening of centrists like Merkel.
By breakup of the EU, I am referring to that bitter opposition as much as to Brexit. By breakup of the EU, I’m referring to the rising opposition to the liberal, democratic political agenda and the move toward fascism (recent books by Madeleine Albright and historian Timothy Snyder).
What could we have done to avoid all this? From the beginning, before they started pouring across the Mediterranean, some of us advocated setting up large camps for the refugees in many of the nations that now harbor refugees anyway. The developed nations could share the cost, $20 billion per year. Better than the breakup of the EU and the rise of right wing and fascist leaders across Europe. Also, it’s not normal that a large population from one nation should occupy another nation, and expect jobs.
12
The so-called first world will have to get used to this flow of poor migrants from their impoverished countries. Blame it on the modern communication systems.
To think that this problem "could be fenced in" is more than naive. The new German approach to keep the refugees in their home countries for instance by giving money for the development of these countries and for better living conditions is illusive (as most things are the German government is taking in its hands). We all know where this money will land: in the pockets of corrupt leaders. Causa finita.
A failed state is like a coal-burning energy plant: it produces a lot of unwanted externalities -- in this case, chaos and refugees.
The world has to -- somehow -- get better at triaging failed states, walking the line between lending needed help and avoiding wading into colonialism.
2
One could get the feeling that some commenters here, as well as Mr. Netanyahu, don't consider these refugees (or maybe any refugees) to be fully human, or fully endowed with the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It's as if one's moral foundation cracks into dust when considering a poor would-be immigrant who wants nothing more than not to be killed, starved, or forced into child warfare. How is it that those of us on Broadway can be so callous as to go blind to others' humanity this way?
Three of my grandparents came here poor and determined to succeed (legally--there was no bar to immigrants from Europe then). They worked hard and sent their children to college (and into the military), and on balance I believe that the US got a good deal in admitting them. They weren't exactly refugees, but they were fleeing the horrors of World War I, two from Belgium and one from Poland.
Knowing my family's history, it's hard to read of the view that refugees who simply want to stay alive are considered greedy and bad. Empathy is so out of fashion today. But Mr. Friedman's point is a good one. To paraphrase George W Bush, we might best help them deal over there so we don't have to deal with them here or at our "gates".
2
There's a difference between an economic migrant and a refugee. None of the Western countries "owe" unlimited numbers of economic immigrants the right to migrate to their countries. You can make a case that they do owe a certain number of actual refugees residency.
2
The irony is extant. The sad fact is that much of the first world "haves" have chosen leadership to protect and maintain their internal established hierarchies. Those on the outside are subject to isolation, humiliation and ultimately, rejection. It is a bitter sadness to admit the current failings of West. This is a corrupting force that eats away at any moral ethos, eroding its adherents, weakening the society making it vulnerable to what? The likes of Donald Trump?
2
This problem is faced by rich and poor countries alike. No bold solutions yet; just band aids. The west that is now inured, hostile, and turning far right - and reducing our own freedom.
Out of the box solutions?
Can we accept that all people will not govern themselves to create peace and prosperity in the way west eventually figured it out? Can we accept, after Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, that if we bomb them first, and then expect them to produce a Jeffersonian democracy with our help, is to expect the impossible? Some people embraced democracy (Japan, Western Europe), others chose dictatorships (S. Korea) after destruction. Western Europe was the only exception, but still experimented with socialism, communism, extreme left, and fascism (Portugal, Spain) till well after WWII ended. Now, in other parts of the world, people are embracing versions of nihilistic Islam, scorched earth, tribalism and other evils. Or drug-related warfare.
I can anticipate a savaging from intelligent people, if I propose colonizing. But after savaging is done, it still worth an experiment starting with the worst afflicted region sending out a lot of refugees. I don't mean the "let's loot and pillage them, and keep them subservient" model of colonialism. I mean a new form that produces a safe, prosperous environment because we are governing (i.e., we are running taxation, and paying for security, law and order, and installing institutions).
3
"Africa has a massive infrastructure deficit, and the Chinese are both very good at building infrastructure and have the wherewithal to finance it. The United States and the Europeans do very little infrastructure in Africa. In fact, the U.S. does almost none..."
If the US and other global players got serious about infrastructure and education in countries that remain (as they were during colonial times) the sources of cheap labor and resources, things could eventually turn around in Africa and Central America.
3
This is the same sad story in almost every country. Refugees running for their very lives, leaving loved ones behind. Leaving their homes. And having to exist in almost equally dangerous places. Except Israel, whose citizens, some of them anyway, are welcoming and are willing to educate and employ these people from Dafur. And also some people who want them to go back where they came from and are wiliing to pay them to do so.
In a perfect world all countries would welcome those who run for their lives.
This article reminds us that here in the US. we do not have to be transported or climb walls, leave our families behind because we are fleeing death and destruction.
It also reminds us, if we do not change this Administration, which is very much like Netanyahu's Administration, we may find ourselves running to other Countries for asylum.
6
The solution is democracy. But first, you must build a culture that understands the responsibility associated with democracy. If we can begin to practice a complete democracy, the rest of the world can use it as a model. Cultural Change only rushes to the site of extreme success, a positive possibility that shines above a doable horizon. Right now the western countries offer possible refuge if you can get in, but haven’t yet reached the level of models for transforming a culture
1
Great article which, hopefully, the DNC will read. Dems must come up with a cogent immigration strategy that recognizes the continuing immigration storm yet does not endorse open borders. How can we turn them away? How can we take them all? If Dems do not devise a middle ground policy the immigration issue may destroy their hopes of a return to power.
16
Republicans continue to shout down the pleas from Central America and Mexico to stop the gun running from the US to their countries that causes so much terror there and drives people to seek asylum here.
Democrats, like Clinton, have strongly advocated development programs that improve the lives of people in their home countries, which is where many would prefer to stay if only it were safe and there were hope for a good life for their children.
Also remember that comprehensive immigration reform did pass the Senate in 2014, had enough votes to pass the House, and would have been signed by President Obama, but Republican Speaker John Boehner refused to allow a vote on the bill in the House, thus blocking any solution.
1
'' If you want a hint of what’s coming to a geopolitical theater near you, study this region...'' Sorry, you lost me at this line.
The world is not made up of an extremist polarization and battle over a small section of land(s).Throughout the west, and much of the east for that matter, there is tolerance and understanding that is reflective in most governments. ( not waging continuous war )
However, the ongoing war in the Middle East is having a massive effect ( especially in Syria ) because there is essentially no where to go ( hide ) except for the west.
Compound that with other pockets of the globe ( especially Africa ) where the crushing poverty, strife ( on a much lesser scale ) and corrupt/ineffective governments, and people are fleeing for a chance at life. ( even if that means Israel or elsewhere )
We should welcome them with open arms.
2
A global human failure well described. This problem was created by a species that has overpopulated it's planet and has not had the sense to manage it's residents intelligently or compassionately. Mr. Friedman has reminded us that there are not solutions for every problem. Sometimes it just means chaos and suffering. We're not as bright as we think we are.
If we had been a bright species, we would have limited population growth, developed an international government structure that would have ensured safety and comfort for all. But that didn't and won't happen because we worship selfishness and greed instead of order and love for all humans.
It is a mess and the suffering will increase as we continue to overbreed, fight over diminished resources and battle our inner demons of xenophobia - instead of thinking of our species as a family to be loved. We are not much different than every other animal or plant that has had a cycle of success and then....
8
Good article, this is a harbinger of things to come in the future, mass immigration to all wealthy countries is going to be a major issue for them in the coming decades.
However, countries like Israel, the United States and Europe cannot be expected to absorb this human mass of people, if they do, they run the risk of their own countries imploding.
Mother nature has a way of taking care of the population when it grows out of control, I suspect that's what's going to happen soon, the earth simply cannot maintain this many people, neither can the handful of wealthy countries.
Anyone who thinks otherwise. It is real or the United States is being selfish by not letting these people and doesn't have a firm grip on reality or economics
17
It's not fair that the smartest, strongest, most creative, most persistent and most desperate people jump ahead of the less motivated and energized people who wait in line legally and patiently to get into countries of order. However, the characteristics that lead illegal immigrants to break laws to get into safe and wealthy countries are also the characteristics of great entrepreneurs.
An interesting study would be one that measured the net contribution to society of legal vs illegal immigrants. My guess is that the net contributions of the illegal immigrants would be far higher.
In a world where the differentials in wealth and safety are widely known and transportation is relatively inexpensive, rich, safe countries need bureaucratic and physical walls to maintain their standards and styles of living. However, wink, wink, if someone manages to circumvent those walls and build a life in a haven country and contribute to that country, well... why wouldn't that country want them to stay (just keep quiet about it).
3
Disregard for the immigration laws also mean disregard for other laws.
Well said. Israel would seem to have an added tension as it struggles to maintain its identity as a Jewish state. Many immigrants from Africa are likely not Jewish, yet immigrants often have larger families than do many Jews.
That said, the best solutions will always be to help improve the situations in the countries of origin. Stopping or limiting the flow of weapons is one piece. Insisting upon human rights with more than words (though words would be an improvement for the current administration) would also help. Economic development is also important. Most people would prefer to stay in their own country among their own people, but feel driven out by violence and/or poverty. Survival becomes the only goal.
14
Yes, as long as countries like the US see Africa as a source of profit for excess ammunition and weapons sales from US arms makers......the chaos will continue. Some mild good news. China does appear to be able to work into a country in positive ways via infrastructure building rather than infrastructure destruction like the US. So, over time, we are hoping China displaces the US in "chaos" countries and begins to bring some order.
11
A good article & blessedly free of kneejerk moralizing employed by other Times columnists on this subject. This is a difficult problem, as Friedman acknowledges. The heart says "help them," the mind says "but if you help them, this will only encourage others to come." And once the word spreads that a border is "open," masses of people, not just 60,000, will come. I've seen this phenomenon play out in Italy where I live. So on this issue, the mind must restrain the heart. No country, no matter how rich and generous its people, can handle open-ended mass migration.
87
Thanks for the your article Thomas. It is always enjoyable, except for the one about Putin being a CIA agent (chuckle, chuckle) :))
But this refugee problem is global problem, that even the UN predicted twenty years ago. Refugee population is going to grow. What these failing governments need is something that India's government appropriately calls "Good Governance Manifesto", and people like my dad have worked on developing surveys to measure "Good Governance" in developing countries. Putting good governance into practice would prevent bad governments, and the huge refugee problem that it can sometimes lead to.
But Israel's also has a unique problem. It is called "Netanyahu". That man is a headache, a toothache and a bad knee all at once.
20
Israelis have consciously elected Netanyahu who is as corrupt as they get. Can never forgive him trying to bypass Obama and treat then sitting President without any respect. He had the backing of republicans at that time who enabled him to behave obnoxiously towards Obama. Where were the soulful Jewish folks at that time? Besides the one on Daily show and comedy channel?
2
I believe Bibi cares about Israel, and I don't see why that makes him a villain.
1
A very thoughtful and well-balanced column. Mr. Friedman could also note that the African population is forecast to explode upward to 4 billion by the end of this century. This explosive growth has created an extremely powerful force toward expansion of the African population outward into Europe and the developed states of the Middle East. This very fast population growth contributes to inciting civil wars and local conflicts, creating unending refugee flows.
41
The implication of Mr. Friedman's column seems to be that if someone is persistent, clever, and devious enough to make their way through the shadows from the World of Disorder to the World of Order, they have earned the right to stay. This is obviously against the law and the will of the people who (in a democracy) enacted the law.
Democracies such as Israel and the US already admit refugees, by the generosity of their people's heart, and through a legal process. If a million refugees make their way, and we have to decrease the number of legally processed immigrants as a result, is that fair to those legal immigrants?
If someone is persistent, clever, and devious enough to break into your home and find an empty bed, have they earned the right to sleep there? After all, they are hurting no one, right?
If you now wish to invite a friend, relative, or any person of your choice to sleep on that bed in your house, is it fair to you or to them that the bed is already taken by someone who came uninvited?
Since when does being clever enough to steal something--a carefully tended home or country--make it just and legal?
81
Liberals would answer "yes" to the questions in your third and fourth paragraphs, part of the reason I no longer consider myself a "liberal".
5
"if someone is persistent, clever, and devious enough to make their way through the shadows from the World of Disorder to the World of Order, they have earned the right to stay."
In the USA the answer is yes as their children born after they are in the country are automatically US citizens. In countries where they are able to make a living like Israel and the USA as employers hire illegals the answer is again yes.
In much of Europe again the answer seems to be yes as foreign born and their offspring have become a large minority .
There are countries where the answer is no but neither Israel of the USA fall into that camp as yet.
1
"Since when does being clever enough to steal something--a carefully tended home or country--make it just and legal?"
Native Americans could more credibly ask that question...
Taking on refugees in a land they can’t understand, a land with no idea nor plan on how to assimilate them, is foolish.
On the other hand, fixing the countries refugees flee from, so that instead of leaving they stay home, is a big problem and can’t be handled by one country, possibly not even by many countries working together.
Unfortunately the wealthier countries are run by Oligarchs uninterested in other people’s’ problems, even within their own countries. They figure their money will provide them with insulation from other peoples’ problems.
If it happens that the self-centered Oligarchs of the USA and elsewhere can be replaced by governments truly responsive to their people instead of distracting them with baubles and by foment, maybe something will be learned about doing what’s right that will help reduce refugee problems.
It’ll be a long time coming, but maybe it’ll come.
20
Really an excellent piece by Tom. I wasn’t sure as I began it, but I should have had more faith in Tom and an unwillingness to take the easy road – by simply arguing for Kumbaya and permanent residency of any number of Darfuris in Israel and by extension Syrians in France and Britain or Central Americans here. But he recognizes the conflicts and the fear of diluting culture even in the face of so much human need.
It seems to me that Tom’s “world of order” has two alternative paths. The first is what Israel appears to be doing to the Palestinians, which is to acknowledge that they’ll always be there but eventually impose an apartheid that strips them of the franchise and other rights, keeping Jewish Israelis dominant on cultural influencers forever. In the case of Darfuris, Syrians, Central Americans and so many others, it also will require rigid “walls” and other means to forcibly keep more from entering. This path could lead to police states, certainly in Israel, to maintain order among the internal disenfranchised and the external who wish to “return”.
The second is for the “world of order” to redefine “sovereignty” as existing at two levels. The first, which includes the protections we know today that nations enjoy, would be reserved to patently successful societies – defined largely by how well they can satisfy their people politically and economically that they remain at home and DON’T feel this desperate need to escape, one step ahead of starvation or a bullet.
6
The second level is one where successful states (as measured by their ability to provide futures to their people adequate to keep them within their borders) combine to impose politically stabilizing and economically productive institutions on nations that are clearly failed or near-failed. Independence and self-determination in such societies have failed their own people dismally, typically are run by strongmen and buccaneers, often genocidal ones, and often are tribal and not truly nations at all. Template institutions might be forced on them until a semblance of political stability and broad-based economic self-sufficiency is established, then their rights to self-determination restored.
The first alternative path simply won’t work – isn’t working – and the eventual cost will be measured in millions, perhaps in billions of human lives. The second is hardly democratic but may be the only path we can take with a chance of succeeding for those millions or billions.
The unmentioned path, a third, is a pipedream. Simply remove borders and let people move osmotically until some balance of general prosperity organically establishes itself on the global population, with far fewer languages and discrete folkways – fewer discrete cultures. This EFFECT may be achieved after centuries of social evolution, but it has no chance of being actionable within a visible time horizon.
I’m rooting for the second path, but I fear that what we’ll actually see is more of the first.
13
I fear a global pandemic which will reduce populations to manageable levels at the cost of many lives.
I am so happy that New Jersey has already three solutions at hand.
That the United States will deliver any prospect for a solution of this migration problem is an idea high up in the clouds. Forget about it.
"They’ll be jumbled as economic and climate stresses combine with tribalism to create civil strife in more and more countries"
There are more contributors to the strife. Many of those are in our control. We choose to make things worse, instead of helping settle things down. Then we complain about what we help make worse.
Those fleeing wars are very often fleeing our wars. I include Syria, a war that would not happen but for the vast funding from outside. I also include Nigeria, where the oil riches are Bogarted by a few because of contracts with Western oil companies written that way. I include Somalia, where every government that has begun to emerge has been crushed from outside, so it has remained ungoverned at all.
If we want to prevent vast migration from disorder, we must maintain order, not help destroy it to serve our own greed or imagined security. Instead, we do "creative destruction" and chaos.
We create insecurity for ourselves, and waste the wealth our greed seeks. We don't even serve ourselves with this pattern of foolishness.
63
Blaming the west for the wrecked economies, persistent corruption, and the abject stupidity of having way more children then you can feed or educate is idiotic. These people are NOT fleeing OUR wars--our being the west. People in Syria are fleeing an internecine holocaust. Most Africans are fleeing the abject poverty and lack of education and training that their corrupt dictators have given them. The days of blaming "colonialism" and the west for everything bad caused by inherent stupidity and fealty to a sordid 7th-century cult/religion are over--even if liberal "progressives" want to continue the blame game.
3
The solution has always been education and investment. Educate the people in Africa and they will have fewer children. Invest in Africa and fewer people will want to leave. Of course, ending tribalism will help greatly.
20
@BWCA: When you say "Educate the people in Africa and they will have fewer children," what exactly do you mean? Are you referring to Family Planning methods? When the U.S. should be leading the way in discussing family planning methods- we do not advocate it in our own nation. Many nations have religious prohibitions against family planning (birth control methods) just as in the U.S. Your other statement on "tribalism"; what exactly does that mean?
17
Some places in Africa, Ethiopia for instance, have an impressive (to me) education system given the funds available. But it is not enough, the now educated people can't move to where they can be of value to an employer.
If one assumes it costs as much to educate an Ethiopian as an American, which one should you teach the current hot tech skill to? Teach it to the American, they can run off and get $120K/year. Teach it to the Ethiopian, they can get $1K/year or so, maybe a little bit more in the big city of Addis.
Free market theory says this should equalize. The only way that will happen is if people with skills (globally) can be matched with employers needing those skills (globally).
Free trade has to include free movement of people (and employers), at least subject to some educational standard.
1
Education does go a long way to improving the situation. But even that isn't always enough. Here is a counter-example: the old Eastern European communist countries had extremely high levels of education. But still conditions were horrific and the only thing that kept people from fleeing to the West were what amounts to border walls. Not walls built by the Western wealthy democracies, but walls built by the communist world, to keep people in.
Nevertheless, education is a major positive factor.
3
It seems Palestinians are left out of the discussion altogether. It's hard to see a "World of Order" - if any exists anywhere - in a country where a humanitarian crisis is happening just outside its walls and peaceful protestors are shot every Friday. The US has its own set of intolerable dilemmas but describing Israel and the US as common members of the World of Order can only be justified if you turn a blind eye to whole populations who are intimately involved in the life of Israelis and yet forbidden equal rights under the law. Let's bring the Palestinians into the conversation, Tom Friedman. It's time.
92
Meredith, it's unfair to characterize the protestors as "peaceful" when a number of them are engaging in terrorist activities during every protest.
You are right, however, that the Palestinians need to be part of this discussion. A two-state solution where each side recognizes the legitimacy and security concerns of the other should take priority over settling refugees from another part of the world.
6
@Meredith, "Palestinians are left out of the discussion altogether"???? Seriously????
The reality is the exact opposite, most coverage of Israel in so-called "progressive" circles ONLY focuses on the Palestinians, to the exclusion of just about anything else related to Israel, so cudos to Friedman for this article.
And if there is a "humanitarian crisis" in Gaza, blame Fatah for cutting off all funding to Gaza as part of an inter-Palestinian rivalry with Hamas, and blame Hamas for spending the last ten or so years focused on turning Gaza into an armed camp to attack Israel, rather than focusing on the well-being of the people of Gaza.
And those "peaceful protestors" are members of a hostile enemy population using firebombs, trying to plant bombs along a border fence, and trying to breach a border of a country they have vowed to destroy.
And the residents of Gaza and the West Bank are not Israeli citizens, they are members of a hostile enemy population that has been waging war against the Jews of Palestine/Israel for almost 100 years now.
Get the right context, the Israeli-Arab/Palestinian conflict is a war, its not a civil rights issue.
11
Jared Kushner will have a permanent solution to the Israel-Palestine problem, or do we were told 16 months ago.
3
"How can Israel turn them away? But how can Israel take them all, which will only invite more, and the supply is now endless?"
How can Israel turn them away?
It won't. The 47,000 illegals who want to stay can, at least as of yesterday.
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/israel-cancels-expulsions-...
https://www.news24.com/Africa/News/israel-scraps-plan-to-expel-african-m...
What about stopping future illegal immigration? The wall built along the southwest border has effectively stopped this years ago. Those in Israel are all "long=term".
You are a day late Mr. Friedman. Not alt-news, but just old news. It happens.
12
You did not include this part, Joshua
"Later Tuesday, Netanyahu tweeted that he agreed with the interior minister to prepare to reopen detention camps for migrants."
Camps are prisons.
In fact, my first thought after reading your post was, there is another plan for the migrants, and not one that will be palatable to them. And there it is. Detention centers. Because like in this country and many parts of the world, black people are despised. The violence and vitriol I saw directed towards Africans by what I would term the 'tribal Israelis,' has not gone away. And won't.
And you need to read more before posting. Netanyahu is talking about putting a small number of them in a detention center, and not permanently.
Indeed I could not include it because that appeared in the news of Wednesday morning my time after I had typed the comment after 5:30 AM.
The fact is that he changes his mind every 10 minutes. He is closing Holot camp, he is re-opening. He is closing etc. I don't think he knows. I wrote based on what I knew at 5:30 AM
The root of all refugee problems is population explosion in countries plagued by disorder. This planet cannot continue to defy the natural order that for thousands of years kept human population like other species in check by famine, natural disasters, disease and wars. Since World War II most of these have been controlled by human progress and humanitarian aid. Is that really going to solve the
crisis unfolding of mass migrations due to poverty and disorder? If population growth is not controlled it will be the death knell for this planet. Even small countries like Israel are facing overpopulation and refugee influx that cannot be readily controlled.
53
Seems to me the root of the immigration problem is corruption - corruption at the top of the food chain leaves very little for the bottom, and when people are desperate to feed their families they will migrate to where they have a better chance.
1
The World of Disorder will spread disorder to the World of Order.
15
Israel is too small and too dry to accommodate any more refugees. However, the Palestinians living in refugee camps are legally entitled under international law to go home.
16
No they aren't. Millions of refugees in the world never go home - they are resettled elsewhere. Going home is dependent on conditions. And the conditions aren't positive for them to "return". And they won't be.
Don't forget that the refugees in Gaza and the West Bank are already in Palestine. There is no reason for Israel to allow them and all their descendants into Israel.
The author conviently ignores Israel lack of a problem in welcoming certain refugees. The issue is not the number but the type of refugees arriving in the"Jewish state."
30
There's no dilemma. It's been decided. Low wage migration is not popular in developed nations; particularly in the US. That might be upsetting -- to some -- but it's true. And it doesn't make you racist.
57
It also doesn't make it stoppable.
Who are these Israelis to demand they control their borders.
Where is the liberal outrage ?
16
The analogy between Broadway and off-Broadway is singularly inappropriate. There are many good, creative ideas playing off-Broadway.
There are very few good, creative ideas in broken countries.
It all boils down to a simple divide - the divide between countries that have pursued and implemented bad ideas. And those who have not.
It is not about skin color It is not about racism. It is about being against bad ideas. Like corruption. Bad idea.
15
I think Friedman just meant the scale of the issue Europe vs Israel was analogous to the theater size of Broadway vs off Broadway .
Here's a problem no one seems to mention. If the African migrants are allowed to stay, how will the Palestinians who are not allowed in feel. Israel is already facing issues with millions of Palestinians demanding the right of return. It seems odd Israel would be required to take in migrants from other countries while that issue is still unresolved.
51
Joe Shmoe, the reason that the African migrants are being looked upon differently is that Israel does not recognize the Africans as part of a group with which it is at war. Not so for the denizens of Gaza, who voted Hamas into power, and who fire rockets into Israel, and dig tunnels under it's border fence to kidnap and terrorize Israeli citizens.
8
Mr. Freeman’s silence about the killing of unarmed protesters by the Israeli army is deafening.
2
Great article, for what Tom intends it to be. I agree that more needs to be done to relocate people who have no hope in their oppressive corrupt state, with one caveat: it needs to be done legally, not via a smuggler, who is part of a criminal enterprise. I can easily imagine a philanthropic effort being made to fund a rapid entry system to any country that has a vision for bringing in reasonable numbers of people into communities willing and ready to receive them and help them assimilate. This has been done in the US on a small scale. If there is a program with proven results, then people will be willing to apply and wait their turn, rather than enter illegally and be viewed as invaders by the locals. This is a BIG country and could certainly offer a system of respite for those running from war and gang violence, and then offer them time to figure out where they might settle in the long term.
9
Have you heard about lack of water in the southwest? Or about robotics and automation eliminating jobs in the near future? Do the rights and wishes of actual citizens count for anything in the US (or Italy, or France, or Germany, or the UK)?
3
It's here too. The major cities have the water locked up legally. Resettling the large numbers of migrants - whether they are economic from the closest major city, walked up from Central America, flew in from South America requires more straws in a finite pool. My little town is swamped with people one family per bedroom, and we doing the Flint solution, buying jugs to avoid drinking the metal heavy dregs. If the elites are going to allow open borders, the elites need to open their pocket books and begin desalinization plants.
Actual citizens here have trained their job replacements from other countries..that's old news. We're being reminded now that lawns are available for food production...I'm the second gen off the homestead. I know what dirt poor means. I'd rather we invest in the education of our native brainiacs and get some solutions, than let everyone in and undereducate the natives who aren't elites or buddies of elites. Rural areas will never be brought out of tribalism that way...
When I was in high school there was a popular book called The Population Bomb that predicted a distopian future by the year 2000.
What he predicted didn't come true and the author was ridiculed . Since that time the idea of unlimited growth has become the mantra for those on both the right and the left.
Gaylord Nelson the founder of Earth day said in 2000 "At the current rate of population growth, the population of the US will (rise)… to some 530 million within the next 65 to 70 years. If that happens, the negative consequences will be substantial if not, indeed, disastrous. To stabilize our population would require a dramatic reduction in our immigration rate…."
The population bomb came out in the seventies so maybe he was off by a century or maybe less. Don't know how people can not see that more people living in the western world will not be good for the planet in the long run.
54
I was expecting a doctrinaire recommendation that Israel take anyone that can make it to its borders be accepted for asylum. Instead you conclude with realistic questions to which no one has answers. Also, I noticed that over population was the first on the "list" of problems. Hopefully human overpopulation deniers will reconsider their positions - too many humans is the root cause of all environmental problems including climate change and the sixth mass extinction of non-humans happening right now.
123
When was the last time you experienced any serious reference to over population?
The Israelis have the right idea -- I wish America was that sane!
Sub-Saharan Africa is the one place in the world where, for whatever reason, birth rates have not dropped very much and the population continues to explode. It is projected that by the end of this century the population of Sub-Saharan African is going to quadruple to 4 billion people -- nearly half of the world's population! Many of them are understandably going to want to live anywhere but Africa, so there is a tsunami of African migrants on the horizon. Any nation -- large or small -- that doesn't take serious measures to secure its borders will find itself overwhelmed, and sooner rather than later.
105
And republicans don't want them to have access to birth control.
69
A sustainable planet needs stable population. Experience shows the only thing that stops population growth is economic stability and access to basic employment. People need entry into a working or middle class.
Widespread economic opportunity comes from policies that promote national and regional development.
The tragedy is that our trade agreements do the opposite. They sacrifice regional and national development on the false theory that a libertarian market maximizes growth and opportunity. No, it does not.
A libertarian market serves the already wealthy and powerful. It promotes concentration.
The nations that are eating our lunch, N. Europe & E. Asia, have vigorous trade and industrial policies. The key to development is investment and partnership. Many technologies and industries arose in partnership with government.
The libertarian model violates what we know about human nature. It does not describe us, it describes a bear roaming alone in the woods and foraging. In evolution, our niche is we are the species that manages our territory. Throughout history we cooperated, managed, invested. We built tools, language, society, and culture.
Adam Smith’s free market is one free from manipulation by participants. Otherwise, the participants are free. He said that merchants would collude, and that regulation is needed to preserve a free, efficient market. Conservatives reverse “free”, and use it to describe the participants. Their libertarian market is not the same thing.
10
Please cite instances of Republicans wanting to deny birth control to sub Saharan Africans.
As Friedman notes, Israel can’t take all comers or all of Africa will go there, same for Europe, same for us. The world is hot, flat and crowded (where have I read that?) and many will die.
64
What a human tragedy. As Friedman’s metaphor adeptly explains, forced deportations may spread elsewhere. You can neither blame economic or political refugees from fleeing nor host countries from rejecting them. Surely it will become more acute as populations explode. I wish the young man well.
23
I'm a second generation refugee immigrant and completely laud the spirit of Mr. Friedman's piece. Though, just to play devil's advocate here to a point that isn't often discussed enough: Is there a moral obligation of well-off nations to help people from impoverished or turbulent ones? If so, what is the extent of that obligation?
The debate seems to jump straight to the remedies without actually discussing the fundamental principles. If the answer to the above is a resounding yes then one can come up with some extreme and swift actions: open migration, repopulation of peoples in empty land in vast stable nations, forced regime change (not that had worked well in the past but I digress) etc.
If the answer is no, then completely cut off migration.
Non surprisingly the answer is somewhere in between, but without an honest and open debate on where the line should be drawn, any actions will largely come up short. (read: taking a few thousand refugees is not even a dent for a 200 million person problem)
36
Only a dent, maybe, but a complete rebuild for the few thousand who make it. It has to begin somewhere. Our children may not (will not?) have the luxury of space and time we seem to think we have now.
3
Article in today's Times of Israel. The Israeli government announced it will NOT be deporting the African refugees. Let's hope this sticks this time. https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-scraps-deportations-of-african-asyl...
11
Nobody can flee to a world that doesn't exist. The "World of Order [will find it very difficult to] come up with a collective strategy" to accommodate the ever-increasing flow of migrants from the World of Disorder because the World of Order is itself becoming ever more disordered. We really need to invest more in space travel.
10
"We really need to invest more in space travel."
Such nonsense. Earth is the only home humans have and will ever have. The notion of an escape to outer space -- which planet(s), what resources, supply chains, hostile environments, lack of Earth resources -- there are many arguments against the notion. However, it appears that, in general, the only people that understand why human life on other planet(s) is not doable are, of course, scientists. Earth abides.
4
My good father, a graduate of Buchenwald who in 1938 barely managed to escape to this country with my mother, struggled unsuccessfully all his life to understand why a country as vast and rich as ours wasn't able to save more Jews prior to the outbreak of World War II.
I often think that a good way of lowering the temperature on the immigration debate here would be to place some restrictions on where new arrivals to this country could live, sending them for a period of a few years to less populated and less desirable areas of the country.
There would have been plenty of desperate Jews in the thirties more than happy to live in the far reaches of Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, Texas, Arizona or Utah if anyone had been been willing to offer them the opportunity. Their lives would have been saved and the chances seem pretty good that over time they would have come to be accepted as valuable, contributing members of their communities.
There’s still a lot of empty space in America. Maybe some of Israel’s talented and desperate Africans could come here, where they would be welcomed by a large black population many of whom would be eager to help them.
81
I am dubious about the large population of blacks in Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota .... Then, again, I've been told that there have been times when white have been eager to help.
Africans are already here in large numbers and while there may be cultural misunderstandings between American blacks and Africans I don't see the issues you describe.
1
"There’s still a lot of empty space in America."
The empty space is devoid of resources to support human populations, or is dedicated to the agriculture endeavor, or is subject to threats generated by natural phenomenon such as floods, rising world-wide ocean level, very cold winters, very hot summers,lack of infrastructure, lack of money to build an infrastructure, lack of water in particular mining aquifers that do not recharge at rates equal to extraction and etcetera. Why do people, apparently ignorant of the scientific fundamentals cling to the notion that the United States can solve its human overpopulation problem by way of settlements in the 'empty space'?
51
People are people, and dreamers are dreamers. And the People of Israel should know better than any other Country on earth, the importance of providing Sanctuary. I'm personally ashamed of the situation with OUR Dreamers, but for Most, it's not yet a crisis. Or life threatening. It's turned into a political football and will probably remain just that, for years. Do what you must, Israel. But you will lose my respect if these people are sent back to die. Keep them, or help them find refuge elsewhere. Please.
30
"Keep them, or help them find refuge elsewhere."
This isn't the same standard that's been imposed on countries in Europe no matter their size. The requirement for Western Europe has always been "keep them" or face the wrath of the western press. I see no compelling reason to change that standard now.
11
Mr. Friedman did a fine job of explaining the limits of open arms. Instead, you threaten to stop respecting Israel if they necessarily send some, or even many, back. Now that is really going to impact on policy. BTW, even the hard liner defense minister, Avigdor Lieberman, wants to keep a fair number of Africans needed for many jobs in Israel. But go ahead and diss the Jewish state. Others do far worse.
11
You misunderstood. I expect better from Israel, than the current regime in THIS Country. That's the entire point. Obviously, they will do what they consider best for them.
Interesting to see how the world is now divided into the World of Order and the World of Disorder. This is a good point. But will liberals see that it does not coincide with the World of Democracy and the World of (governance by) Meritocracy? In a world of diversity, there are nations that do not meet the requirements/demands of liberals' standard of democracy but yet be governed by competent governments. Yet, we meet so many ignorant american liberals that bash or pass snide remarks as if they themselves are so superior. I speak from personal experience.
13
Can any modern liberal democratic nation really remain ethnically homogeneous? That seems unlikely. It's not surprising that white nationalists now look to Israel as an example to follow, that of a successful ethno-state, due to the ruling right wing parties' obsession with keeping Israel "Jewish" (what if African immigrants eventually convert?) via policies intended to keep non-Jewish residents in second-class status without equal rights. Immigration, particularly that of an economic nature, is inevitable in economically-stable nations. Israel is no exception. The demand for labor that an economically comfortable and aging population will not be able to fill will only increase the push-pull factor that attract economic migrants. Why can't Israel be a welcoming multi-cultural state with a Jewish identity? Perhaps in learning to not fear others, it may finds it way towards also finding peace with its Arab citizens and neighbors.
10
What about the Arabs/Palestinians learning to respect the Jews, of Israel or elsewhere? Surely you read about the great love they have for Jews in France, Germany, etc.
31
If other countries' citizens wish to remain "ethnically homogeneous," who are you to dictate otherwise?
3
Thanks Tom, for doing some real reporting and placing what you learned into perspective with your typically astute insight. Our diversity has made America the greatest country on earth, but that is a lesson too many have failed to learn amidst their racism, ignorance, and hypocrisy.
12
Diversity did not make America great. At the time it became "great" America was entirely a country of English settlers and other Europeans that assimilated. That's not diversity. BTW before the US was the "great" country, the UK was. And how did the "control group" do? (i.e., the Europeans that stayed in Europe). About exactly as well as those that left. The US is somewhat wealthier but Europe has more social justice. The poor Irish who came became wealthy...but so did Ireland! Bringing in the best and brightest from India, China, Iran etc. helps a lot and we should do more of it but not because of "diversity." On the contrary, it's trying to get a higher concentration of high aptitude high achieving people.
10
Actually, the Europeans that stayed had to live through two world wars that killed 60-100 million Europeans, depending on whom you ask. The Jewish Europeans that didn't make it to America were largely wiped out in the Holocaust.
And, while Europe is a relatively prosperous region, it is far outstripped by the US, where GDP per capita is almost $60k (ranked 7th in the world). Western Europe is generally significantly poorer -- Germany ($45k, ranked 17); UK and France ($40k, ranked 21-22);
Italy ($25k, ranked 25) -- while Eastern and Southern Europe are far poorer still. See Portugal ($21k, ranked 35); Greece ($19k, ranked 39); Poland (14k, ranked 55); Romania ($11k, ranked 61); down to Belarus ($6k, ranked 88) and Ukraine ($3k, ranked 129).
So all those European immigrants made a great decision when theY emigrated to the US.
Mr. Phleger does not know his history. Diversity back when the US was founded was all about differences in religion, language, and culture. We were an unheard-of amalgam of nationalities at that time in history (and he is completely ignoring the millions of Africans who came here as slaves). As for the "poor Irish," they started coming here in the 1840s and within two generations had reached middle-class status, in contrast to Ireland itself , which did not become "wealthy" until the 1990s. In short, America was a melting pot from its inception. Mr. Phleger's not-so-subtle focus on race alone is emblematic of the racism that pervades America today, from the White House on down.
I think Israel should offer to buy part of the Sinai from Egypt, double the size of the country and make a multicultural utopia for Jews, Palistenians and Africans.
They could offer Egypt a combination of money, tech and agricultural know-how that will uplift
the quality of life for all.
13
There is no water in the Sinai Desert
20
Actually there is. As a young man I worked in a Moshav in Sinai and with advanced techniques we grew tomatoes and cucumbers from the sand. It can be done.
1
The Israelis lead the league in desert agriculture. During the time they controlled the Sinai the built roads, schools, and farms. After returning Sinai to Egypt, nothing.
Egypt should welcome Israel "dreamers" to Sinai.
7
When Kurt Vonnegut, who himself had been a POW, saw footage of young Iraqi soldiers being taken prisoner, he remarked, "those men are my brothers." When I read stories of families walking across the desert seeking safety, I am again reminded that my own grandfather's name is written at Ellis Island, where he arrived at nine years old. Those families are my families.
And they are the families that I want in my country.
43
Well, given the state of the world, I would guess there are literally hundreds of millions of people who would walk across a desert to live in the United States.
12
The US does not have room for "hundreds of millions of people". To those of you quoting Emma Lazarus, please compare the size of the population now to the size it was in the 19th or even mid 20th century.
What a joke that you compare Israel to the US in this regard.
Israel is about the size of NJ and at least they offered a reasonable incentive for people agreeing to leave.
They aren’t arresting them and deporting them and separating children from their families like we do in our police state.
Pick on a country your own size.
66
The article makes clear that there are differences between the US and Israel. But the bottom line is the same in both countries -- the exclusion of those who are of a different color, ethnicity, religion, etc. at the behest of demagogues on the right.
60
P.S. Earlier today the right wingers plan to detain and forcefully deport refugees was defeated.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-scraps-deportations-of-african-asyl...
Friedman left that out
7
One of the employees I work with, a Psychiatrist, is moving to Israel this summer. He has a well-paying job and comfortable life here in New York.
But Israel will have no qualms about finding room for him and making him a citizen.
24
Over centuries we sought a home
We'd roam and we'd roam and we'd roam,
Children of the Book
By hook or by crook
All Dreamers and housed 'neath one Dome.
20