Yesterday, there was a small item in some of the Israel press, regarding funding for NGO’s. Not something surprising or unexpected, and most likely most people who even bothered to read the item, forgot about it as soon as they finished it.
Finance minister Israel Katz, has delayed the approval of emergency funds to NGO’s because there is suspicion that some of these organizations “conduct activities that are contrary to the values and policy of the government”. Sounds like a good enough reason, however, the activities, that are contrary to the values of the Israeli government (and thus assumingly also contrary to the values of its members), involve much needed assistance to refugees and asylum seekers in this time of Corona hardship.
It is of secondary importance that in addition, NGO’s working with holocaust survivors, the poor, the homeless, the victims of sexual assault and others, are affected as well. The ultimate importance must be to prevent any help reaching the refugees and asylum seekers, much like they have been ignored and mistreated also before the Corona crisis.
It is hard to believe that the Israeli government would go this far in displaying its racism, its xenophobia and it Jewish elitism. It has been clear for years now that Israel, both the official Israel as well as a not insignificant part of the population, is becoming more and more racist and will consider anyone not Jewish to be inferior. Apparently, the lessons from the past, or at least as they are being taught in Israeli education systems, instill in Israelis a feeling that only Jews count and anyone and everybody else is inferior. The problem of the refugees could have been solved long ago, but Israel has systematically refused to undertake any step that would indicate that there is even the slightest chance that these refuges will need to be accepted here and taken care of as human beings. (I guess they are not being considered as such).
The hatred and disdain for these refugees apparently is so big that even at the expense of holocaust survivors and homeless people, it must be prevented that any helping hand is extended to them
Of course, the minister will soon be made to see his mistake, and the funding will be reinstalled. To the holocaust survivors, to the homeless, to the victims of sexual assault. The refugees will be excluded and all will be happy.
And, a sign of the times, whereby anything and everything done in this country involves the wishes and demands of the Netanyahu family, the powerful Finance minister, Mr. Israel Katz, reacted to demands made in a tweet by Yair Netanyahu, a spoiled kid who has come to symbolize everything that is wrong with this country.
But at least no Jewish money was wasted on inferior beings like refugees. Non-Jewish refugees that is.
