Israel’s Migrant Crisis Was a Sign of Improving Relations with the Islamic World

June 20 2023

Between 2006 and 2012, some 55,000 Africans—many of the Muslims, coming especially from Sudan and Eritrea—entered the Jewish state illegally via the Sinai Peninsula. Some fled war and famine; others merely sought opportunity. At the time, the influx of migrants caused much controversy, but since then the border has been sealed and the Israeli government arranged for about 20,000 to settle elsewhere. Of those who remain, some have become citizens and joined the IDF. Daniel Pipes revisits the episode, and what it suggests about changing Muslim attitudes toward Israel:

A Sudanese woman explained why she walked more than 200 miles across Egypt and the Sinai desert to the Israeli border: Egyptians “spit on us and called us monkeys and animals” while she heard that she would be treated well in Israel. And, indeed, she was: “they gave us chocolate and juice and handcuffed us.”

Muslim migrants abandoning their countries of origin, traveling long distances, enduring terrible experiences in Egypt, and taking a chance in the Jewish state unambiguously reveals a wide but covert appreciation of Israel. Far from the angry oratory of the United Nations or the insipid bigotry of the Middle East studies professoriate, large numbers of Muslims long to live among Zionists. As Malcolm Hedding of the International Christian Embassy in Jerusalem has noted, “It is remarkable that while some highly educated British academics consider Israel a racist and immoral country, these simple Sudanese refugees seem to know better.”

Thus do Muslim Africans desperate to reach the Jewish state point to an important aspect of Israel’s growing acceptance.

Read more at Middle East Quarterly

More about: Immigration, Israeli society, Jewish-Muslim Relations

The Democratic Party Is Losing Its Grip on Jews

Since the 1930s, Jews have been one of America’s most solidly Democratic ethnic groups. Although, true to form, a majority again voted for Kamala Harris, something clearly has shifted. John Podhoretz writes:

Over the course of the past thirteen months, Jews in America have been harassed, threatened, seen their ancestral homeland derided as a settler-colonial genocidal state. They have seen Jewish kids mistreated on college campuses. And they have seen the Biden administration kowtow to Muslim populations hostile to Jews and the Jewish state in Michigan. They have heard the criticisms of Israel’s efforts to defend itself, and have noted the silence from the administration when it came to anti-Semitic assaults and the refusal of college presidents to condemn the treatment of Jews and Jewish topics under their ambit.

And Jews have acted.

The initial evidence from last night’s election is that there has been a significant shift in the Jewish vote from previous elections, a delta of anywhere from 10 to 40 percent overall.

Read more at Commentary

More about: 2024 Election, American Jewry, Anti-Semitism, Democrats, U.S. Politics