Israeli neo-Nazi ring busted
I could not believe this story…
JERUSALEM – In a case that would seem unthinkable in the Jewish state, police said Sunday they have cracked a cell of young Israeli neo-Nazis accused in a string of attacks on foreign workers, religious Jews, drug addicts and gays.
Eight immigrants from the former Soviet Union have been arrested in recent days in connection with at least 15 attacks, and a ninth fled the country, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said, in the first such known cell to be discovered in Israel.
All the suspects are in their late teens or early 20s and have Israeli citizenship, Rosenfeld said.
“The level of violence was outrageous,” Maj. Revital Almog, who investigated the case, told Israel’s Army Radio.
A court decided Sunday to keep the young men in custody. They covered their faces with their shirts during the hearing, revealing their tattooed arms, and did not comment.
You can read the rest of it here…
What I wanted to comment on is that these youth were Russian. Russia seems to have a growing problem with racism and doesnt seem really to care. It is intricately tied to a strong sense of nationalism that is emerging coupled with what I would guess is an influx of African and central Asian immigrants into Russia.
But what is most disturbing is that these people are Israel! Living in Israel! What a shame. Im sure their grandparents who were the real Jews and the cause of their citizenship would be turning in their grave to see this.
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I’ve definitely heard some very scary stories about neo-fascist gangs around Moscow, and one incident of a Tajik girl getting killed that was like four years old. In Toronto where i am we also had problems of nazi graffiti on cemetaries that was suspiciously close to the Russian part of town. And I mean this isn’t a unique thing to Russia but it definitely seems to be making a strong comeback there.
You just need one jewish grandparent to qualify for israeli citizenship, right? I could see some of those kids not seeing themselves as jewish and getting out of Russia for economic reasons, but that’s still pretty amazing.
I think it is funny how the media and government is acting like this is some utterly unique singular event. Remember a few years ago when the “White Israeli Union” neo-Nazi group had its website taken down? With all the video of the neo-Nazis – giving the Hitler salute in their full IDF uniforms – talking about how to kill the Arabs for practice and how not to act like a “zhid” (Jew, in Russian)? Or then there were the skinhead gangs stormtrooping through Tel Aviv a few years ago too. Anyone who follows the “The Israeli Information and Assistance Center for the Victims of Anti-Semitism” ( http://pogrom.org.il/ ) which monitors neo-Nazis in Israel regularly knows this most recent event isn’t particularly unique. The problem is that the government and police “turn a blind eye” to Israeli neo-Nazis which gives them freedom to expand. Rest assured this cell isn’t all of them.
Here we have another aspect of Israel’s demographic crisis. In the rush to import olim whose only real criteria is they are not Arab or Muslim it can’t come as any surprise that that managed to import traditional Russian anti-Semites too. Most of these kids are Russians who were brought to Israel by their parents against their will, they don’t want to be Israeli and never did. HOWEVER, in the end, if Israel had not imported the million plus Russians – many, or even most, of them non-Jewish – then the non-Arab population between the river and the sea would already be a definite minority to the Arab population. There just aren’t enough legitimate Jews to maintain the current “Greater Israel,” thus the floods of non-Jewish olim, the mass conversions of Ethiopians, Indians, and Peruvian Indians, and so on. These measures – the desperation for any non-Arab/Muslim immigrants – undermines the “Jewish character” of Israel just as surely as any compromise with the native Palestinians would.
You’re wrong and using obvious propagandist language to convey your anti-Zionist political agenda rather than shine objective light on a social issue. Israel didn’t “import” Russians, as if they are vodka bottles that were boxed up and moved without any choice of their own. But that comment certainly provides insight as to how your mind works where people are concerned.
Israel encouraged immigration from the former Soviet Union by self-identified Jews in Russia; and offered the chance for disaffected Jews to reclaim their Jewish identification through their immigration to their ancestral homeland, after it had been repressed under Soviet rule for so long. Most have taken appropriate advantage of the chance to start to reconnect and fully participate in the Israeli process, but of course, some have not, and took advantage to go to Israel for other reasons.
More propaganda. There is no “Greater Israel.” Israel is the only country in the Middle East whose control over territory has willfully and significantly shrunk over the past decades. Nobody forced Israel out of Sinai, Lebanon, or Gaza. Those were Israel’s choices alone, born out of a desire to forge peaceful relations with neighbors. The only geographical hold Israel has at this point is over proved ancestral territories upon which the Jewish people have historic ties, which will be discussed again with Palestinian leaders regarding ownership so that all people living there can be free.
And there are 14 million Jews in this world — small and persecuted compared to other populations, but more than enough to maintain a demographic population that will ensure cultural rights on tribal lands if need be. The United Nations Charter spells out very clearly the right for peoples to have self-determination, and nowhere is it spelled out that such an inalienable right is to be predicated upon population size or being a regional majority. What needs to be discussed are implementation policies that guarantee human and cultural rights for all who live under the sovereignty of another group, not to force Pax Americana melting pot on all peoples of the world, especially those desperate to maintain their own heritage and identity.
More propaganda. Israel has made plenty of compromise with native Arabs; and although there certainly are myriad problems to overcome, they have enfranchised their minorities and provided them with protections that should be mirrored elsewhere in the region, such as the right to freedom of speech and the right to sue for rights and redress without threat of violence. Whether you like it or not, Israel has a vested interest in maintaining her own distinct identity as a method to preserve the cultural rights of the Jewish people on the international stage.
And just a note on Ethiopian Jews – they were not converted to Judaism, they were already Jewish when the came to Israel.
ROFL…