Inter Press Service English News Wire

07-21-2005

SILVER CITY, New Mexico, Jul. 20, 2005 (IPS/GIN) -- The American
Jewish community is showing signs of renouncing its traditionally
liberal views about immigration.

Before the Sep. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, U.S. Jews were
dependable allies against the restrictionist immigration policies
of such organisations as the Centre for Immigration Studies (CIS)

and the Federation for American Immigration Reform.
Today, however, neocon institutes and synagogues are
increasingly the forums for the type of nationalist immigration
policies that were previously regarded as emblematic of the
populist right-wing and the paleoconservatives in the United
States.

Referring to the new anti-immigration politics within the Jewish community, Mark Krikorian, executive director of CIS, has observed
that "American Jews have been a kind of leading indicator of
important social developments in our country."

Krikorian, the most high-profile lobbyist for restrictionist
legislation, notes with satisfaction that such leading Jewish
neoconservatives as Daniel Pipes, director of the pro-Likud Middle
East Forum, are now regularly raising alarms about immigration.
Echoing an opinion that is gaining support among Jews, Pipes
cautions that "American Jewry's golden age may actually be coming
to an end with the arrival of large-scale Islamic immigration."

Shortly after the 9/11 attacks, CIS associate Stephen Steinlight
wrote: "We should give serious, immediate consideration to
terminating our alliance with the advocates of open borders -- we
do not belong in their coalitions."

Warning that immigration may create new political constituencies that may not support a pro-Israel foreign policy, Steinlight
believes that Jewish "defence organisations have not responded" to
the new political threats resulting from immigration-induced
demographic change.

"When disaster comes," he predicts, "they will be asking
themselves, 'where were we?'"

Formerly a national affairs director for the pro-immigration
American Jewish Committee and its representative in the
pro-immigration National Immigration Forum, Steinlight now
recommends that the American Jewish Committee end its association
with the National Immigration Forum and other pro-immigration
groups that he says advocate an "open borders" immigration policy.
In line with conservative writer Samuel Huntington's thesis that
immigration is diluting the nation's core identity, Steinlight
contends that "mass immigration and mass immigration policy" not
only threatens the Jewish people but "the American people as a
whole and the future of Western civilization itself."

Although all U.S. citizens are threatened, "we Jews are once
again the classic miner's canary, whom history has chosen to feel
the full effect of the toxin first."

Joseph Puder, the Israeli-born director of the Interfaith Task
Force for America and Israel, recommended at a CIS forum that U.S.
Jews and others work to "legislate and enforce and end, or severely
restrict, Islamic immigration."

One novel way of preserving the Jewish presence in U.S. politics
and society, aside from immigration restrictionism, is what Pudor
calls a "conversion strategy." Given that the United States is "the
most spiritual society in the world except for India", that
"Protestantism is dead as a doornail" - despite its millions of
adherents - and that Catholicism is rapidly declining, "there is
a role for Judaism" in evangelising, says Pudor, who says that "20
percent of the Roman Empire was Jewish by conversion."

Ira Mehlman, cofounder of the American Jewish Immigration
Institute and media director of the Federation for American
Immigration Reform, says that "American Jews need to look out for
their own self-interest," including the diverse threats from Muslim
and Latino immigration.

"This is not about right-left politics," according to Mehlman,
but "about excessive numbers of immigrants coming here and placing
a burden on our communities, our schools, and our economy."
Steinlight and other U.S. Jewish analysts of immigration also
regard the rising Latin population as a threat to Jewish influence
in U.S. society and politics. As part of his alarmist view of
immigration trends, CIS analyst Steinlight points to "the loss of
key Jewish legislators (Stephen Solarz of Brooklyn, who left office
amid scandal involving his wife, was one of the first of these) and
that once Jewish 'safe seats' in Congress now are held by Latino
representatives."

Jewish influence is still formidable, observers point out. The
ten top national security and economic posts - even the secretary
of agriculture - were held by Jews under Bill Clinton, and, of
course, the mostly Jewish "neo-cons" in the State Department led
the rhetoric for the charge into Iraq, which they then saw as very
much in Israel's interests, although as the quagmire there deepens
and a national security scandal envelopes a deep-pocketed
pro-Israeli lobbying group, they may be having second thoughts, the
observers say.

According to Mehlman, who along with Steinlight has been
speaking about immigration issues in synagogues around the country,
there is a surge of support for restrictionist immigration policies
from "amcha" or heartland Jews, while the national Jewish
organisations are less willing to publicly abandon their liberal
positions on immigration.
Restrictionism has not yet taken a firm hold in the U.S. Jewish
community. Leon Wieseltier, literary editor of once-liberal The New
Republic, said that "for Jews to suggest limiting immigration or
imposing quotas is historical hypocrisy of the worst kind."
Influential groups like the American Jewish Committee have
reexamined their immigration policy positions since Sep. 11, and
while advocating tighter border security and visa enforcement, have
stayed clear of adopting the alarmism about immigration that is
surging in some quarters of U.S. Jewry.

Meanwhile, the immigration politics of the neo-conservatives are
rapidly shifting. Disproportionately Jewish -- and to a much lesser
degree Roman Catholic -- most neo-conservatives have a strong sense
of their European and Eurasian immigrant origins.
Consequently, unlike other conservatives, the neocons have
generally favoured a liberal immigration policy. Their
traditionally pro-immigration posture also stems from the close
alliances that the neo-conservatives have forged with
cheap-labor-hungry Corporate America through their influence in the
media and policy institutes and think tanks, notably the rightist
American Enterprise Institute, the Heritage Foundation and the
like.

The global backlash against the George W. Bush administration's
war on terrorism and its Middle East policies is evident in
increased anti-Semitism and anti-U.S. sentiment in the United
States and Europe.

This has raised neocon apprehension about the expanding Muslim
populations. In their book "An End to Evil: How to Win the War
on Terror", leading neocons David Frum and Richard Perle call for
a national identification system as a way to break the alleged
immigration-terrorism link.

The Foundation for the Defence of Democracies (FDD), a neocon
think tank that focuses almost exclusively on promoting an ardently
pro-Israel U.S. foreign policy, now includes leading cultural
nationalist Richard Lamm on its board of advisers.

In an FDD policy paper, Lamm, a former governor of Colorado who
also serves on the board of advisers of the anti-immigration
Federation for American Immigration Reform, has reframed his
longtime restrictionist positions within the new framework of
counterterrorism, thus forming new common ground joining the
neo-conservative political camp with right-wing nationalists and
immigration restrictionists.

The broadening anti-immigration coalition is yet another sign
that the new intensity of the immigration debate is not so much a
factor of macroeconomic cycles, as traditionally has been the case.
Rather the resurgent restrictionist sentiment is more a product of
the politics of fear and nationalism now sweeping the United
States, and a dimension of the cultural wars that are increasingly
dividing the country and pitting the U.S. against foreign societies
and nations.

Forward

12-21-2001

Poll: Jews Accepting Civil-Liberties Curbs; Annual Survey Also Sees More
Support for Limited Immigration

Most American Jews are willing to give up some civil rights to make the
country safe from terrorism and growing numbers think that immigration
should be curbed, but they identify as political liberals, a newly released
study of American Jewish opinion shows.

The annual survey, commissioned by the American Jewish Committee, indicates
that 77% of American Jews expect to give up some of their personal freedoms
to make the country safe from terrorist attacks. Most say they favor
law-enforcement measures such as expanded undercover activities, use of
camera surveillance and closer monitoring of banking and credit card
transactions, Internet use, e-mails and cellular phone communications.

Nearly three-quarters -- 70% -- of those polled said they favored the
adoption of a national identification card for all citizens, but only
one-third -- 32% -- said they favored profiling based on nationality, race
or religion.

But American Jews appeared to identify themselves as political liberals.
This year, 42% described themselves as "extremely liberal," "liberal" or
"slightly liberal," compared to 45% last year. The number of people who
described themselves as "conservative" to any degree rose from 18% to 25%.
Slightly fewer people -- 32% -- identified themselves as "moderate, middle
of the road" than did last year -- 36%.

Perhaps the most dramatic shift in opinion indicated by the survey relates
to Jewish attitudes toward immigration. The American Jewish community has
traditionally supported a generous immigration policy.

But this year, 49% of the respondents to the survey said that the number of
immigrants permitted to come to the United States to live should be
decreased. In last year's survey, only 27% held that view, while most Jews
-- 46% -- thought the levels were fine as is.

Still, 63% of American Jews agreed with the statement "immigrants are
generally good for America's economy" and 82% with the statement that
"immigrants make America more open to new ideas and cultures."

Last year's Annual Survey of American Jewish Opinion made waves with its
findings that 50% of American Jews agreed that "it is racist to oppose
Jewish-gentile marriages." The same number said they would not be "pained"
if their children married gentiles.

This year, greater attention was paid to consequences of the September 11
terrorist attacks and reactions to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Most respondents supported President Bush's fight against terror worldwide,
but 80% expressed concern that in order to keep Arab countries in its
anti-terrorism coalition, the United States would pressure Israel to make
concessions to the Palestinians.

Most attitudes toward Israel and the peace process reflected in the survey
have changed little over the past year.

Half of the respondents -- 52% -- said they felt no more or less optimistic
about prospects for peace between Arabs and Israelis. Nearly two-thirds --
60% -- agreed that American Jews should support the policies of Israel's
government, regardless of their individual views on the peace negotiations.
Nearly three-fourths -- 72% -- of American Jews polled said they felt close
to Israel, compared to 74% last September.