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To: RussianConservative

Any country is allowed to restrict immigration to retain the character of it's nation. Must France allow unlimited Russian immigration? Japan? United States? They don't. Neither does Israel.

The "Right of Return" applied only to Jews. If you call that racist you must call every nation on the planet racist, including Russia. Also, last I heard, Christianity was a religion, not a racial grouping.

So, to answer your question, no, Christians or Russians or anyone else who is not Israeli or Jewish do not have an automatic right to migrate to Israel, or anywhere else for that matter. Thank G-d for that. The whole point of Israel is to have a Jewish state where we can live without persecution, something we have faced in Russia and everywhere else.

Oh, and the line about kidnapping, how many historical sources do you want that from? Russia's history is not a pretty one. For that matter, neither is anyone else's. I will state flatly that the United States committed genocide against Native Americans in the early years of the nation. Where did I learn that? In American public schools, of course. That's an ugly piece of history that Americans face up to. It doesn't make the U.S. any less free, open, tolerant, or great today. That was then this is now.

You can deny Russia's darkly anti-Semitic or face up to it and make today's Russia a very different place indeed. I have never accused you of anti-Semitism. I have never accused any living Russian of taking part in a pogrom. However, history clearly shows Russia had violent anti-Semitism and pogroms. If Russia is truly to be a great, prosperous, tolerant, and free nation (which I certainly hope it is becoming) it must face it's past just as America did.


44 posted on 08/04/2004 9:34:25 AM PDT by anotherview
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To: anotherview

Right of Return is one grandparent of either side...which is Israeli law and open to non jews, obviously.


46 posted on 08/04/2004 9:42:57 AM PDT by RussianConservative (Xristos: the Light of the World)
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To: anotherview; RussianConservative; A. Pole; sheik yerbouty; HeidiHi
To be fair with history the Russian anti-semetisim was born near the end of Czarist rule when the powers of the Czaris state were weakening and he was losing control. Pogroms are always a result of such weak regimes as a way to shore up the state. The last years of Czarist rule created the anti-semetisim that many here think always existed in Russia. It did not - at least not in the pogrom mode.

Again truth be told - the reason so many Jews were to be found in the east - not all inside Russia - but in Austria-Hungry and Poland and Ottoman Turkey - was because they were kicked out in the West. Norman England was the first "judenfrie" nation in Europe. Even in these eastern havens they were restricted. Jews for example payed a dhimmi tax to the Turks just like the Christians and had pogroms fall on them as well - but are not remembered well by Westerners.

History is not as simple as we all like to think.

English King Edward 1st expelled all Jews in 1290 AD and confiscated their wealth. It took 400 years for the Jews to return when English dictator, Oliver Cromwell asked the Jews to return to England to re-boost English international trade.

The Russian pogroms date back only to 1881-1884 when a wave of Jewish pogroms swept southern Russia after the assasination of Czar Alexander II the emancipator of the Serfs.

The communist Soviets (who were of many ethnic and religous backgrounds) hated all minorities that had a tradition that had the potential to divert loyalty away from teh communist party. So Soviet communists also discriminated against Jews because of that - many times those persecuting Jews were party memebers who happened to be Jews themselves.

54 posted on 08/04/2004 9:00:48 PM PDT by Destro (Know your enemy! Help fight Islamic terrorism by visiting www.johnathangaltfilms.com)
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