The Epstein Files and Israel: Ehud Barak's Preference for 'Quality' Immigrants and Belarusian Girls
S. E. Anderson
Agonized leftists have been begging for forgiveness after the revelation of the link between Jeffrey Epstein and Ehud Barak. The man considered the last leftist leader, this former prime minister who fought shoulder to shoulder in the battle against the attempt to weaken the judiciary, turns out to be a lover of money and vacation homes.
His wife, Nili Priel, turns out to be a fan of free apartments in major cities around the world. And she wants those properties frequently cleaned and properly maintained. This couple too has a hard time spending their own money and are attracted to wealthy hosts. "Have we become Bibi Netanyahu?" was the cry on social media. "Are we like Sara Netanyahu?"
Barak is the man who at the 1997 Labor Party convention asked "in the name of the party over the generations, and in my name, for forgiveness for the harm we did." And a decade and a half later he was heard on tape talking to Larry Summers, the U.S. treasury secretary from 1999 to 2001, using language as if he were a member of an Israeli community's admissions committee.
"Many people will apply to come to Israel," he said, adding: "We can control the quality much more effectively, much more than the founding fathers of Israel did." Those founders took in hundreds of thousands of Mizrahim – Jews with roots in North Africa and the wider Middle East. "They took whatever came. They had to save people. Now, we can be more selective."
Then comes a shocking bonus comment: "We need, dramatically, the million Russians. I see that many prefer to be Belarusian, or maybe young, handsome girls will come."
Barak doesn't say "I don't like Mizrahim," but he proposes something far more effective: a language in which some people are declared members of quality groups, and the government becomes a sorting mechanism. Not racism but "control." Not "human beings" but "quality."
There's no real disparity between the remarks at the Labor Party convention and the conversation with Summers. It's the same request for forgiveness in two different situations.
In front of an audience, there's a microphone, so there's conciliatory theater. In front of a VIP, there's truth, namely: Immigrants from Arab countries weren't a choice. They were the people the country "absorbed" when it had to.
And the moment someone says out loud that "now, we can be more selective," he or she is explaining after the fact why forgiveness was necessary in the first place. The question isn't why Barak said what he said, it's why it's so easy to get back to business as usual when it's said in the right language, in the right voice, by the right person.
Barak's office responded for this essay: "The attribution of racism is a distortion via fragmented phrases gleaned from a conversation with Larry Summers about Israel's handling of the demographic challenge in the short run, in light of a situation that was drifting toward a 'one-state' solution. The idea is that making conversion [to Judaism] easier, combined with a policy of 'voluntary emigration,' is likely to constitute a solution.
"There is no racism here. Barak distinguishes between the rescue aliyah of Jews between 1949 and 1951, which was carried out indiscriminately, and a future policy of 'voluntary emigration.' Russia and its neighbors were mentioned due to the existence of about 1 million Jews and 'questionable Jews' who were interested in immigrating to Israel. You can disagree with the idea, but there was no racism here." ///
s. e. anderson
author of The Black Holocaust for Beginners
www.blackeducator.org
"If WORK was good for you, the rich would leave none for the poor." (Haiti)
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