Israeli Minister: Israel 'belongs to the white man'

[Wezil]

Any country receiving continuous foreign aid is not first world.

The first world countries are the ones providing the aid.

[giblets]

Okay. So if Israel lets refugees in as a form of aid it could be "first world".

[Wezil]

Oh please.

The pig isn't getting any prettier.

[Al B. Sure!]

Any country receiving continuous foreign aid is not first world.

To be clear, the traditional definition of 'First World' was aligned with American geopolitical interests.

Israel ranks between Denmark and Belgium on the Human Development Index, as well.

But why we give so much aid to a developed first world country is bizarre.

[The Mad Monk]

By your definition, China is First World.

[Wezil]

But to be clear, the traditional definition of 'First World' was aligned with American geopolitical interests.

Yes, I am old enough to recall. Client states didn't usually count though.

[C0ckney]

Israel has a higher rating in the "human development index" than France or Finland.

that's clearly not including the population of the occupied terrorities...

[Al B. Sure!]

I can't recall the last time we had an anti-Mexican race riot in the United States. I'm just saying.

[Az]

It has nothing to do with where I happen to live. Israel (the topic of the conversation as you may recall) is a US welfare state living in a bad neighbourhood. Calling it "first world" is putting lipstick on a pig

It's a semantic debate completely irrelevant to the discussion - a country with a standard of living which is probably above the EU average.

when you have a month or so with a couple cases a week - it is considered a wave, especially in the public psyche.
Most instances of rape occur with acquaitances anyway - however violent rape by strangers is relatively rare - and is always connected to "Macho" Culture/Easy prey - which means that when this happens, it makes the news, and the news lately have been almost all about people from Africa/Muslims being suspected in this. This doesn't mean that one has to generalize, it explains why is this a strong issue lately.

Sorry, I'm not convinced by your headline anecdotes. Do you have some stats that can back up this "wave" assertion?

I don't have to back this up - I did not make any assertion as to the accuracy of this. In fact, I am pretty sure that there is probably no data available segmenting rape perps by proximity to victim which is also coordinated by nationality. I told you that this is how it's percieved in the public psyche. What kind of proof do you want of this? Google trends?

It's not a 'jobs' issue, as most crime isn't even property-related. Israel doesn't have a mechanism for handling people from 3rd world countries.

If they can't work and can't get government assistance, how exactly are they expected to live?

Refugees have work permits. With regards to other, they ARE working. but illegally. As to the reasoning - as I have told you, the country's legal structure is completely unprepared to deal with this. In any case, their economic situation is NOT the problem, as we have had a migrant worker community for ages, and they keep switching all the time.

How do you separate a Eritrean refugee from an Eritrean immigrant?

None of the Eritreans have defined as refugees by the state, unlike people from South Sudan or Darfur - This is in-line with the UN guidelines on the issue as far as I know. However, seeing that Eritrea is a **** country, and guided by doing the right thing, we probably should explore the internal situation in Eritrea, so that we can formulate our criteria to see what people are refugees (not in the semantic sense, but in the real one), and thencommittee of people will make the right decision on the issue on a case-by-case basis. As a side note, people who have made it to Israel from Eritrea are most probably not here for fear of persecution, but for a search for a better life - which, while being a laudable goal, is not inline with the interests of our country in this case. I am sure I'd love it in Brunei or Lichtenstein, for example, but I wouldn't thing about moving there just for ****s and giggles.

Enforcing ineffective laws is not a laudable goal.

Most laws are effective, though, and this still applies to them as well. This is why I am saying we have to have good laws - We have got to formulate a policy based on our values, and surround it with a legal framework.

[Felch]

But why we give so much aid to a developed first world country is bizarre.

Seriously? It's bizarre?

Israel is a friendly country, that is willing to help us out with our dirty work, for a price. We pay that price. They do our dirty work. Giving them money isn't bizarre, it's based in a long historical tradition of subsidizing allies. Prussia and Austria were "first world" countries during the Napoleonic Wars, and they were given huge piles of cash to help the British fight the French. It's how things have always been done.

[giblets]

Britain was a 'first world' country when it was fighting the Nazis and the US gave them stuff.

[dannubis]

gribbler, i guess you are sitting on a stick. move to another place if it hurts that much.

[Dinner]

When was the last time they did any "dirty work" for us? Lately, all I can really remember them doing is having the most number of spies stealing US info and using lobbyists to try to get us to do their dirty work in Iran.

[Felch]

Mossad kills Iranian scientists on our behalf, doesn't it?

[C0ckney]

how is that? the whole thing with iran is for israel's benefit, ergo they're doing their own dirty work.