Britannia Radio

Published: 11/03/09, 2:45 PM / Last Update: 11/03/09, 2:27 PM

Calls for Change to Law of Return

 
by Hillel Fendel

Follow Israel news 

(IsraelNN.com) The law that grants automatic Israeli citizenship to Jews everywhere is under attack, following the perceived increase in Russian immigrant crime.

Yaakov Kedmi, former long-time head of the governmental Nativ office for immigration from the former Soviet Union, says there is no cause for concern. “The number of criminal elements who took advantage of the Law of Return to imigrate to Israel from Russia is very small,” he said Tuesday. “The opposite is true: Many immigrants became involved in crime only after they arrived in Israel.”

MK Meir Sheetrit (Kadima), a former Interior Minister, says the Law of Return must be amended immediately. “The situation is totally wanton, and the law must be changed urgently,” Sheetrit told Army Radio in response to Kedmi's comments.

“I propose that anyone who wants to come here as a Jew,” Sheetrit said, “should come and reside here for five years, take an oath of loyalty to the State, and only then receive citizenship.”

Former Knesset Speaker Avrum Burg went even further, saying that Jews need not receive preferential treatment over anyone else when requesting Israeli citizenship. “The Law of Return was formulated when many Jews were persecuted in their home countries,” Burg explained, “but now that most Jews live in democratic countries, there is no further need for the Law of Return.”  Burg, whose father Yosef long headed the National Religious Party, has often surprised observers with his anti-Zionist positions.

The Law of Return issue has risen to the fore once again with the news that the likely perpetrator of the cold-blooded murder of six members of a Rishon LeTzion family last month – two grandparents, two parents, a toddler and a baby – immigrated to Israel from Russia several years ago. In addition, it has been revealed that Russia asked for his extradition two years ago because of his involvement in a robbery in which one person was hurt.

Minister of Immigration and Absorption Sofa Landver, who herself immigrated to Israel from Russia in 1979, lashed out against what she called “racist generalizations.”

“The witch hunt over the Aliyah from the Commonwealth of Nations [former Soviet Union] in light of the solving of the family’s murder is nothing more than racism,” Landver said. “Talk of more stringent checks on immigration candidates and changing the Law of Return is unacceptable.”