Posts tagged ‘immigration’

Jan 30

Shocked by Donald Trump’s ‘travel ban’? Israel has had a similar policy for decades

In US President Donald Trump’s first week in office, three policy issues dominated the headlines: his plans to build a wall on the Mexican border, the President’s support for torture, and his executive order targeting refugees, residents and visitors from seven Muslim majority countries.

All three have prompted widespread outrage, in particular, the ban on refugees and blanket immigration restrictions being applied on the basis of national origin and religion. Read more

Feb 25

In Israel, racism is the law

On January 3, two Palestinians were removed from an Aegean Airlines flight from Athens to Tel Aviv, after Jewish Israelis claimed that they constituted a “security risk”. The incident made headlines worldwide. A month later, a Tel Aviv-based cleaning company sparked outrage with a flyer that priced its staff based on ethnicity. The story was also covered around the world.

For some, these kinds of episodes are proof of the racism that critics claim permeates Israeli society; for others, they are examples of isolated bigotry and idiocy. In fact, neither interpretation is quite right. While stories resonate and go viral, they can mask the fact that in Israel racism is the law. Read more

Oct 20

‘Sleepwalking to segregation?’

Nissa Finney and Ludi Simpson
Policy Press, 218pp

ReviewsSegregation Two months after British citizens exploded bombs in rucksacks on London’s public transport system, the head of what was then the Commission for Racial Equality, Trevor Phillips, warned that British society was ’sleepwalking to segregation’. Four years on, while the national conversation is perhaps less emotive, claims born out of a time of polarisation have become assumed ‘truths’ for some: ‘Muslim extremists are thriving in ghettoes’, ‘Whites are becoming a minority in their own country’.

‘Sleepwalking to Segregation’? confronts scaremongering, speculation and flabby rhetoric with hard statistics and pointed questions. It aims ‘to set the record straight’. Finney is a Research Fellow at Manchester specialising in ethnic group population patterns, while Ludi Simpson is Professor of Population Studies there. Read more