I never availed myself of the sal klita basket that immigrants to israel are entitled to. Besides the fact that when I came to Israel, not speaking a word of hebrew, not a soul in Haifa was able to process me in the government offices, I would have felt awkward about taking from a country that I wanted to add to and not subtract from. I was supposed to receive funding for my sport from my association, but that never materialized and though I felt wronged then, I never felt entitled enough to pursue it.
Apparantly this feeling is not shared by all anglo olim who often feel that we came to Israel and should be supported and treated like royalty for gracing israel's rental market with our mere presence. The attitude is abhorrant to me.
I don't think that the country owes us anything except for the right to participate in it's direction and function as any other citizen is entitled to do.
What makes anglo olim so righteous in claiming EI benefits when they are already re-employed? so it's not a million dollar scam...it's still scamming the government of a country that we're supposed to be here to support. The sum doesn't prevent basic ethics from applying.
The attitude which exists, not only in the anglo Olim community, makes me itch like a case of cholinergic urticaria. I'm allegic to it, it irritates me, and I can't support it. It contributes to the creation of a schism in the state that separates the anglo Olim and the rest of the country and realistically if everyone had that attitude then the country would fall fairly quickly.
Israel owes us nothing except the right to participate in collective determinism. We have a role in how our country progresses. How Israel looks 60 years from now depends on our attitudes and commitment. Take that and put it in your back pocket.
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I haven't been to Israel so I am not familiar with this mentality. I wouldn't go to Israel thinking that the people of the country owed me anything except the mutual courtesy that all individuals in social situations are due.
As an American who has seen a lot of our tax dollars go Israel's way, I believe their government owes big. And thus far Israel has repaid the favor. I refrain from using pronouns like me, us, you, we,them because I personally don't want Israel to owe me anything and I also wish the American government didn't feel the need to grant so much aid so that it wouldn't seem like such a slap in the face when Israel chooses to do what she wants--with or without America's blessing.
But this paradigm can be applied to many countries that get American aide--nothing is free.
quid pro quo...
looking at the macro foreign aid paradigm gives us a differant picture of the balance of favours. I'm not sure the average immigrant though thinks in terms of international powerbroking ;-)
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