Minister Landver decries 'witch-hunt' against new immigrants
Immigrant absorption minister says Ushrenko murder sparking racism against east European olim
Landver added that this class of immigrants has "unrecognizably changed for the better the face of our society and our nation and contributed to Israel's passage from the circle of developing countries to that of developed countries".
"All talk of the need to check the past of potential immigrants with more severity and to block the immigration of murderers – even to change the Law of Return – are merely wretched forms of racism which underscore a connection between the origins of a public and its alleged criminal tendencies," she said.
The minister called on Israeli society to "do everything possible to encourage immigrants to come and to absorb them with warmth, not to ostracize them with false and distorted explanations".
Zvi Magen, who served as the head of "Nativ", a governmental liaison organization that maintained contact with Jews living in the eastern bloc during the Cold War and encouraged aliyah, said the Law of Return should be reexamined.
"The main problem is that there are those who arrived in Israel because they are related to people who were eligible (to make aliyah)," said the former ambassador to Russian and Ukraine. "That is the problem with the law – it is not simple from a moral standpoint."
"Native personnel made very few mistakes with people who tried to forge documents to be granted entry to Israel," Magen added, "Nativ representatives abroad contact local police if any applicants appear suspicious."
"A few scoundrels can always manage to infiltrate the country during mass aliyah, but we're talking about a very small number," Magen said. "We can't seal the borders because Israel is in competition with other countries that absorb immigrants, such as the US.
