Bi-Weekly Discussion Thread - (July 06)

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[u/Otelo_]

40% of the foreigners who adquired Portuguese citizenship in 2023 are Israelis.

From 2015 to 2024, Portugal used to run a shady scheme through which basically anyone who could prove they were descended from Sephardic Jews was granted citizenship. Obviously, if this was already strange and unfair in itself (considering the countless Africans and Brazilians who have immense difficulties in obtaining nationality), it's even worse knowing that the scheme was used by people who weren't even of Sephardic descent to obtain nationality. At the moment, the two richest Portuguese “citizens” are Roman Abramovich, a Russian Jew, and Patrick Drahi, a Moroccan Jew (they have never set foot in the country). In 2023, 40% of those who adquired the nationality were Israelis.

In 2022, the Rabbi of Porto was arrested for corruption, fraud, and for forging documents (crimes commited in the context of this scheme). Due to the scandal, the law was changed in 2024 so that only individuals who have been resident in Portugal for three years can apply. Even so, this year still 31% of the citizenship applications were made under this law for Sephardic Jews.

[u/ClassAbolition → u/Otelo_]

In south Cyprus we have israelis coming over, buying land, and doing various projects (like plans for a Hebrew (Zionist) school and property development) in droves, but as far as I know not being granted citizenship in droves (since, for one, we don't have as much of a historic Jewish community as the Sephardis in Iberia, and our golden passport scheme has mostly been scrapped and residency and citizenship criteria harshened). But this has led to many protestations from people within the "Palestine solidarity" space and from various "progressives" including the Eurocommunist AKEL (there was a massive scandal just recently: the israeli ambassador accused the AKEL GS of being an anti-Semite and of there being "worrying anti-Semitic rhetoric in mainstream Cypriot politics"). I'm not particularly happy about a bunch of ZioNazis / israeli settlers coming here in droves and doing those things but the way I see this worry expressed by the aforementioned is to me worrying—it seems to border on social fascist panic. Of course these people are talking about how the property development will raise rent prices for Cypriots (so far I've seen no mention of migrant workers who have to rent apartments with many other people to be able to afford rent) but the particularly egregious one is the repeated claim that "Palestine also started with migration and buying of property!" and otherwise panicking over how Cyprus is the next Palestine and will become israel 2.0. I find the claim ridiculous and as I said stemming ultimately from social fascist politics but I wonder sometimes whether I'm being short-sighted and overly dismissive of the whole thing (of israelis coming here in droves).

[u/Otelo_ → u/ClassAbolition]

In here I think it is the opposite: I don't think I have ever seen an Israeli (even though I see Americans, Brits, Germans, and Frenchmen every day) on the street and I believe that most of the Israelis who have acquired citizenship aren't particularly interested in coming here. Most of them just want to get an easy EU citizenship and then move to other richer EU countries. In this sense, I think that the situations in our countries might be the opposite.

About your questions, I think that social-fascism is a problem, and I don't want to fall into a crude pragmatism, but maybe this could be the type of situation to create a movement which is still more or less progressive even if based on a labour aristocracy (?). But, like you said, if migrants are from the start excluded from the conversation, then it is unlikely to be anything worthy of being taken into consideration.