ISRAELIS AND IMMIGRANTS DEMONSTRATE IN TEL AVIV

HUMAN CHAIN AGAINST ISRAEL
MOVE TO DEPORT ILLEGAL MIGRANTS

TEL AVIV (AFP) – Thousands of Israeli and migrant workers, including children, formed a human chain on Saturday in Tel Aviv in protest at Israel's decision to deport families of illegal aliens. AFP correspondents said that the protesters gathered on Lewinsky street in a working-class district of Tel Aviv near the city's main bus terminal, which houses many migrants, most of them from Africa.Israel had set an August 1 deadline to expel illegal migrants and their children, even those who grew up in Jewish state, triggering an outcry among human rights groups.

The government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu back-tracked on the decision this week and on Friday officials said that the premier's office had decided to extend the deadline by three months. But human rights groups say this is not enough and have been demanding that illegal migrants who have children be given residency status in Israel. "We are happy about that the decision to expel the children of immigrants has been suspended but this threat must be removed once and for all through a vote," a delegate of the Kav la Oved pro-migrant group told public radio.

In July the interior ministry stepped up a crackdown against illegal migrants, sending agents on the streets to track them down. In 2006 Israel adopted a one-off decision allowing 600 families of illegal immigrants to apply for residency status in the Jewish state. According to the interior ministry, some 300,000 illegal aliens -- including 100,000 migrants, tourists who overstayed their visit and Palestinians -- live in Israel which is home to seven million inhabitants. But human rights groups say that these figures are inflated.

WHAT DO THE VEDIC TEACHINGS TELL US?

Mundane politics and diplomacy and philosophy - this is not the process. The process is Krsna consciousness. Everyone has to understand this point, that we are not proprietors. The actual proprietor is Krsna. That's a fact. Take America, for example. Say two hundred years ago, the European immigrants were not the proprietors. Somebody else was the proprietor, and before that somebody else was the proprietor, or it was vacant land. But the actual proprietor is Krsna. Artificially we are claiming, "It is my property." This is called maya, illusion.

Srila A.C. BV Swami Prabhupada:
"The Journey of Self-Discovery - Chapter II - Superconsciousness"

Although the demigods, who are officials appointed by the Lord for management, are attached to materialistic enjoyment, they never claim to be proprietors of the universe, for they know that the actual proprietor of everything is the Supreme Personality of Godhead. This is the qualification of the demigods. But the demons, instead of accepting the exclusive proprietorship of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, claim the property of the universe for themselves through demarcations of nationalism. "This part is mine, and that part is yours," they say. "This part I can give in charity, and this part I can keep for my enjoyment." ... These are all demoniac conceptions.

Srila A.C. BV Swami Prabhupada:
"The Srimad Bhagavatam - Purport in Canto 8 - Chapter 22 - Verse 20"