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Israeli defense minister's next target: refugee children

Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman has ordered IDF soldiers to cease volunteering at kindergartens for refugee children.
Students wearing costumes sits on a bench next to an elderly man during a parade for the upcoming Jewish holiday of Purim outside the Bialik Rogozin school in Tel Aviv March 3, 2015. At Bialik Rogozin, children of migrant workers and refugees are educated alongside native Israelis. Purim is a celebration of the Jews' salvation from genocide in ancient Persia, as recounted in the Book of Esther. REUTERS/Amir Cohen (ISRAEL - Tags: RELIGION SOCIETY EDUCATION) - RTR4RVY9
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Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman is one of the busiest people in the world. Just two weeks ago, on Aug. 5, his office announced that Iran was still plotting to annihilate Israel. He is probably also busy preparing plans to make good on his promise from April to end Hamas' rule in Gaza within 48 hours, should he become defense minister (he became defense minister in May). Liberman is a man of his word. His desk is also literally covered with permit requests for new construction in West Bank settlements. While juggling all the above, the defense minister still took time out to deal with a handful of soldiers who had volunteered to play with the babies of status-less asylum seekers, ordering the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Gadi Eizenkot, to put an end to this outrage.

There are those who, like Liberman's predecessor, Moshe Ya’alon, interpreted Liberman’s behavior as an attempt to “showcase his 'leadership skills' over the IDF chief of staff.” Liberman may well have found an opportunity to seat Eizenkot on a humiliatingly low chair, just as Danny Ayalon, Liberman’s one-time deputy when the latter served as foreign minister, did in 2010 to the Turkish ambassador, whom he had summoned for a reprimand. There is, however, another, far deeper and more disturbing explanation for kicking the volunteering soldiers out of the facilities dubbed “children’s warehouses” or “babysitters,” where asylum seekers leave their kids when they go to work. The explanation lies in an announcement by the defense minister’s office, according to which, “If soldiers have free time, let them help Holocaust survivors or the needy. ‘The paupers of your city have priority.’” The reference to paupers alludes to Talmud Baba Metsia 71, meaning that charity for one's poor neighbors precedes charity for family in a distant city.

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