'Israel Should No Longer Grant Automatic Citizenship to Jews'

The Interior Minister appointed by Ehud Olmert has spoken out in favor of limits on the Law of Return, Israel's raison d'etre:

Israel should no longer grant automatic citizenship to Jews, Interior Minister Meir Sheetrit said on Tuesday.

"I'd like to see that [the immigrant] is not a criminal, that he's learning Hebrew; that he's here for five years before getting citizenship," he said.

The five-year waiting period for citizenship sounds like a political trick designed to blunt the influence of the rising number of olim from America, who are overwhelmingly opposed to such Leftist policies as dividing Jerusalem, giving up control of the Temple Mount, teaching Israel's foundation was a "disaster" in state textbooks, releasing terrorists and paying the salaries of Hamas.

Sheetrit was speaking to the Jewish Agency Board of Governors meeting in Jerusalem. He also called for more careful filtering of who is allowed to enter the country.

"Don't go finding me any lost tribes because I won't let them in any more," he declared. "We have enough problems in Israel. Let them go to America."

If Orthodox Jews in India do not qualify as sufficiently Jewish to Meir Sheetrit, than what does he think of the heroic rescue of Ethiopian Jews, who are also from the Third World?