Haaretz columnist Amira Hass, who called Jewish immigration to Israel a crime. Photo: Wikipedia.

A veteran Haaretz columnist was applauded at the Israeli daily’s conference this week in New York, after calling Jewish immigration to Israel (aliyah) a crime, the Israeli news site nrg reported on Thursday.

Amira Hass made the comment while moderating a panel on “struggles for equality” in Israel. The long-time publicist, who is known for her extreme left-wing views, pointed to the fact that, unlike an American Jew, an American of Palestinian origin wishing to immigrate to Israel would not be granted citizenship.

“Because of that, any [Jewish] individual who is planning to make aliyah should know that he is about to commit a crime,” Hass said, eliciting applause from the largely Jewish audience and no counter-argument from panel participants.

“At any given moment, every American Jew has rights in Israel that are denied to Palestinians,” she continued, claiming that while American Jews can visit, work or live anywhere in the country at any time, some Palestinians born in Israel don’t have those same rights.

In light of the above, said Hass — an Israeli Jew who has lived in Palestinian Authority-controlled Ramallah since 1997 — “Jewish immigration to Israel is a conscious choice of partnership in the dispossession and expulsion of Palestinians and the establishment of apartheid in practice.”

Since apartheid is a crime, reasoned Hass, “immigration to Israel under today’s circumstances — especially on the part of citizens of free Western countries — constitutes complicity in the crime.”