[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

African Refugees Pose a Dilemma for Israel

Unwanted arrivals draw sympathy but also concern about their growing numbers in the Jewish state

By Larry Derfner
Posted February 28, 2008

TEL AVIV—For the ragged people streaming out of Egypt—African refugees fleeing genocide, war, and persecution—Israel appears to be the Promised Land indeed. But in the eyes of Israel's government, mindful of the Jewish experience with persecution and genocide, these new arrivals pose a delicate problem and a potentially serious peril.

 

A refugee from Sudan stands near an Israeli flag during a demonstration supporting refugee aid.
(Yoav Lemmer/AFP/Getty Images)

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Refugees crossing the porous border into Israel started their journeys in Sudan, Eritrea, and other African countries. Since 2005, when they began trickling into Israel—the Middle East's most liberal and prosperous country—their numbers have grown to about 6,000. Between dozens and hundreds more arrive each week—more than 1,000 so far this year, many from Eritrea. Most have tragic stories like that of a former English teacher who fled Eritrea after his father was killed by government agents. "When I was in Sudan, I heard people were going to Israel," he says. "I didn't have the money to go anywhere else, so I wanted to come, too."
The 28-year-old teacher, a Christian like most of the refugees, says he paid smugglers to take him through Egypt to the Israeli border, where, ahead of the bullets of Egyptian border guards, he climbed the barbed-wire border fence, surrendered to Israeli soldiers, and soon was on his way to Tel Aviv. For weeks, he has been living with about 200 other African refugees in a squalid, overcrowded bomb shelter in a slum near the bus terminal. "I want asylum," he pleads. "I expect the Israeli government to do something to help me."
Police raids. But the Israeli government is not sure what to do. For legal, moral, and historical reasons, it has not deported the refugees to Egypt or their home countries, where they could face punishment from hostile authorities. At the same time, Israel is wary of being too hospitable to the newcomers; there are several million African refugees in Egypt and Sudan, and Israel really doesn't want to encourage them. Last week, a frustrated Prime Minister Ehud Olmert ordered authorities to "tighten supervision" of the border to bar "infiltrators," and he directed that those already here be "transferred to detention centers" or, if possible, deported. Subsequently, police conducted raids in the bus station area and arrested over 200 African refugees. A local U.N. official put this down to government "panic," predicting a quick return to the accepted policy of toleration.
The government in the past tried and abandoned such enforcement tactics. When the first Africans arrived, Israel jailed them for illegal entry, often for as long as a year. Court challenges and damning media coverage got them released; the government even arranged for them to work in hotels in the Red Sea resort town of Eilat. Only a few hundred were here at the time, mainly from Sudan. Protests likening Darfur refugees to Holocaust survivors led the government to grant temporary asylum to the 500 to 600 people in the country who fled Darfur.
That leaves about 5,500 African refugees and counting. Government and local U.N. officials say that until Israel can better seal its 135-mile border with Egypt, it cannot offer long-term solutions to the new arrivals as that would dramatically increase their number.
Because it guarantees a home to all the world's Jewish refugees, Israel holds that it cannot be expected to do the same for any of the world's non-Jewish ones. Nevertheless, the grimy slums around Tel Aviv's bus terminal, already an international enclave populated by tens of thousands of foreign laborers, have become a refugees' transit camp. In a few dimly lit, airless, impossibly overcrowded shelters, several hundred Africans languish until they find work and rent cheap rooms or until compatriots, often from a local church, take them in. At a shelter for women and children, which, unlike those for men, is light and clean with showers and a well-stocked kitchen, a 25-year-old pregnant Eritrean says she climbed over the border fence ahead of her husband. "I never saw him again. I don't know if he's alive," she weeps, her right eye swollen from cutting it on the fence's barbed wire.
Except for granting thousands of work permits, the Israeli government does not help the refugees. Instead, Israeli charities, churches, synagogues, legal and medical aid organizations, and the Tel Aviv municipality keep them afloat. Tel Aviv Deputy Mayor Yael Dayan notes that some 250 refugee children attend city kindergartens and schools, while refugee mothers and their infants go to local maternity clinics. Says Dayan: "Israel can't on the one hand allow them to stay here but on the other hand leave them in the street."

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

how could they expect to build up one of the wealthiest nations on the earth, so close to African shores, and then expect Africans to not be interested cuz they are not jews. what, the Israelis import the Fallasha from Ethiopia through a kind of affirmative action and now they feel that Israel is black enough? or does Israel not consider itself European/Mediterranean, which is where millions of Africans migrate to find work and resources....

if Britain reacted the way Israel does, there would be hell to pay amongst British West and East African immigrants, and it would surely give them a black eye [pun only partially intended]

[Rob Instigator]

britain a,lready did that shit man. they put very strict quotas on black people entering from the islands.

[█████████]

you think european countries open their borders to the millions of ilegal immigrants?

[Rob Instigator]

'Merica does!

[Glice]

'Prosperous country in not wanting refugees shocker'. Next week: 'Germany has iffy past, says wet liberal'

[Glice]

Don't get me wrong: I have reservations about Isreal's general policies about a lot of things. But this doesn't feature very highly in my list of 'surprising things that Isreal has ever done'.

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

Originally Posted by █████████

you think european countries open their borders to the millions of ilegal immigrants?

we are not talking about millions of illegal immigrants, we are talking about Israel complaining about 4000 Eritreans seeking assylum in a wealthy and middle class country.

[█████████]

Originally Posted by Rob Instigator

'Merica does!

yeah that wall between mexico and the us is just there for paisagistic reasons.

[█████████]

Originally Posted by SuchFriendsAreDangerous

we are not talking about millions of illegal immigrants, we are talking about Israel complaining about 4000 Eritreans seeking assylum in a wealthy and middle class country.

i was talking about this:

Originally Posted by SuchFriendsAreDangerous

or does Israel not consider itself European/Mediterranean, which is where millions of Africans migrate to find work and resources....

[Rob Instigator]

Originally Posted by █████████

yeah that wall between mexico and the us is just there for paisagistic reasons.

what wall? There is a wall for maybe 15% of the entire US mexico border, and NONE in the Canada USA border because the USA does not care if poor white people come in, just the poor dark brown people, right?

The administration and some right wing fuckers want a wall built because it makes them look good, they can claim to have done something, but it achieves nothing.

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

Originally Posted by █████████

i was talking about this:

these Africans in Europe are legal immigrants, and their legal migrations into Europe encourage general migration of Africans across the Mediterranean countries.. they are the "mexicans" of Europe are they not?

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

Originally Posted by Rob Instigator

what wall? There is a wall for maybe 15% of the entire US mexico border, and NONE in the Canada USA border because the USA does not care if poor white people come in, just the poor dark brown people, right?

The administration and some right wing fuckers want a wall built because it makes them look good, they can claim to have done something, but it achieves nothing.

over 90% of the candanian population lives within 25 miles of the United States border apparantly. they seem to be just waiting for their time to strike! and this whole wall thing, lets get it into perspective:

countries where there are or were huge walls separating borders:

The Great Wall in China.
the Berlin Wall in Germany.
and the Security Fence in Israel.

[█████████]

Originally Posted by SuchFriendsAreDangerous

these Africans in Europe are legal immigrants, and their legal migrations into Europe encourage general migration of Africans across the Mediterranean countries.. they are the "mexicans" of Europe are they not?

yes they are, i would say that in mosts cases their situation is even worst.

[█████████]

oh yeah,
deportation in the us? there's no such thing!
social policies in the us? the best in the world!

[█████████]

Originally Posted by Rob Instigator

'Merica does!

U.S. Border Patrol strategy:

Objective no.2 - Deter illegal entries through improved enforcement;

[SpectralJulianIsNotDead]

How hypocritical.

Maybe the isrealis need to watch Voyage of the Damned and Exodus again.

I think it is criminal that the US and the UK support Israel. Israel is a terrorist country stuck in ancient times.

[SpectralJulianIsNotDead]

Originally Posted by SuchFriendsAreDangerous

over 90% of the candanian population lives within 25 miles of the United States border apparantly. they seem to be just waiting for their time to strike! and this whole wall thing, lets get it into perspective:

countries where there are or were huge walls separating borders:

The Great Wall in China.
the Berlin Wall in Germany.
and the Security Fence in Israel.

 

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

Originally Posted by SpectralJulianIsNotDead

How hypocritical.

Maybe the isrealis need to watch Voyage of the Damned and Exodus again.

I think it is criminal that the US and the UK support Israel. Israel is a terrorist country stuck in ancient times.

thank you. its too bad all these millions of Christians have somehow been convinced, based upon a mutual misinterpretation of one chapter in Revelations regarding 144,000 youth, has been construed for US support of Israeli zionism, and american christians believe with sincerity that you can't be a christian if you dont support zionism... how does zionism qualify under the "love your enemies" philosophy of Jesus Christ?

[█████████]

Originally Posted by SuchFriendsAreDangerous

over 90% of the candanian population lives within 25 miles of the United States border apparantly. they seem to be just waiting for their time to strike! and this whole wall thing, lets get it into perspective:

countries where there are or were huge walls separating borders:

The Great Wall in China.
the Berlin Wall in Germany.
and the Security Fence in Israel.

hihi, very funny and clever.

yeah, mexico and canada are exactly the same social and economic situation.

and how exactly does a wall between two countries show that they support illegal immigration?