(past up by TAN, showing the connections of all refugees)
Thousands Of African Asylum Seekers Protest Against Israeli Government Policies.
While liberals bemoan Israeli’s treatment of the Palestinians, how many would welcome African refugees to The USA?
My paste up combines African asylum seekers in Tel Aviv with the central message of Israel … the history of Jerusalem.
On December 28, thousands of African asylum seekers marched through Tel Aviv in protest against Israel’s opening of a camp, a detention facility, in the southern deserts of Israel. The detainees will be held without charge, even if they claim to be asylum seekers.
Even African refugees not in the camps live in in miserable conditions. Deportation orders cannot be implemented so employment in Israel is predicated on the government’s agreement to refrain from enforcing an employment ban against their employers. Nor are the refugees eligible for any form of aid … access to housing, health services, welfare and education.
The obvious problem is that 85 percent of the asylum seekers in Israel are Eritrean or Sudanese. Given the horrors of life in this two countries, the only people who would not want asylum are either utterly beaten down or part of one of the terror wielding dominant hordes.
Israel’s defense, likely true, is that the asylum seekers really want jobs. Besides that, Israel has no relations with the Sudan, a state with enough infection by Islamic terror groups to make Afghanistan look peaceful. Formally, it would be difficult for Israel to deport anyone to Sudan without having diplomatic ties. That barrier does not exist for the Eritreans.
Another argument is that the refugees come from places infested by al Qaeda and its sister groups. This is a valid argument. Look at the angst faced in the US since 9/11! Then place yourself in the shoes of an Israeli mom on a bus in Tel Aviv. Her fears of people coming from East Africa are rational. How can the Israeli government screen these refugees to eliminate those who want to harm Israel? Israel’s hesitance is not racism, it is rationalism.
The real reason that Israel can not deport the refugees is the same reason Jewish refuges could not be returned to Europe or to their Arab home countries after 1948. The lives of the refugees in the picture are at worse risk in Africa than Jewish lives were in Iraq or Egypt after ’48. Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon admitted as much: “Eritrea has a regime described by the entire international community as a regime that does not protect human rights, and someone returning there is at risk – including risk of death.”
Muslim racism, however, is another issue. Most of these refugees are fleeing countries devastated by Islamic extremism. Why is there NO effort by Saudi Arabia, Iran, Turkey or any of the hugely affluent gulf states to rescue these refugees? Why doesn’t Indonesia offer refuge? Perhaps I am a cynic, but the legacy of black slavery in the Muslim world is very recent.