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My Brother’s Keeper
Israel ought to reverse its disgusting position expatriating Darfur refugees back to Egypt. There is no excuse for it, a majority of Knesset members on the left and the right are against it, and it is a massive betrayal of the core values that formed Israel’s existence. Sending back these refugees to a country in which they face well-known discrimination, violence, and brutality is more than embarrassing. It’s criminal.
10 Responses to “My Brother’s Keeper”
How about condemning the country, Egypt, that is acutally perpetrating the discrimination, violence and brutality against these Darfur refugees? Or the country perpetrating the genocide which has made them refugees in the first place, the Sudan? Why are these people Israel’s responsibility? How about the Europeans taking them in?
Every country in the world has an obligation to treat every person that comes under its jurisdiction fairly and humanely. In the real world, Israel knows this won’t happen for Darfuri refugees in Egypt (or Sudan), so the obligation is there’s (and it is significantly easier for refugees to make it to Israel than Europe). Insofar as the refugees do not feel safe in Egypt, Egypt has an obligation to change that, but in the meantime Israel has an obligation to be a sanctuary. It’s not that difficult.
Shades of our own immigration problems, no?
How many Americans care when Mexians die while walking across the desert in search of a job?
We;re not doing so well re the displaced Iraqis, either.
I don;t think America is in a position to cast the first stone.
I’m disgusted all around. Israel should be doing more to help the refugees but I am also in agreement with Laura that Egypt should be the country getting excoriated here. Unless we have all finally just decided to get rid of the veneer of civility and admit this brutality from arab nations is what we have simply come to expect.
Where do you come up with the idea that Israel was founded on the principle of giving refuge to anyone who wanted it? Jews, yes. Everybody else, no. No country has an obligation to be a sanctuary, not Israel, not the United States, no one. You may wish this was otherwise, but thank goodness your naive idealism isn’t shared by too many other people.
And these refugees aren’t under Israel’s jurisdiction until and unless Israel lets them into Israel. Until and unless Israel does, they are under Egypt’s jurisdiction; echoing Laura’s comment, where’s your condemnation of Egypt? You sure seem to be quick to let Egypt off the hook, and yelling for Israel to admit them sure takes the pressure off of Egypt to do anything, doesn’t it? Not that your post was going to amount to a lot of pressure on anyone in any event, but…
Sam-
You’re right, in particular about the Arab world.
The silence re the Darfur genocide in and from Arab nations has been deafening.
I think Western nations have become so afraid of causing offense, they’ve been reluctant to point this out. This really should have been the subject of a speech or two in the UN.
The UN is too busy condemning Israel to be bothered with REAL crimes against humanity being perpetrated in Sudan and elsewhere.
And these refugees aren’t under Israel’s jurisdiction until and unless Israel lets them into Israel.
This statement, at the very least, is simply false. As soon as a person crosses your border, they are legally within your jurisdiction. This is why Israel can, among other things, send them back (how could they initiate such a proceeding against someone not “under their jurisdiction”?). Since Israel is the controlling sovereign authority in the land where these refugees are currently in, they have an obligation to treat said refugees fairly and humanely. That obligation exists under international law, and under moral law. And any “Jewish state” that doesn’t recognize that obligation is not representing Judaism in any manner that I recognize (“for we too were once strangers in a strange land”, as I recall).
Bottom line: Egypt’s conduct is despicable (it’s hard to cast my description of their conduct, “well-known discrimination, violence, and brutality”, as anything but condemnation) but it doesn’t justify Israel’s stance here in the slightest. I’m not backing off an inch.
Most of the articles that I’ve seen don’t bother to mention the 500 refugees who were given Israeli citizenship.
Arutz Sheva: Egypt Allowing Sudanese Refugees to Flood Israel
Arutz Sheva: 500 Darfur Refugees Given Asylum
It’s a complicated issue. My opinion is that the African illegal immigrants, once vetted, could take some of the jobs currently requiring importation of foreign workers.
I don’t find it complicated at all, to be honest. They deserve asylum regardless of circumstance. If there is a security threat, negotiate third party asylum. But fundamentally, they are refugees fleeing from genocide. That’s kind of where the issue stops, for me.
(And Israel doesn’t get a pass here because it let some refugees in. Lauding the good deeds of a policy they’re now reversing doesn’t impress too much).