Darfuris Fleeing Genocide Expelled from Israel Without Refugee Hearings
Mobius discussed a related situation a few days ago but since then much has happened:
JERUSALEM, Aug. 19 — Israel sent approximately 50 African migrants, many reported to be Sudanese refugees from war-torn Darfur, back across the border to Egypt late Saturday night, a move that drew the condemnation of Israeli human rights advocates when it became known on Sunday.
The migrants had illegally crossed the Israeli-Egyptian border earlier Saturday and were sent back the same day, as Israel instituted a new policy of instantly deporting such illegal migrants, regardless of their status, an Israeli government spokesman said.
Israel is a great place to flee if your are a refugee. Provided, of course, that you happen to be Jewish.
UPDATE: If Israel accepted refugees it might accidentally forward the idea that there is a pervasive genocide thereby devaluing the holocaust and challenging the uniqueness of the Jewish narrative.
This is a moment of truth. Is Israel about responding to Holocaustism, that is to say, genocide, or is Israel about being a Jewish nation?
It appears, of course, that when the two conflict, that it is the latter that is preferred.
It is time to put Holocaustism in perspective, and to accept that Jewish nationalism is in the end, stronger than Jewish pretense at universalism.
“Israel is a great place to flee if your are a refugee. Provided, of course, that you happen to be Jewish.”
Or.. Russian. (From a ‘reform’ kid’s perspective – it looks easier for a non-Jewish russian to get in than a Jew of the american “reform persuasion” or apparently african Jews..)
But let’s be clear that this is not racism, and you would be a weak, sniveling, self-hating Jew if you were to think so.
Fine. It’s not racism.
But Zionism is a failure if Israel kicks out refugees of a genocide for not having the proper papers.
This is despicable, hypocritical and unacceptable. “Jewish nation” my ass.
Racism is a strain of secular Zionism. Always has been. You can’t react to race based policies with race based policies and not have it be racist. This is not unique to secular Zionism. Quotas and racially based affirmative action programs are absolutely racist programs.
I think B’s donkey was being sarcastic. But if the entire Israeli project is Jewish nationalism at the expense of refugees – then maybe it’s not worth wasting time, money and blood on anymore. Especially if the rhetoric is that Jews are still an at-risk group, even in their own country.
DK:
I think it is abominable for Israel to be refusing the refugees from Darfur. I agree that it is stain on a country created expressly for the purpose of protecting people from genocide and persecution.
I wonder what every other country on Earth should be doing. Are Israel and Egypt the only two countries that should bear this responsibility? We have our celebrities make television commercials and speeches at award shows and the Capitol steps to take action, but what action do you think the refugees need right now? A care package doesn’t mean squat if you take it and then are murdered.
The truth is that the responsibility for taking in refugees from Darfur rests with all nations that are capable of taking them in, not just Israel or Egypt.
“Quotas and racially based affirmative action programs are absolutely racist programs.”
I COMPLETELY disagree. When you have a system of discrimination and when racism is still very much prevalent in a society, it isn’t racist to try and correct it.
Affirmative action programs in the United States, like ones for college admission, are necessary simply because there are racist systems of privilege that benefit people of one particular race over another.
In the end of July, the Detroit News ran a series of articles near the 40th anniversary of the riots in Detroit. Part of those articles was a colored map showing the racial makeup of Detroit from the 1950’s to now. If you look on the Detroit News website, you may be able to find the graphic. There are areas or “pockets” of white communities which are separated by roads from majority black communities.
It is racism like this that makes affirmative action necessary.
Besides, is it not racist to demand an end to affirmative action programs but to allow the racist systems of privilege that made affirmative action programs necessary to begin with to continue?
Jared Goldberg, you wrote,
“We have our celebrities make television commercials and speeches at award shows and the Capitol steps to take action, but what action do you think the refugees need right now?”
It’s a good question. I fear this situation is more complicated than those making television commercials and and speeches are presenting it as. From what I have read, one of the first things I think we need to do is recognize that China — once again — is preventing the U.N. from doing anything substantial. Recognizing China’s role as an enabler may be necessary to do anything.
“Affirmative action programs in the United States, like ones for college admission, are necessary simply because there are racist systems of privilege that benefit people of one particular race over another.”
It is hardly that simple at all. Even with those who support such programs, there are different reasons why, and for whom. For instance, you have moderate liberals who support AA programs only for blacks and Native Americans, because of their specific history of oppression, but do not support AA programs for others because of a blanket assumption of white male hegemony, as the “diversity” proponents assert.
Your point about Detroit makes no sense at all. It is an exceptionally depressed city, for a variety of reasons. The last supermarket in Detroit recently closed. Because of crime. The idea that a single middle or upper class person should want to live and stick out in such an area is hardly a proof of racism. The idea that a family should is insane.
Go lead the way. Go live with your kids in one of the most dangerous areas of urban blight in the U.S., and show us how it’s done.
“Besides, is it not racist to demand an end to affirmative action programs but to allow the racist systems of privilege that made affirmative action programs necessary to begin with to continue?”
Who is demanding a “racist systems of privilege” to continue? Instead, I would like to see color blind laws, and enforcement of those. So would most whites. They are hardly racist to demand color blind enforcement. We never tried that. We simply have not ever tried that.
Just because someone has a lofty goal does not mean a policy and its implementation is fair. It doesn’t matter if you want a nice thing. It comes down to what the policies are, and how are they implemented.
My first instinct, like most here, is to be appalled. Medinat Yisrael’s founding narrative would seem to make it imperative that, even if Israel does not grant them citizenship, she should NOT be turning them away. We did not like it when, at the time we were being exterminated, other nations turned us away, and so, by Hillel’s rule we should not turn them away.
But I think part of the problem is that between folks taking it into their heads to boycott Israel for this and that, or divest, or encouraging their governments to reduce aid, etc, Israel may not be in a very good position to take on the refugees.
I don’t know if we’re dealing with racism, or economics, or economically motivated racism (Hillel also said ‘If I am not for myself, who will be for me?’ this preceeds “if I am for myself alone, then who am I?” because before one extends a hand to a falling man, one had best be sure of one’s footing.)
So, I wish Israel would accommodate the Darfurian refugees, and think it a Shanda that they aren’t. But I also think that Israel is at its most vulnerable since the Yom Kippur war because of various assaults on its economy.
“My first instinct is to be appalled”. Really? And just how many refugees should be let in? 1,000? 20,000? Perhaps 100,000? The exact same justification that lets 1 in lets 1,000,000 in. And why stop with Dafur – what about the remaining refugees in Rwanda? And how about politically abused in Tibet?
Does Israel as a Jewish state have an obligation to help others? Of course, and she has many a time, way out of proportion to her population, in aid after the Tsunami, earthquake relief, etc. proves again and again. But let in additional non Jewish refugees when almost 100% of her population is already from refugee stock or themselves refugees? I don’t think so.
er, if israel has an obligation to help refugees, there’s millions of palestinians it can start with…
xisntox – those aren’t refugees, those are holy warrior religious martyrs who will all end up with their 72 virgins – with a little help from the idf.
>“Israel is a great place to flee if your are a refugee. Provided, of course, that you happen to be Jewish. UPDATE: If Israel accepted refugees it might accidentally forward the idea that there is a pervasive genocide thereby devaluing the holocaust and challenging the uniqueness of the Jewish narrative.”
Oh, please. That’s really the point at which this little commentary veers off into petulant sniping. Yes Jews have suffered in history. OK now that there’s a Jewish state what should they do about it? Should Israel be morally or legally obligated to absorb and shelter every person who crosses its border under the label of “refugee”?
Are you familiar at all with the myriad issues involved in absorbing refugee flows? How exactly do you want Israel to integrate and absorb a technically and culturally primitive African population with an entirely different religion, language, culture and ethnicity from Israel’s own population? If Israel absorbs 50 additional refugees now, should it absorb 300 refugees tomorrow? What about 1,100 the week after?
What will Israel do when word gets out that Israel is THE cool place for a Sudanese refugee to go? What about when a convoy of 15,000 Sudanese refugees walks into Eilat? Should Israel set up a really, really, REALLY big tent for them?
What should the Shin Bet do about those “refugees” who are intelligence officers sent to infiltrate Israel and report back to Khartoum? What about those “refugees” who are agents of terrorist organizations? Are you aware that such covert operatives are present in virtually every refugee flow worldwide? Considering the angry vendetta that the Sudanese government now holds against Israel and Jewish groups for bringing Sudan’s genocide against Darfurians to public light, is this not a serious concern?
How can Israel verify the identities and security backgrounds of hundreds to thousands of foreigners who’ve never held a single identity document in their entire lives? How long should these unvetted people expect to stay in Israel. A month? Three years? A decade or five? I ask all these questions both pointedly and sincerely.
Considering that the Palestinians receive the largest (by several orders of magnitude) amount of foreign cash per capita of any population anywhere, perhaps they should be induced to share some of it with their black-skinned Muslim brethren.
In any event, I DO want Israel to help the Darfur refugees….intelligently. I also want England, France, the US, and Muslim states like Iran, Saudi Arabia and Egypt to step up and shelter the Darfurians who are being murdered by their fellow Muslim overlords. (Although exchanging one racist totalitarian government for another may be of limited long-term benefit for the refugees…)
The truth is that the only serious thing any country can do to help the refugees is to send special operations units into Darfur to kill the Sudanese government’s death squads and protect the indigenous population. That’s the unpleasant little truth that few people at ‘I LUV REFUGEES!’ rallies can bring themselves to acknowledge.
Eric
That’s the point exactly. I once read an article by Max Boot, written, I think with tongue in cheek, suggesting that irganizations like the Save Darfur Coalition should be raising money to hire a private army for just such a purpose. And though I think it was satire, it struck me as a darn good idea.
http://www.cfr.org/publication/11813/