Jewish human rights groups are denouncing Israel’s plans to deport
almost 40,000 African asylum seekers, defending refugees whom Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu calls “infiltrators.”
On
Sunday, Netanyahu’s 28-member executive cabinet voted unanimously to
close the Holot detention center and give African asylum seekers three
months to leave the country or face deportation to an undisclosed
country. If they refuse to go, they will be imprisoned indefinitely. The
proposal will now be considered by the Israeli legislature, where it is
expected to pass.
“The infiltrators will have the option to be imprisoned or leave the country,” Israel’s Ministry of Public Security
said in a statement. Officials also said that the mass deportations are
meant “to protect the Jewish and democratic character” of Israel.
But opponents reject the deportations as a violation of Israel’s founding principles.
“Israel’s failure to follow the Jewish imperative to protect and care for the gerim—the
landless sojourners who seek refuge among us—is a far greater threat to
the Jewish character of the state than is the community of African
migrants and asylum seekers who have escaped forced military service,
torture and crimes against humanity in Eritrea and Sudan and sought safe
haven in Israel,” Rabbi Michael Lezak, co-chairman of T’ruah, a human rights group, told Newsweek.
The
Israeli government says that there are 38,043 African migrants living
in the country, most of them hailing from war-torn countries such as
Eritrea and South Sudan, having illegally crossed the Israeli border
between 2007 and 2012.
Some Israelis argue that African asylum seekers have worsened living conditions in Tel Aviv and other communities in southern Israel.
“This
is the right policy to ease the suffering of residents in South Tel
Aviv and other neighborhoods where the infiltrators reside,” Interior
Minister Aryeh Deri, who initiated the deportation proposal, said on
Sunday, according to Voice of America. “My duty is to return peace and quiet to South Tel Aviv and many neighborhoods across the country.”
Netanyahu has even promised
that he will “return South Tel Aviv to the citizens of Israel,”
claiming that the African migrants “are not refugees, but infiltrators
looking for work.”
But human rights advocates say the migrants deserve a fair hearing.
“Without that, they should not be removed, regardless of what the situation is in Tel Aviv,” Melanie Nezer,
senior vice president for public affairs at HIAS, a Jewish humanitarian
nonprofit organization that provides assistance to refugees, told Newsweek.
Nezer argued that as a signatory to the U.N.’s 1951 Refugee Convention, Israel is both legally and morally obligated to protect refugees and other persons in need of international protection.
“The
Refugee Convention came about after the Holocaust because the
international community wanted to make sure that something like it never
happened again,” Nezer said. “As the first signatory to the convention,
Israel has a responsibility to uphold its standards.”
Nezer also
noted that Israel should remember its own history, as the nation was
founded as a refuge for Jews who had escaped the horrors of World War II
and built on the premise “Never again.”
“Israel needs to do right by these African asylum seekers,” she said.
The
U.N. High Council for Human Rights (UNHCR) has also criticized the
move, saying that Israel should be more forthright and transparent about
its relocation plans.
“Due to the secrecy surrounding this
policy and the lack of transparency concerning its implementation, it
has been very difficult for UNHCR to follow up and systematically
monitor the situation of people relocated to these African
countries,” the organization said in a statement.
“UNHCR, however, is concerned that these persons have not found
adequate safety or a durable solution to their plight and that many have
subsequently attempted dangerous onward movements within Africa or to
Europe.”
Furthermore, Israel has restricted the freedom of asylum
seekers through a series of policies aimed at encouraging
self-departure, a UNHCR official said on Sunday, according to Al-Jazeera.
Critics say that Israel’s acceptance rate of asylum seekers from these nations is considerably lower
than that of most developed countries; according to the United Nations
High Commission for Human Rights, Israel has recognized only eight
Eritrean and two Sudanese asylum seekers as refugees since 2009. And,
according to Al-Jazeera, “Two hundred Sudanese refugees from the Darfur region were also granted humanitarian status.”
Israel
reportedly has agreements with Rwanda and Uganda to take in the asylum
seekers that Israel wants to deport and that Israel pays up to $5,000 for each deportee taken in by the third parties.
Israel
and its partner governments say that it plans to give asylum seekers
the basic necessities to start their new lives in a new country.
But a 2014 investigation by Haaretz
found that asylum seekers who “voluntarily departed” Israel for Rwanda
“arrived in the country with no status, no permits and no path to
livelihood.” Furthermore, “some were directed from Rwanda to Uganda with
no warning and no infrastructure in place.”
The Sunday vote comes after an Israeli High Court upheld the country’s controversial practice of deporting undocumented migrants to an unnamed third country without their consent in August.
As noted by The Times of Israel,
deportations to a third country are rare in the Western world. Only two
other countries—Italy and Australia—have attempted to deport migrants
and asylum seekers to third countries, but local courts in both
countries shot down the move because it was found to be in violation of
the 1951 Refugee Convention.
Popular
-
A new formula of Universal Gravitational Magnetic Field has been discovered by a scientist from USA. Ben Caesar, Professor of Mathematic Phy...
-
submitted by /u/madazzahatter [link] [comments] by /u/madazzahatter via World News
-
TANTRA AND HOMOSEXUALITY IN SATANIC RITUAL HOMO-OCCULTISM, FORCED PEDERASTY, TANTRA, SODOMY, ANAL SEX T...
-
submitted by /u/madazzahatter [link] [comments] by /u/madazzahatter via World News
-
submitted by /u/ManiaforBeatles [link] [comments] by /u/ManiaforBeatles via World News
-
Trump, Europe increasingly at odds on Iran | TheHill The Hill Escalating tensions with Iran have laid bare President Trump's split w...
-
submitted by /u/ahm713 [link] [comments] by /u/ahm713 via World News
-
submitted by /u/Dmitriyy41 [link] [comments] by /u/Dmitriyy41 via All news, US and international.
-
submitted by /u/NineteenEighty9 [link] [comments] by /u/NineteenEighty9 via World News