IsraLeft Salvage: The Stateless and the Heartless

Originally published on July 27, 2009

Israel is currently experiencing a rush of new bills that either passed or are close to passing, that have raised the ire of quite a few Israeli bloggers, but hardly much beyond that. While the media is obsessing over a law that stipulated state-owned land that has been leased to individuals for 98 years actually becomes the property of the people who built their homes on it¹, at least three other laws have largely been ignored by mainstream news sources.

One is designed to create a database of biometric data – fingerprints and face scans – of all Israeli citizens and residents (by pain of one year imprisonment to those who refuse). It’s an important piece of legislation to oppose, but largely uninteresting to the outside world, unless you’re into mocking those who are stuck in such backwards countries as ours.

The other two are more relevant for this blog: first is the recently passed bill allowing the Ministry of Finance to withhold funding from any organization or institution that commemorates the Nakba – the Palestinian view of Israeli independence as a “disaster”. This is a “softer” version of the original law that included imprisonment for those who deign to refer to Israeli independence as anything but a joyous event. Even the jaded Israeli mind could not stand for such policing of thought, and the law was amended to its current form. Have no doubt: it is an abomination that this law is part of our legislation code, and I cannot but hope that it never be used. But even this is not the law of which I wish to speak.

The last of these controversial bills is the refugee bill, sometimes referred to as the “infiltrator bill”. That the two apply to the same bill by itself is a foreboding sign.

Israel has never passed a bill to organize its handling of refugees – it was never much of an issue, really, excepting, of course, Palestinian refugees – although it has signed the 1951 UN Convention on the Status of Refugees (with some reservations). But in the past few years, the issue has become more relevant, with thousands of refugees, primarily from Eritrea and Sudan, attempting to cross the border between Israel and Egypt every year.

This seems to make sense: Israel prides itself on being the only democracy in the Middle East, a country conceded to by the world in large part in light of the horrors of the Holocaust. Surely, if anyone in the vicinity would be sympathetic to the plight of these asylum seekers, it would be Israel, right? And they’re not completely wrong. Some 15,000 refugees have been granted some form of asylum in Israel in the past few years, and while the state offered them little in the way of assistance beyond allowing them to stay, it has been the shining moment of Israeli civil society, which organized to aid these people in a variety of ways.²

But for some time now the orders to the border police are to prevent “infiltrators” from getting into Israel, sometimes by shooting at them. Infiltrators who passed the border have often been returned to the other side – to Egypt, which either deals with them in its own way, or simply “repatriates” them, sending them to what is quite certainly their death. Now, the Israeli legislature wants to turn these orders into law, granting any low-ranking officer the authority to deport anyone they deem to have infiltrated into Israel in the past 72 hours. No judge, no appeal process, no compassion. Those who will escape this fate will find themselves, as many already have, imprisoned. The official reason is that these asylum seekers come from “enemy states”. In those prisons, families are divided and only in special cases are they allowed to see each other. The UNHCR commends Israel for not preventing access to these prisoners, but that’s about the only good thing they can say of this practice. The proposed bill even stipulates that those who aid infiltrators in any way, including providing them with aid after they have already entered Israel, are also subject to arrest and criminal charges, with a maximum sentence of 20 years in some cases.

Not that the government is waiting for legislation to pass. Earlier this month the infamous “immigration police” has been redeployed in an effort to remove all “illegal residents” from Israel. The revamped force is also enforcing the order that asylum seekers are not to travel north of Gedera and south of Hadera – in essence, they are prevented from entering Israel’s central areas, where most jobs and services are available. Needless to say, this area includes both the Tel-Aviv metropolitan area and Jerusalem. Hundreds have already been arrested, and these efforts will only be increased next month.

Several human rights organizations, as well as quite a few individuals, have been leading a struggle against these actions and in favour of the asylum seekers’ basic human rights. But the majority of Israelis don’t see a problem. The infiltrators do, indeed, come from “enemy states”, and are overwhelmingly Muslim. This alone is reason enough to want them out of the country for many. Others will point to their black skin as cause of fear. Others still would eschew racism and merely point out that Israel has enough financial problems of its own and can’t accept the many tens of thousands who will likely make their way to the promised land if its gates are opened.

This last one is certainly a valid point. Europe and North America can certainly pledge some help in favour of a project to house such refugees, both in terms of the funding needed for this project and in terms of accepting certain numbers of refugees for into their own borders after they arrive in Israel.

But Israel has never shown any interest in helping the refugees. Our great moral obligation, repeated over and over, to prevent genocide, summarized so neatly in those two words: Never Again! No, wait, I am mistaken. Once, Israel was lead by people with more moral fibre. In the late 70′s, Prime Minister Menachem Begin – the man who created Netanyahu’s Likud - greeted into Israel several dozens of Vietnamese refugees, and granted them full citizenship rights. Those few dozens were followed by several hundreds more. Begin explicitly attributed this decision to Israel’s moral obligation to aid the stateless, given the history of the Jewish people.

But gone are the days of such brave, idealist leadership. Today’s leaders never give a second thought to sending men, women and children to prison for having fled the fields of carnage – or, worse yet, sending them back.

1. there’s more to it than that, of course, and there are some reasons to object to this law, but I fail to see how this can be seen as the only problematic law on the agenda. [↩]
2. A friend of mine is involved in a school for teenager refugees – children under 16 years of age are entered in Israel’s public school system, though few provisions were made to help them cross the language barrier – as part of the Combat Genocide Association. Unfortunately, the “donate” button on their website isn’t working, but if you want to make a donation to this truly important cause, email me and I’ll give you the account details, or contact the CGA directly through their website. [↩]