Israel Jails, Returns Refugees

Israel is not living up to the high standard some Jewish groups have set for moral behavior.

MAASIYAHU PRISON, Israel (AP) - Standing behind bars and begging to tell of families murdered and homes destroyed, the Sudanese in Maasiyahu Prison are confronting their Israeli jailers with a quandary that taps deep into the trauma of the Holocaust.

The Sudanese, some 220 men and women, say they fled massacres and religious persecution in the war-torn Darfur region and in southern Sudan. But they are not eligible for asylum here because Israel considers their country, an Arab League member, to be an ``enemy state.''

Some agree with me:

[T]heir imprisonment has angered some Israelis, including the director of Yad Vashem, the national Holocaust memorial. They say the Jews, having suffered genocide, have a moral duty to help the Sudanese.

There is more coverage in Ha'aretz:

"The problem is that there’s no cooperation with the Egyptians,” Bar-On said. “There are even cases where we try to push [the refugees] back and [the Egyptians] push them into Israel. It’s truly a game of arm-wrestling over the border, over the refugee.”

Bar-On added that in “hot return,” “you catch and return” without the need for deportation orders and arrest in Israel. Bar-On said the wave of refugees trying to get into Israel in the past several months must be stopped to prevent the country from being flooded with Sudanese.

Hot return indeed.

Guardian

Haaretz