Dilemma for Israel
There are many in Israel that are concerned in many ways about the sudden influx of African refugees in Israel. Here is my explanation of their situation.
Of the 7,000 refugees from African in Israel, most have arrived within the past year. The majority are from Eritrea, Sudan, and the Ivory Coast. I have worked closely with many of them. Many of my fellow volunteers are activists and spend much of their time lobbying the government to give more benefits to the refugee population here and to allow more to have official asylum or refugee status. I have taken a less political approach and have not participated in protests. My position is that, if the person is allowed in the country by the government, he or she deserves to be treated with dignity and to live in a safe environment. Israel should be a light to the world and show that Jews know what it is like to be refugees. However, embracing them with nice accommodations will result in millions arriving at the border of Israel and Egypt within a very short period.
Unlike most countries with a developed progressive economy, Israel has no specific policy on who will gain asylum in the country. As a signor of the Geneva Convention, Israel should have had this policy a long time ago. My thought is that, if there were a list of criteria that would enable one to receive refugee status, the government feels that the Palestinians would find a way to fit within the criteria. Israel is 1/7th the geographic size of the State of Georgia with only 7 million citizens. Georgia has 8 million and Greater Atlanta, 4.5 million. The country was founded as a place for Jewish refugees to live safely and to be able to openly practice Judaism without fear of persecution. Christians, Muslims, and others are also free to openly practice. However, is it now only 60 years old and the constant bashing from the Muslim world and much of Western Europe (soon to join the predominately Muslim world) makes the country nervous about allowing thousands of predominantly Muslims into the country to reside in Israel.
The country was built as a home for refugees and cannot afford to turn its back on those that are fleeing murder in Darfur or the Ivory Coast or modern slavery in Eritrea. The citizens overwhelmingly embrace these refugees to the point of having massive surpluses of clothing and often of food. The generosity of the citizens is impressive but that of the government is not nearly so. The government allows them to stay but issues only temporary permits to stay for 3 to 6 months. Those are to be renewed and reviewed in these time periods.
WHY ARE HAVE THEY FLED THEIR COUNTRIES?
I will give my abbreviated version of why each group has fled. There is a plethora of internet information for those interested in more detailed accounts
Sudan http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?action=conflict_search&l=1&t=1&c_country=101
The people of Darfur in Sudan are now getting the greatest media exposure of the refugees and hence get better jobs and longer work visas. Between 200,000 and 400,000 have been killed in their villages or from disease after having fled their villages by the government sponsored Janjaweed militias and over 2.5 million are in refugee camps in Darfur and Chad. Others have fled to South Sudan or elsewhere. There are only about 800 Darfurians in Israel and most are given work visas and are living well in Eilat. There are also hundreds of South Sudanese that have been away from Sudan for decades. The UN is in South Sudan keeping a shaky peace but fighting periodically flares up. These refugees do not trust that they will be safe if they return. Darfurians are Muslim and South Sudanese are generally actively practicing Christians.
Ivory Coast http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=1235
The Ivoirians (from West Africa) speak only French and fled tribal wars raging in their country since 2001. Tribes invaded each other and wiped out entire villages. Around 700,000 were displaces internally and many forced to flee the country. About a year ago, a peace deal was signed but the refugees fear they will be murdered in their sleep if they return. As the UN has declared the war over, Israel allows the Ivoirians to stay, but does not allow them to legally find work. Hence, they are dependant on handouts at shelters for food and clothing when they would love to earn a living to support themselves. They mostly Muslims but some are Christians. The government has threatened to deport them to their home country as the war has ended.
Eritrea
http://web.mit.edu/21W.749/www/Students/selamdaniel/finalproject/essay.html
This country declared independence from Ethiopia in 1993 and has been in battling Ethiopia ever since over where the border should be. A Dictatorship, the country mandates all men to serve in the army at 18 for an indefinite period. Some have been in the army for 20 years with very little pay and harsh living conditions. This is considered a modern form of slavery. The men leave the country before they are 18 or go AWOL and flee abroad. They are confident that they will be killed or imprisoned in underground holes until they die of disease or snakebites. Israel has diplomatic relations with Eritrea and the Ambassador is angry that Israel gives asylum to the deserters. He demands their return and to bring them to justice. Israel has given nearly all Eritreans work permits and has helped facilitate job placement.
Ethiopia
There are a few people from Ethiopia that have fled various fighting in that country over the years. There are also a few that have left to go abroad to be able to earn a living that is better than they can get at home. As the language is the same as most Eritreans and few refugees carry any identification when they arrive, they often claim to be from Eritrea in order to be able to work here. These are a small minority. Israel will not give work visas to Ethiopians. They are both Muslims and Christians.
HOW DO THEY GET TO ISRAEL?
I have been told that, if they can afford the trip, the refugees will sneak into Europe. I will use the example of the Eritreans as they are the majority of the refugees. Eritreans’ families or friend’s abroad, pay about US$2,000 to get them to Israel. $1000 is to get to Sudan and the other $1000 is to pay the Bedouins to drive them across the Sinai desert to border of Israel. Some have spent time in Egypt where they complain of hateful people that cheat them and hassle them. Many have heard of the mistreatment of refugees in Egypt and just use it to cross into Israel.
Israel has an agreement with Egypt that Egypt will not allow people to sneak into Israel and Egypt shoots at refugees as they cross. Refugees know they have to cross at night to avoid the gunfire. A few have been wounded and a couple have died from the wounds. There are still many that hurt themselves as they run across or crawl over the fences.
ONCE IN ISRAEL:
Once over the border, they wait patiently on the roads in Israel in the Negev Desert for the Israeli patrols to pick them up. I have always been told by the refugees that they are treated with respect by the border police and they are told, “You are safe, now”. The refugees are usually taken to a prison nearby where they are sometimes kept for months in order to be processed and to be judged as to whether they are a terrorist threat. Some are brought directly from the border to Tel Aviv and dumped in front of the shelters. I have been on the receiving end of that. Tel Aviv is judged to have job opportunities, good public transport, and a large refugee community. Those in prison are treated and fed well but it is still a prison and there is no freedom to leave.
The majority of the refugees arrived within the past year. At first, there were several dozen Darfurians who were accepted and given employment in the resort city of Eilat. Word spread of the good treatment of the refugees and others started for the border by land.
The government, for the first few months, did nothing to help with humanitarian aid for these arrivals. The UN office was overwhelmed and shorthanded and many refugees had to wait several months before they could obtain a document that would protect them from the fear of possible deportation. Eventually, bunk beds and a bomb shelter were donated to house some of the refugees. They also helped pay the meager salary of the manager of the shelters for a short time period.
Recently, the municipality of Tel Aviv worked with the national government to issue work visas to the largest group in the shelters, the Eritreans. The first three buses took 140 people and issued them visas while taking them to Eilat to work in the hotels there. Refugees were clamoring to get on the buses. Part of the agreement for Tel Aviv was that they would not be able to stay here. I advised the remaining Eritreans that their buses would arrive in three more days and that they should have all of their belongings ready for transport to Eilat and to make sure that they were at the shelter at 8:30 AM on the day when the buses were to arrive. I told them that the city of Tel Aviv had negotiated the work permits and transport to Eilat in exchange for us closing the worst two shelters. I explained that, after the buses left, we would be closing their shelter. They all agreed.
I arrived at the worst shelter at 8:30AM. This was where 115 men lived underground with no windows, water, or bathrooms. The smell of the packed in humans was approaching putrid. I was happy to see this site closed. I arrived to find only about 15 refugees remaining. The others had fled. It seems that their friends in Eilat complained that, while they had good accommodations, there was not always full-time work. Also, some of their bosses, the hotel managers, held their original work permits and only gave them copies. This prohibited them from quitting and finding better work. I believe that, in a short time, this would all be ironed out and full-time work was coming in Eilat.
Ultimately, we found enough Eritreans to fill two of the three buses. We closed the shelter and found that some, who had fled, came back anyway and wanted to get in. We told them they would have to find other accommodations. Most did with friends that had already rented apartments. Apparently, some of the people prefer a more scarce work in Tel Aviv without a work visa so that they can be with the larger Eritrean community.
A country founded by refugees, there are many organizations in Israel striving to help the refugees gain more legal rights, healthcare, education, work, and counseling. I am working with the organizations (and often with no formal organizations) that give the basic food and shelter to those that are either new arrivals or those that have are unable to work and move into an apartment. I am mainly working with the African Refugee Development Center, Sons of Darfur, and others that distribute food and medicine to those scattered around in different apartments.
Where for so long we have been putting out fires (once literally where the fire department flooded the basement under two feet of water where most of the refugees slept), we now have a relatively more manageable situation with only four shelters that are near to each other. We have had as many as 10. We have moved women with children to a new clean and safer site and are in the process of moving the teenage boys to a new beautiful apartment where they will live together under a counselor’s care.
Now that the air has cleared, deeper issues are surfacing. We generally have enough Israeli donors of food and we have a surplus of clothing. Where we counted on these healthy adult refugees to help manage themselves in the shelters, the leftover population is causing us to deal with people who rarely cooperate, steal, hoard and hide supplies for themselves, throw garbage in the hallway instead of taking it out, and feel entitled to receive aid. This is not to say that they all have these characteristics. Most refugees were eager to work and move to better accommodations. Some of these are the ones that prefer to sit and accept handouts. We are only now having to deal with security issues where drunken refugees that don’t live in shelters storm in late at night in order to try to have sex with the women. There have been fights in the hallways at night.
I am talking to the UN and other organizations to determine ways to manage a shelter in an urban environment. This has rarely been done around the world as most are rural. These are not the typical mentally disturbed or substance abusing homeless. These are people that are assumed to be self-reliant and have trudged across African and Egypt to arrive here.
The situation continues. There are still over 800 refugees in prison that have crossed the border. With enemy states such as Syria and Iran building nuclear reactors and calling for Israel’s destruction, Gaza firing thousands of rockets into southern towns, Lebanon taken over by Hizbollah, Israel has to be very careful about who can come into the country. As Israel has allowed the refugees in and most have found employment, the number showing up at the border has grown exponentially. The government fears that becoming a haven could easily cause million to show up at the border of the Sinai Desert. Will Israel have to choose to allow the millions in or force them to stand at the border in the middle of a desert in Egypt. The refugees find that, once they are in Israel, they cannot move forward to another State. They fear Arab states and claim that their experiences in them have all be horrible.
Yet, there is still significant pressure from the Israelis to allow a haven for those fleeing persecution in the world. Yesterday was Holocaust Memorial Day. Israelis know that they (we) cannot turn away those that have seen their families killed even if there are some that are taking advantage of Israel’s compassion.
There are many in Israel that are concerned in many ways about the sudden influx of African refugees in Israel. Here is my explanation of their situation.
Of the 7,000 refugees from African in Israel, most have arrived within the past year. The majority are from Eritrea, Sudan, and the Ivory Coast. I have worked closely with many of them. Many of my fellow volunteers are activists and spend much of their time lobbying the government to give more benefits to the refugee population here and to allow more to have official asylum or refugee status. I have taken a less political approach and have not participated in protests. My position is that, if the person is allowed in the country by the government, he or she deserves to be treated with dignity and to live in a safe environment. Israel should be a light to the world and show that Jews know what it is like to be refugees. However, embracing them with nice accommodations will result in millions arriving at the border of Israel and Egypt within a very short period.
Unlike most countries with a developed progressive economy, Israel has no specific policy on who will gain asylum in the country. As a signor of the Geneva Convention, Israel should have had this policy a long time ago. My thought is that, if there were a list of criteria that would enable one to receive refugee status, the government feels that the Palestinians would find a way to fit within the criteria. Israel is 1/7th the geographic size of the State of Georgia with only 7 million citizens. Georgia has 8 million and Greater Atlanta, 4.5 million. The country was founded as a place for Jewish refugees to live safely and to be able to openly practice Judaism without fear of persecution. Christians, Muslims, and others are also free to openly practice. However, is it now only 60 years old and the constant bashing from the Muslim world and much of Western Europe (soon to join the predominately Muslim world) makes the country nervous about allowing thousands of predominantly Muslims into the country to reside in Israel.
The country was built as a home for refugees and cannot afford to turn its back on those that are fleeing murder in Darfur or the Ivory Coast or modern slavery in Eritrea. The citizens overwhelmingly embrace these refugees to the point of having massive surpluses of clothing and often of food. The generosity of the citizens is impressive but that of the government is not nearly so. The government allows them to stay but issues only temporary permits to stay for 3 to 6 months. Those are to be renewed and reviewed in these time periods.
WHY ARE HAVE THEY FLED THEIR COUNTRIES?
I will give my abbreviated version of why each group has fled. There is a plethora of internet information for those interested in more detailed accounts
Sudan http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?action=conflict_search&l=1&t=1&c_country=101
The people of Darfur in Sudan are now getting the greatest media exposure of the refugees and hence get better jobs and longer work visas. Between 200,000 and 400,000 have been killed in their villages or from disease after having fled their villages by the government sponsored Janjaweed militias and over 2.5 million are in refugee camps in Darfur and Chad. Others have fled to South Sudan or elsewhere. There are only about 800 Darfurians in Israel and most are given work visas and are living well in Eilat. There are also hundreds of South Sudanese that have been away from Sudan for decades. The UN is in South Sudan keeping a shaky peace but fighting periodically flares up. These refugees do not trust that they will be safe if they return. Darfurians are Muslim and South Sudanese are generally actively practicing Christians.
Ivory Coast http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=1235
The Ivoirians (from West Africa) speak only French and fled tribal wars raging in their country since 2001. Tribes invaded each other and wiped out entire villages. Around 700,000 were displaces internally and many forced to flee the country. About a year ago, a peace deal was signed but the refugees fear they will be murdered in their sleep if they return. As the UN has declared the war over, Israel allows the Ivoirians to stay, but does not allow them to legally find work. Hence, they are dependant on handouts at shelters for food and clothing when they would love to earn a living to support themselves. They mostly Muslims but some are Christians. The government has threatened to deport them to their home country as the war has ended.
Eritrea
http://web.mit.edu/21W.749/www/Students/selamdaniel/finalproject/essay.html
This country declared independence from Ethiopia in 1993 and has been in battling Ethiopia ever since over where the border should be. A Dictatorship, the country mandates all men to serve in the army at 18 for an indefinite period. Some have been in the army for 20 years with very little pay and harsh living conditions. This is considered a modern form of slavery. The men leave the country before they are 18 or go AWOL and flee abroad. They are confident that they will be killed or imprisoned in underground holes until they die of disease or snakebites. Israel has diplomatic relations with Eritrea and the Ambassador is angry that Israel gives asylum to the deserters. He demands their return and to bring them to justice. Israel has given nearly all Eritreans work permits and has helped facilitate job placement.
Ethiopia
There are a few people from Ethiopia that have fled various fighting in that country over the years. There are also a few that have left to go abroad to be able to earn a living that is better than they can get at home. As the language is the same as most Eritreans and few refugees carry any identification when they arrive, they often claim to be from Eritrea in order to be able to work here. These are a small minority. Israel will not give work visas to Ethiopians. They are both Muslims and Christians.
HOW DO THEY GET TO ISRAEL?
I have been told that, if they can afford the trip, the refugees will sneak into Europe. I will use the example of the Eritreans as they are the majority of the refugees. Eritreans’ families or friend’s abroad, pay about US$2,000 to get them to Israel. $1000 is to get to Sudan and the other $1000 is to pay the Bedouins to drive them across the Sinai desert to border of Israel. Some have spent time in Egypt where they complain of hateful people that cheat them and hassle them. Many have heard of the mistreatment of refugees in Egypt and just use it to cross into Israel.
Israel has an agreement with Egypt that Egypt will not allow people to sneak into Israel and Egypt shoots at refugees as they cross. Refugees know they have to cross at night to avoid the gunfire. A few have been wounded and a couple have died from the wounds. There are still many that hurt themselves as they run across or crawl over the fences.
ONCE IN ISRAEL:
Once over the border, they wait patiently on the roads in Israel in the Negev Desert for the Israeli patrols to pick them up. I have always been told by the refugees that they are treated with respect by the border police and they are told, “You are safe, now”. The refugees are usually taken to a prison nearby where they are sometimes kept for months in order to be processed and to be judged as to whether they are a terrorist threat. Some are brought directly from the border to Tel Aviv and dumped in front of the shelters. I have been on the receiving end of that. Tel Aviv is judged to have job opportunities, good public transport, and a large refugee community. Those in prison are treated and fed well but it is still a prison and there is no freedom to leave.
The majority of the refugees arrived within the past year. At first, there were several dozen Darfurians who were accepted and given employment in the resort city of Eilat. Word spread of the good treatment of the refugees and others started for the border by land.
The government, for the first few months, did nothing to help with humanitarian aid for these arrivals. The UN office was overwhelmed and shorthanded and many refugees had to wait several months before they could obtain a document that would protect them from the fear of possible deportation. Eventually, bunk beds and a bomb shelter were donated to house some of the refugees. They also helped pay the meager salary of the manager of the shelters for a short time period.
Recently, the municipality of Tel Aviv worked with the national government to issue work visas to the largest group in the shelters, the Eritreans. The first three buses took 140 people and issued them visas while taking them to Eilat to work in the hotels there. Refugees were clamoring to get on the buses. Part of the agreement for Tel Aviv was that they would not be able to stay here. I advised the remaining Eritreans that their buses would arrive in three more days and that they should have all of their belongings ready for transport to Eilat and to make sure that they were at the shelter at 8:30 AM on the day when the buses were to arrive. I told them that the city of Tel Aviv had negotiated the work permits and transport to Eilat in exchange for us closing the worst two shelters. I explained that, after the buses left, we would be closing their shelter. They all agreed.
I arrived at the worst shelter at 8:30AM. This was where 115 men lived underground with no windows, water, or bathrooms. The smell of the packed in humans was approaching putrid. I was happy to see this site closed. I arrived to find only about 15 refugees remaining. The others had fled. It seems that their friends in Eilat complained that, while they had good accommodations, there was not always full-time work. Also, some of their bosses, the hotel managers, held their original work permits and only gave them copies. This prohibited them from quitting and finding better work. I believe that, in a short time, this would all be ironed out and full-time work was coming in Eilat.
Ultimately, we found enough Eritreans to fill two of the three buses. We closed the shelter and found that some, who had fled, came back anyway and wanted to get in. We told them they would have to find other accommodations. Most did with friends that had already rented apartments. Apparently, some of the people prefer a more scarce work in Tel Aviv without a work visa so that they can be with the larger Eritrean community.
A country founded by refugees, there are many organizations in Israel striving to help the refugees gain more legal rights, healthcare, education, work, and counseling. I am working with the organizations (and often with no formal organizations) that give the basic food and shelter to those that are either new arrivals or those that have are unable to work and move into an apartment. I am mainly working with the African Refugee Development Center, Sons of Darfur, and others that distribute food and medicine to those scattered around in different apartments.
Where for so long we have been putting out fires (once literally where the fire department flooded the basement under two feet of water where most of the refugees slept), we now have a relatively more manageable situation with only four shelters that are near to each other. We have had as many as 10. We have moved women with children to a new clean and safer site and are in the process of moving the teenage boys to a new beautiful apartment where they will live together under a counselor’s care.
Now that the air has cleared, deeper issues are surfacing. We generally have enough Israeli donors of food and we have a surplus of clothing. Where we counted on these healthy adult refugees to help manage themselves in the shelters, the leftover population is causing us to deal with people who rarely cooperate, steal, hoard and hide supplies for themselves, throw garbage in the hallway instead of taking it out, and feel entitled to receive aid. This is not to say that they all have these characteristics. Most refugees were eager to work and move to better accommodations. Some of these are the ones that prefer to sit and accept handouts. We are only now having to deal with security issues where drunken refugees that don’t live in shelters storm in late at night in order to try to have sex with the women. There have been fights in the hallways at night.
I am talking to the UN and other organizations to determine ways to manage a shelter in an urban environment. This has rarely been done around the world as most are rural. These are not the typical mentally disturbed or substance abusing homeless. These are people that are assumed to be self-reliant and have trudged across African and Egypt to arrive here.
The situation continues. There are still over 800 refugees in prison that have crossed the border. With enemy states such as Syria and Iran building nuclear reactors and calling for Israel’s destruction, Gaza firing thousands of rockets into southern towns, Lebanon taken over by Hizbollah, Israel has to be very careful about who can come into the country. As Israel has allowed the refugees in and most have found employment, the number showing up at the border has grown exponentially. The government fears that becoming a haven could easily cause million to show up at the border of the Sinai Desert. Will Israel have to choose to allow the millions in or force them to stand at the border in the middle of a desert in Egypt. The refugees find that, once they are in Israel, they cannot move forward to another State. They fear Arab states and claim that their experiences in them have all be horrible.
Yet, there is still significant pressure from the Israelis to allow a haven for those fleeing persecution in the world. Yesterday was Holocaust Memorial Day. Israelis know that they (we) cannot turn away those that have seen their families killed even if there are some that are taking advantage of Israel’s compassion.
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2 comments:
Randy, here in Italy the situation is worst than in Israel. Here the right won the election in March. Our right has inside it history a neofascit past. Now, I have to be honest, they have condemned the "1938 racial-law", but I feel that they are using now the word immigrat as they used the word Jew during the WWII. I know that the problem of security and terrorism is a central part of our actual political debate (also in Italy), but is very bad to see how is simple to spread a sentiment of fear among the population.
I hope that you read my comments here, because is beautiful to know that I can speak with you thanks this blog.
Bye Daniel
Hey, Thanks for helping out.
As they say, no good deed will pass unrewarded :)
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