To paraphrase Emma Lazarus, the tired, poor and huddled masses of several beleaguered East African nations, some autocratic and repressive, have made their way to Israel in droves over the last few years.
Estimated at between 50,000 to 60,000, they entered Israel through our previously porous frontier with Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula. Most come from Eritrea and Sudan – including many from Darfur and South Sudan, which just recently became independent.
Tel Aviv, Eilat and Arad have the largest concentrations of them. Depending on one’s inclination, these Africans are refugees, asylum seekers, illegal employment seekers or infiltrators.
Our government hasn’t done a good enough job dealing with them, although just over a month ago, after 3-1/2 years and 1.6 billion shekels (roughly $500 million Cdn), work was completed on a 245-kilometre long fence along our border with Egypt. Erected primarily due to security considerations relating to chaos and Islamic terrorism afflicting the Sinai Peninsula, this fence has also stemmed the influx of Africans into Israel.
Some Israelis criticize stopping the flow of these Africans into the country. In view of modern Jewish history, they believe Israel can’t turn away people in danger of grave injury and even death if they return to their own countries. However, most Israelis believe the number of Africans in the country has reached a critical mass and that we should be dealing with those already here.
The crux of the matter is what should Israel do with the tens of thousands of Africans in our midst. Regrettably, to date, our government has failed, both morally and effectively, in this regard.
Initially, the government provided no direction or policy whatsoever. Could Africans work or not? Were they to be arrested, deported or protected? Could they receive medical care? Open bank accounts? Could their kids go to school? Would someone examine and process their requests for refugee status?
With no clear answers to these and other questions, inertia kicked in. So did NGOs, filling the void and helping these Africans as much as they can.
These folks want to work, to subsist. What little they save is sent home to those left behind. And for fear of political persecution or worse, most can’t return to Eritrea, Sudan or South Sudan, and no other country will have them.
Last year, things came to a head in Tel Aviv, which has the largest concentration of Africans, mostly living alongside Israelis in lower-income neighbourhoods in the southern parts of the city. Not all have found work. Some live in public parks. Crime has risen, and living conditions for Israelis in these areas have become difficult, some say unbearable. A young Israeli woman was gang-raped last year. People are afraid to leave their homes.
Populist politicians entered the picture, fuelling anger and discontent with egregious xenophobic exclamations. One MK called Africans “a cancer in our body.”
Our government’s response was to build detention centres and pass laws allowing authorities to incarcerate infiltrators for up to three years. Thankfully, the Supreme Court quashed this legislation as not in keeping with Israel’s constitutional foundations.
But the government can see no other solution. Almost immediately after the court’s decision, it initiated new legislation, this time allowing confinement of infiltrators for up to a year. This, too, is being challenged legally, but in the meantime hundreds, some say thousands of Africans are being rounded up and sent to a new “open” detention centre built in the Negev desert near the Egyptian border – “open” because detainees are allowed out during days and must return at night. But the truth is that being stuck where they are, these detainees have nowhere to go most days.
Instead of spending millions building and maintaining prisons, the government would be more sensible and on higher moral ground if it allocated those funds to provide vocational training and jobs for these Africans, who are not enemies of the state, but rather unfortunate individuals who made lengthy journeys to the only real democracy in the region. This would be money much better spent.
In the meantime, tens of thousands of Africans are demonstrating in Tel Aviv and Eilat, beginning hunger strikes and demanding better treatment.
It’s not certain where this will lead. One thing is certain, though: most of these Africans won’t be leaving Israel anytime soon, and it’s high time our government understood this and started treating them and their Israeli neighbours properly.