ISRAEL AND THE DARFUR REFUGEES

Jews have been at the forefront of those seeking to end the tragedy in Darfur. Here in Canada Irwin Cotler, Rabbi Chaim Steinmetz and Professor Frank Chalk have tried to focus public attention on the genocide taking place in Sudan. This is as it should be. Our own historical experience makes us especially sensitive to the mass slaughter of innocents in Africa. There is, undoubtedly, a second reason for our interest in Darfur. We see an Arab government perpetrating major crimes against humanity while Israel, as usual, is singled out as the great human rights violator, a case of double standards carried to absurd lengths. Thus the Jewish interest in Darfur is not only in human rights; it is also an expression of self-interest in the defence of Israel, which has motivated our concern.

Now, however, the Darfur crisis has arrived on the borders of Israel. Some two to four hundred thousand have been killed but another two million have been dislocated from their homes and constitute one of today’s great refugee movements. Many of the refugees remain in Sudan and tens of thousands have made it to the impoverished nation of Chad where thousands have died in the refugee camps. Thousands more have found their way to Egypt, Sudan’s neighbor to the north but they have not been welcomed by this Arab nation with close ties to Sudan.

It is hardly surprising that some Darfurians have found now managed to enter Israel through her porous Sinai border. It is possible that some of them may be economic refugees rather than escapees from the genocide but all confront Israel with a dilemma. The number now in Israel is about 1400 and their presence has engendered a lively but painful debate. Israel’s government has vowed to deport most of them and Prime Minister Olmert met with Egypt’s president Mubarak and reached an agreement under which Egypt would accept the deportees while also undertaking to keep closer watch on their common border. Thus a nation founded, in large part, as a home for refugees, and a Jewish people which deplored the closed immigration policies of Canada and other western governments when our own people required a refuge now chooses to close the door on the survivors of Darfur.

Eytan Schwartz, a spokesman for an Israeli committee to aid the refugees declared: “We are a country founded by refugees; we are a people who were persecuted for thousands of years. We of all people should know what it’s like to be people of a nation that nobody wants to take in. That’s why we have a moral, historical obligation to take them in, even if they’re from an enemy country.” 63 MKs including Benjamin Netanyahu of Likud and Amir Peretz of Labor signed a student initiated petition to give sanctuary, at least to those now in the country.

However, to date, the narrow, even ethno-centric view predominates. Labor’s Avishay Braverman, a prominent economist, maintains that Israel cannot afford the burden, “we have our own problems with our own immigrants.” Meanwhile Jordan and Syria, both far poorer than Israel, have taken in hundreds of thousands of Iraqi refugees.

“We don’t want to be the Promised Land for African refugees,” said Miri Eisin a spokeswoman for the Prime Minister, in a statement that, probably unconsciously, echoed the bigots of the 1930s who excluded Jews from the safety of Canada and the United States. I was also not happy to see that a recent Israeli poll shows that 47% favor the deportation of the Darfur survivors and only 39% would allow them to stay.

Of course, there is also the legitimate problem of Israel’s identity as a Jewish democracy. This, we would all agree, necessitates maintaining a Jewish majority on the one hand while, on the other, sustaining that democracy’s commitment to human rights which includes accepting a proper share of refugees from all nations. Jews in the diaspora should now be prepared to give material support to an Israel which, hopefully, in the words of Emma Lazarus, will also say “give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free …send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me.”.