You can read about this story in the dead tree Ha'Aratez or elsewhere. The Knesset has decided to push ahead with legislation that makes it a crime punishable by up to 20 years for illegal infiltrators to cross into Israel. It also threatens anyone who helps them with up to the same amount of jail time.
This is aimed squarely at the refugess from Sudan and elsewhere who try and make it to the only democratic free state in the region. It's aimed at the people who run soup kitchens in Tel Aviv for penniless refugees, the people who help with the language , the people who care. The refugees who survive the experience and make it here will now be severely punished. Doesn't this all sound so familiar? A very clear message back through history. It was a crime to help all those Jews who fled Germany and other countries looking for safety. I'm ashamed to carry an Israeli ID and if this law passes I will find a Darfur refugee in Israel, buy him or her a meal and then turn myself into the police.
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
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2 comments:
"...if this law passes I will find a Darfur refugee in Israel, buy him or her a meal and then turn myself into the police. "
Why wait? At least as far as the buying a refugee a meal goes, that is.
I share your feelings about the idiocy of the proposed legislation... but I'm frustrated thinking about what unchecked illegal immigration will do to Israel's already strained social services. Can we really expected to be everyone else's refuge when we can barely keep our own people from falling through the cracks?
There is a difference between keeping them out of the labour force and locking them up for 20 years. As a significant proportion also get shot by the Egyptians or the Border Police on the way over, there is a sharp contrast between the Israel of "Light unto the Nations' and the current reality.
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