It is well-known that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made recognition of Israel as the state of the Jewish people a condition for peace with the Palestinians. The prime minister’s speeches are saturated with quotes from Jewish literature and history. The nationality bill that Netanyahu tirelessly promotes is meant to fortify the identity of the state of Israel as the state of the Jewish people. To protect the Jewish majority, Netanyahu has invested hundreds of millions of shekels in closing the southern border of Israel to refugees and economic migrants from Africa. That same state of the Jews, which was created to be a safe haven for Jewish refugees, today sends refugees to their death. And that is just for starters.
On Dec. 11, the Knesset plenum passed, by a 71-41 vote, a law that would deport and imprison thousands of refugees living in Israel. This month, Netanyahu directed the National Security Council to formulate a plan to forcibly deport those refugees who refuse to “voluntarily be removed.” That is, the fate is sealed even for those who prefer living in an Israeli prison to dying somewhere in Africa.
The prime minister offered the “infiltrators,” as he calls them, “to leave voluntarily, respectably, humanely and legally.” Either the prime minister is knowingly lying or he is completely detached from reality. Either way, his plan is neither respectable nor humane, and according to international law, it is also not legal.
The websites of refugee aid organizations and newspapers placed on his desk every morning are full of detailed descriptions of the “humane” path awaiting those who “leave voluntarily.” According to the testimony of asylum seekers who managed to reach safe haven, upon landing in Rwanda they were imprisoned in a hotel, and their money was taken under threat. The next day they were handed over to smugglers, who took them to Uganda, and from there through South Sudan to the Libyan coast. Many of those who didn’t die in torture camps on the way to Libya drowned in the sea on the way to Italy. The survivors wander around Europe seeking a nation willing to offer them temporary asylum.
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