At first authors protested, then El Al pilots, followed by school principals, psychologists and Holocaust survivors. Together they managed to mobilize large parts of the Israeli public to protest against the deportation of tens of thousands of asylum-seekers and economic migrants to a grim and dangerous fate in Africa, drawing on a strong collective memory of the Holocaust of European Jews and humanistic Jewish values that at times seem to have disappeared.
It is too early to tell whether the growing protest would succeed in causing the right-wing government headed by Benjamin Netanyahu to ease the decree of deportation. But regardless, it will force the leadership to answer questions of principle on Jewish ethics and mutual responsibility. In other words, the mass deportation of African asylum-seekers will not pass quietly.