Canada officially acknowledges that after 1948 Jews were expelled from their homes throughout the Middle East

03/05/2014 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Next time you hear the Palestinians and their supporters whining, remember hundreds of thousands of Jews lost their ancestral homes when forced to leave Arab countries and they aren’t demanding any ‘right of return!’

By the way, has the US (the Obama Administration) officially recognized this report? From the Jerusalem Post (hat tip: Jeff):

Canada, early on Tuesday, accepted the recommendation of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development that “Canada officially recognizes the experience of Jewish refugees who were displaced from states in the Middle East and North Africa after 1948.”

The recognition came following the committee’s November 2013 report on Recognizing Jewish Refugees from the Middle East and North Africa.

The committee “learned of the discrimination and hardship faced by Jewish people living in the Middle East and North Africa in the 20th century,” according to the report.

Further, said the report, “almost all of the Jews in Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Syria, Tunisia and Yemen eventually left their homes and communities, which had existed in the Middle East and North Africa for centuries.”

[….]

Next, the report said that the countries in question had 856,000 Jews before 1948, 76,000 in 1968 and only 4,315 in 2012.

[….]

CIJA chairman David Koschitzky responded to the news, saying, “Today’s decision brings Canada one step closer to recognizing the otherwise forgotten persecution of Jewish minorities across the Middle East.”

He continued, “This is not only a matter of ensuring historical accuracy. Once implemented, it will correct a fundamental imbalance in a Canadian policy that acknowledges Arab refugees, but makes no mention of Jewish refugees resulting from the Arab- Israeli conflict.”

This is our 149th post in our Israel and refugees category. It is our 125th on Canada.

Israeli program to pay ‘asylum seekers’ to leave is working!

02/27/2014 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

And, the success so far confirms what the Israeli government has been saying all along—the majority of so-called ‘asylum seekers’ are economic migrants who do not have a legitimate claim of asylum, or they would be making it!

African protesters at US Embassy in Tel Aviv in January demanding to be allowed to stay in Israel.
https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2014/01/07/waiting-for-the-unhcr-to-blast-saudi-arabia-as-they-did-israel-yesterday/

From Haaretz:

A record 1,705 African asylum seekers left Israel in February, Interior Minister Gideon Sa’ar announced Thursday. He also predicted that the wave of departures would continue in the coming months.

“This figure for the last month surprises me for the better,” Sa’ar said at a conference of Population and Immigration Authority directors in Ashkelon. “If the trend we identify continues, and I’ve been informed that it will continue into March, there will be a departure of enormous proportions from Israel this year. It is most important.”

February’s figure represents about 3% of the estimated number of African asylum seekers in Israel. The monthly figures have grown since November, from 63 to 325 in December and 765 in January.

“We stood up to constant propaganda insinuating there were tens of thousands of asylum seekers, even though you know that a tiny percentage of them submitted asylum requests,” said Sa’ar. “This whole theory collapsed in the last months when it turned out there was a large exodus of those who came for economic reasons and figured that in a day or two he would no longer be able to work and earn money, so we see a definitive change in direction.”

Sa’ar showed the statistics on a placard headlined “Voluntary departure data – illegal infiltrators” to make his point. Each African asylum seeker who leaves Israel through the end of next month is entitled to a $3,500 government grant.

Maybe we could try this in America! The only difference is that the Israelis now have an almost impenetrable border fence, so more are not on the way.

Back to Haaretz:

There was a recent flurry of criticism when it was learned that some of the migrants chose to go to Uganda rather than to their home country. But, leave it to a US refugee resettlement contractor, the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society to stick its nose into Israel’s business (see our previous post here).

It remains unclear what, if any, agreement was made with Uganda. The Jewish-American Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society contacted the director of refugee affairs in the Ugandan prime minister’s office, and he responded that he did not know of any arrangement with Israel.

The Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society is one of nine major US resettlement contractors who resettle refugees for the US State Department in your cities and towns. The US taxpayer supplies them with about half of their entire annual budget. Their past CEO collected a salary in excess of $300,000 a year and we can assume their new one does as well. Can it be called do-gooder-itis with a salary like that?

For new readers, we have 147 previous posts in our category ‘Israel and refugees’ here.

Saudi Arabia deported 12,000 Somalis since the first of the year, says Human Rights Watch!

02/19/2014 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Farhia, deported from Saudi Arabia last month, says she was a domestic worker there for ten years.

I gotta hand it to ‘Human Rights Watch’ which seems to be the only private or public sector organization with the nerve to call-out Saudi Arabia.

The UN (where S.A. sits on the Human Rights Council) has been silent while it has been busy blasting Israel for its supposed mistreatment (“warehousing”) of Africans. Israel is not deporting thousands weekly and detention in Israel is in a new cushy facility where the would-be asylum seekers can leave for a portion of the day.

Saudi Arabia is clearing out its ethnic diversity! I guess they aren’t buying that multiculturalism is beautiful PR, or that they need to be charitable to their Muslim coreligionists.

Saudi Arabia for Saudis!

From Human Rights Watch:

(Nairobi) – Saudi authorities have deported more than 12,000 people to Somalia since January 1, 2014, including hundreds of women and children, without allowing any to make refugee claims. Saudi Arabia should end the summary deportations, which risk violating its international obligations not to return anyone to a place where their life or freedom is threatened or where they face other serious harm.

Seven Somalis recently deported from Saudi Arabia told Human Rights Watch researchers in Mogadishu, the Somali capital, that the Saudi authorities had detained them for weeks in appalling conditions and some said Saudi security personnel beat them. None had been allowed to speak with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to discuss possible refugee claims before being deported. UNHCR said in mid-January that “south central Somalia is a very dangerous place.” UNHCR also said the Saudi authorities have denied its staff access to detained Somalis in the country.

They don’t want those undocumented foreign workers! Are there jobs Saudis won’t do? Maybe not!

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) says the Somali Interior Ministry expects Saudi Arabia to deport another 30,000 in the coming weeks. The deportations are part of a Saudi campaign to remove undocumented foreign workers.

We will be anxiously waiting for the Obama Administration and the UN to blast those racist unwelcoming Saudis!

Saudi Arabia has not ratified the 1951 Refugee Convention and does not have an asylum system.

[….]

Major donors to UNHCR, including the European Union and the United States, should press Saudi Arabia to end its deportations of Somalis.

Meanwhile, another boat load of Somalis was rescued at sea this week and taken to Italy where you know all hell would break loose and the UN would blast those Mediterranean countries if they dared deport even one of the Somali illegal aliens.

Federal contractor, Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, lectures Israel

02/14/2014 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Invasion of Rome! Been there, done that!
http://www.artclon.com/paintings/genserichs-invasion-of-rome-study-1833-1835_23625.html

I have a question for Mark Hetfield, CEO of one of nine major federal refugee resettlement contractors: Is there any number of “asylum seekers” or “refugees” that is too many for you? If 60,000 migrants wanting to stay in Israel is not very many in your eyes, where does it stop? Would 100,000 be the upper limit? How about a quarter of a million?

Is there any number of infiltrators that is too many?

Or, should Israel simply do away with borders altogether and let any Africans (or Arabs) who wish it, go to tiny Israel?

I get so ticked-off by these do-gooder big mouths telling another country what to do, whether it’s Israel, Bulgaria or tiny Malta. Do those countries and their citizens simply say—come one and all and destroy our country?

Here is Hetfield at the Washington Jewish Week last month (Jewish values*, refugees, lost opportunities):

Nearly 60,000 Africans fleeing war, oppression and violence have sought refuge in Israel, a prosperous and democratic country established in 1948 by refugees themselves.

These asylum seekers were not just fleeing from oppression, but to a prosperous and
democratic country. While Israel’s courts have protected them and new Israeli friends have defended them, the welcome asylum seekers have received has been less than warm. In fact, the official government term for these individuals is “infiltrators,” and they are unofficially known as “illegal work migrants.” Concentrated in the poorest neighborhoods, supporting themselves by working only on the gray market, labeled a threat by the government, and living on the margins of society, their treatment has exacerbated social tensions in places like South Tel Aviv.

The Israeli government’s response was to build a fence to prevent new unauthorized border crossings. By all accounts, the fence has been a success, with crossings now close to zero.

The success of the fence, by limiting the potential for new arrivals, presented Israel with an opportunity to demonstrate the Jewish values of human dignity, refugee protection and treating the stranger among us as thyself. The Israeli government could have pursued this opportunity simply by ceasing to call asylum seekers “infiltrators,” and by allowing those already in Israel to remain and work legally, until it is safe to return home.

There is more if you care to read it. And, Hetfield knows damn well they will never go “home” to Africa!

Come on Mark, what is YOUR upper limit? And, where is your editorial about Saudi Arabia, did I miss it? They deport tens of thousands of Africans weekly we are told. Got a lecture for them too?

I wonder how many ‘leaders’ like Hetfield it took to bring down the mighty Roman empire.

For our complete archive on Israel and the problems it is having with economic migrants (faux asylum seekers), click here.

* LOL! Have you noticed that the latest hip word for the open borders crowd is “values.” Grover Norquist used it here just this week as well. “Jewish values!” “American values!” Blah, blah, blah!

Israel: deceptive headline about African migrants

02/01/2014 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Press conference January 22 in Tel Aviv
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatches/globalpost-blogs/rights/last-days-freedom-african-migrants-israel

Here is the headline of a story about Israel’s problems with over 50,000 illegal African migrants in the country:

African Migrants In Israel Asked To Leave The Country — Or Report To A Detention Center

I thought, wow, they are getting serious. The headline left me with the impression that they were rounding ’em up by the tens of thousands.

Then this:

This month alone 1,700 African asylum seekers living in Israeli cities were ordered to report to the Holot facility, according to the Jerusalem Post. But very few have done so.

So, how many showed up at the detention center?

Only 26 African migrants arrive at detention facility as 30-day deadline expires

Israel is also offering a payment of $3,500 for any economic migrant willing to leave the country.

It will be interesting to see what happens next.

New readers: See our category ‘Israel and refugees’ for more.