This is another in my series of inquiries about why it is our responsibility to take ‘refugees’ off the hands of governments where those asylum seekers (supposed refugees) are that country’s problem.
(Is Israel taking any of our illegal aliens/asylum seekers?)
See my recent post on Russia, here. Or, see the dumb deal with Australia, here. And, I have been writing about this issue for years as it relates to Malta, here.
This morning I want to know why we took 38 ‘refugees’ from Israel in the first 5 months of FY17. Whoever they are, they are not our problem?
(For background on the problems Israel has with illegal aliens, especially from Africa over the years, go to our category ‘Israel and refugees’ by clicking here).
This is the Refugee Processing Center data from Wrapsnet:
One more thing President Trump’s State Department could do, is to stop using refugees in deals with other countries, something I testified about several times here (see #7).
Tag: Israel
Samantha Power whines: don't cut UN funding!
Perhaps after Obama and Hillary, Samantha Power is next on my list of Leftists I will be happy to see leave the world stage.
We have written extensively about Ms. Power who along with Hillary and Susan Rice (I called them the three witches!) nagged Obama to overthrow Muammar Gaddafi which unleashed a new wave of African migration to Europe via the now failed state of Libya.
Readers, if the US cuts our funding to the UN (I know it’s a long shot), but that one act could help ‘pause’ refugee admissions to America like nothing else (since the UN is now picking almost all of our refugees).
Unfortunately it looks like the Ted Cruz/Lindsey Graham effort to cut funding is tied only to the resolution on Israel.
From Breitbart Jerusalem:
(AFP) UNITED NATIONS, United States — US Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power on Friday warned that cutting US funding to the United Nations would be “extremely detrimental” to American interests, one week before Donald Trump’s administration takes office.
Addressing her final news conference, Power told reporters that “countries like Russia and China” would benefit from Washington’s reduced standing at the United Nations if funding were withdrawn.
“We lead the world, in part, by leading at the UN,” said Power, who is stepping down next week after four years as President Barack Obama’s ambassador to the United Nations.
[….]
The Safeguard Israel Act of 2017 — introduced by Senate Republicans Ted Cruz and Lindsey Graham — aims to push back against the UN by threatening to pull billions of dollars in funding.
Continue reading here.
See my Samantha Power archive here.
She began her White House career as the Iraqi refugee czar but was quoted in 2012 indicating her frustration with “doing rinky-dink do-gooder stuff,” such as advocating on behalf of beleaguered Christians in Iraq.
She moved on to join the girls (the “humanitarian Vulcans”) in working to destabilize Libya and from there she climbed to her perch at the UN.
I shudder to think where she will turn up next!
Israel to raise the height of its border fence
The latest wave of Africans trying to break into Israel via Egypt are bringing ladders.
For new readers we have a category here at RRW entitled, ‘Israel and refugees,‘ although there has been so much news from the ‘Invasion of Europe’ lately we haven’t said much about the smaller invasion of Israel.
Here is news from Breitbart that could be used for guidance for Trump’s wall:
TEL AVIV – Israel is set to raise the height of its fence along the Egyptian border in an effort to keep out migrants, defense officials said Tuesday.
The fence will be raised an additional meter, making it six meters (19.7 feet) high. This follows an increase in African migrants entering the country over the past year.
The army said that a series of additional prevention methods will be put in place to reduce the number of illegal border crossings.
The current fence, which was built between 2010-2014, has been largely successful in preventing migrant incursions, the IDF said. In 2014, only 14 people made it across the border, compared with 12,000 in 2010. However, in 2015, some 200 migrants made it over the fence, often with the use of ladders.
Learn about Saudi Arabia’s ‘anti-ISIS’ barrier, here. Walls do work.
Israel will begin to deport illegal alien Africans
Israel is one of the only first world countries on the planet attempting to save itself from the onslaught of migrants demanding asylum after illegally entering the country. Australia is attempting to save itself as well. Of course, most European countries have their borders wide open, as do we here in the US.
By the way, one of Israel’s critics is the US refugee resettlement contractor—Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society.
From The Guardian:
Israel will begin deporting asylum seekers from Eritrea and Sudan to unnamed third countries in Africa even if against their will, the immigration authority announced on Tuesday.
The assumption is that the third countries are Rwanda and Uganda, although Israel has not revealed details.
According to the interior minister, Gilad Erdan, the move will “encourage infiltrators to leave the borders of the state of Israel in an honourable and safe way, and serve as an effective tool for fulfilling our obligations towards Israeli citizens and restoring the fabric of life to the residents of south Tel Aviv”.
Until now, the state exerted pressure and provided a one-off monetary incentive for asylum seekers to leave voluntarily, but only if they signed written consent. Now the state will give them 30 days to leave; those who refuse will face a hearing to determine their indefinite imprisonment.
People in Holot, a detention facility in the Negev, currently requesting asylum will not be immediately affected by the new measure.
Mutasim Ali, a detainee in Holot who fled Darfur and is a leading activist in Israel’s African asylum seeker community, said the new policy was not that different from the current grim reality.
[….]
Eritreans and Sudanese are entitled to collective protection under the 1951 UN refugee convention, to which Israel is a signatory, because their lives would be in danger if they were sent back to their countries of origin.
An estimated 42,000 Eritrean and Sudanese nationals currently reside in Israel, of whom about 2,000 are being held in Holot. According to the immigration authorities, 1,500 left with consent to a third country in 2014 and 7,000 returned to their home countries.
See our complete archive on Israel and refugees, here.
Palestinian human rights activist says UNRWA is using Palestinians as pawns
He wants the UNHCR to come up with a plan to permanently resettle the Palestinians and forget the “right of return.”
Unbelievable that a Palestinian would have the guts to say that the special UN agency (UN Relief and Works Agency) set up more than sixty years ago to supposedly care for Palestinian refugees, is basically corrupt, too cozy with Hamas, not being watched closely enough by donor countries like the US, and is using the Palestinians as pawns. Whew!
From The Algemeiner (emphasis is mine):
Bassam Eid, a prominent Palestinian human rights activist, has issued an urgent plea for a serious overhaul of UNRWA, the UN agency tasked with caring for the Palestinian refugees of the 1948 war in which Arab armies failed to prevent the creation of the State of Israel.
Eid, the Director of the Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group, is currently visiting London, where he addressed a meeting at the British parliament organized by the Henry Jackson Society, an international relations think-tank, entitled “Perpetuating Statelessness? UNRWA, Its Activities and Funding.” In that presentation, Eid, who was raised in the UNRWA refugee camp in Shu’afat, east of Jerusalem, harshly criticized the agency for perpetuating the plight of the refugees as well as for its political relationship with Hamas.
“Sixty-six years after it was created, UNRWA is still promising Palestinians that they will return to their homeland,” Eid told The Algemeiner by telephone. “In my opinion, causing five million Palestinian refugees to suffer more and more under the umbrella of the ‘right of return’ is a war crime. They are being used as pawns in a war strategy.”
Eid, however, does not advocate the dissolution of UNRWA, which operates on a budget of $1.2 billion provided by donor nations led by the United States, which donated nearly $300 million in 2013. Doing so, he argues, would create a vacuum that would inevitably be exploited by wealthy Arab states like Qatar, the principal funder of Hamas. Instead, he is urging a reform program ambitious enough to transform the agency’s core mission.
“As a refugee, I want to see UNRWA submitting audited reports to donor countries,” Eid said. “I want to UNRWA to present to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees a plan for the permanent resettlement of the Palestinian refugees. And I want UNRWA to abolish the curriculum they teach in their schools, which promotes war and terror and jihad.”
Eid is particularly concerned by UNRWA’s relationship with Hamas, advocating that all UNRWA employees with Hamas ties be dismissed from their posts. “During the war in Gaza over the summer, it was well known that Hamas was hiding rockets in UNRWA schools,” Eid said. “So what did UNRWA do? They called Hamas on the phone and said, ‘please come and collect your rockets.’ This by itself shows the degree of cooperation between them.”
For all of our previous posts on UNRWA see our ‘Israel and refugees’ category.