Tag: Israel

Israel: deceptive headline about African migrants

~ 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.

Palestinian workers protesting UNRWA, want more of your money!

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Demonstrations broke out in the West Bank on Sunday where Palestinian employees of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) are striking for higher pay.

Before you read on, check out Judy’s post on UNRWA here just a few days ago.

Then keep in mind that the US is paying approximately 25% of UNRWA’s annual budget of a billion dollars.

Here is a very interesting article from The Jerusalem Post last summer that confirms what a bunch of suckers we are in the West.  Rich Muslim countries give little to keep UNRWA going:

The total UNRWA budget for 2012 was $907,907,371. The permanent and hysterically supportive rhetoric for the “Palestinian cause” from the Muslim world might lead one to expect that UNWRA is mainly funded by Muslim countries. The truth, however, is that UNRWA is almost entirely funded by Western taxpayers. With a total of $644,701,999 in contributions, the US, EU, UK, Sweden, Norway, Germany, The Netherlands and Japan pay 71 percent of the annual UNRWA budget.

And don’t forget that the funds from the second-largest donor, the EU, are of course already composed of EU taxation of member states.

So where do the Muslim states rank? First in, at No. 15, is Saudi Arabia.  [And remember S.A. takes NO refugees—ed]

So now the Palestinian so-called “refugees” want even more of your money!

From the Jordan Times:

JALAZOUN, West Bank — At least 50 people were hurt on Sunday in a clash between Palestinian police and residents of a refugee camp protesting against a strike in a UN aid agency that has paralysed services, police and an ambulance service said.

The demonstration, in Jalazoun camp in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, was the most violent in a series of protests over the past week stemming from a more than month-old strike for higher pay by local employees of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).

UNRWA, which employs more than 5,000 Palestinians in 19 camps for some 730,000 West Bank refugees, has been forced to shut schools, clinics and suspend trash collection at the camps since the strike began.

“We have nothing to do with the strike and we want to make our voice heard,” said Mohammed Najar, a Jalazoun resident. “The situation in the camps cannot be tolerated: no schools, no clinics and trash is piled everywhere.”

We owe them!  We owe them!  66 years later we owe them!

Many refugees fear UNRWA is slowly disengaging from its aid activities and believe the international community owes them support since it recognised Israel amid the war that led to its founding in 1948 — during which they fled or were driven from their homes to Gaza, the West Bank and surrounding countries.

The UN agency has said it is trying to end the strike but does not have funds to meet the wage demands. It also says its employees get paid at least 20 per cent and in some cases 80 per cent more than public sector employees in equivalent fields.

Grrrr!

Learn more about Israel and refugees in our special category (142 previous posts) here.

Waiting for the UNHCR to blast Saudi Arabia as they did Israel yesterday

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment
African migrants protest at US embassy in Tel Aviv on Sunday. We want the “right” to walk free and stay in Israel.

Sure enough the UN High Commissioner for Refugees blasted Israel for its “warehousing” of Africans claiming to be asylum seekers (see our story yesterday).  Israel has long maintained that most of the migrants are “economic migrants” and not legitimate refugees.  Economic migrants are NOT refugees, but the world-over they have figured out how to use the refugee lingo.

From Haaretz:

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has criticized Israel’s policy on African migrants, and in particular the new amendments to the country’s anti-infiltration law.

Following Sunday’s mass protest of tens of thousands of migrants and their supporters in Tel Aviv, the representative for UNHCR in Israel published a rare press release, calling on Israel to consider alternatives to its current “warehousing” of migrants.

The release was titled “Israel’s new laws and policies do not live up to the Spirit of the 1951 Refugee Convention.”

UNHCR has previously criticized the amendments to the anti-infiltration law, and even brought its position before the High Court of Justice, but, until now, has refrained from making public statements. In the press release published Sunday, the agency said that in principle it supports establishing a residence facility for asylum seekers, but not in its current incarnation at Holot.

Meanwhile I searched around to see if the UNHCR was also blasting one of the newest members of the UN Human Rights Council, Saudi Arabia, for deporting (not just warehousing but actually deporting!) thousands of Somalis on a regular basis.  I see in 2010 the UN did call out S.A., but am not seeing anything since and obviously the Saudis didn’t listen to the UNHCR nearly 4 years ago.

Waiting!  Waiting!

Photo is from this story about Africans protesting at US embassy in Tel Aviv.  Wouldn’t those get-ups just make the average Israeli say, sure you will fit right in here!  Maybe such protests would work its magic on the Saudis too!

20,000 African ‘asylum seekers’ marched in Tel Aviv over the weekend, demand their “rights”

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update:  UNHCR blasts Israel’s treatment of would-be “refugees” (here).  So where is the blast at Saudi Arabia?

Those paragons of Muslim charity in Saudi Arabia can deport Africans by the thousands with no public outcry, yet, Israel is called evil for not giving asylum to tens of thousands of Africans who would soon turn Tel Aviv into Marseille!  The double standard is outrageous, and heck S.A. actually has the land to accommodate their fellow Muslims.

From 972Mag:

Over 20,000 asylum seekers, mostly from Eritrea, assembled in Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square Sunday morning to demand recognition as refugees. Across Israel, asylum seekers went on a three-day strike, and more protests were planned.

In recent weeks, the government stepped up the arrest and imprisonment of African asylum seekers who entered the state without permits. Several months ago, Israel’s High Court of Justice struck down a law authorizing the state to lock up for three years any person who entered the country illegally, and in some cases, indefinitely. But last month the Knesset passed a new law, authorizing the state to hold asylum seekers in “closed” prisons for a year. A new “open” holding facility named “Holot” began operating in the desert, where asylum seekers can be held indefinitely until their eventual deportation.

The government has stepped up enforcement measures against Israeli businesses that employ asylum seekers in recent weeks and months and municipalities have been shutting down shops and restaurants owned by Africans, adding to a feeling of despair in the asylum seeker community.

The general strike is the latest step in the African protest campaign against the recent measures.

There is more, go to 972Mag for the story and especially the photos.

Aljazeera puts the number of protesters at 30,000, here, called the largest “migrant rally” in Israel’s history.

See our category Israel and refugees for more on the issue.

African migrant protests continue in Israel

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment
Netanyahu: They can either go to the new facility or go back to their home countries.

We reported on one of the protests here on Saturday.

Now The Times of Israel tells us that protests have continued.  There were many arrests.  The protestors don’t like the new law in Israel that requires that the migrants be detained in a facility each night until their asylum claims are processed, but are free to go wander around and protest during the day.  Emphasis below is mine.

Hundreds of African migrants, mostly Sudanese and Eritreans, and human rights activists marched in Tel Aviv on Saturday night shouting “freedom” and “no more prison,” in protest of the implementation of the Israeli government’s policy to detain illegal migrants.

The protesters demanded they not be sent to detention facilities in the Negev and that they be granted full refugee status.

According to some reports, the number of demonstrators reached over 1,500.

[….]

The demonstration came days after migrants staged marches, on two separate occasions, in protest of their detention at the newly established Holot facility in the south.

On Thursday, close to 130 migrants protested the arrests of their fellows, who were apprehended by police during a gathering in front of the Prime Minister’s Office on Tuesday.

[….]

Since last Thursday, 480 African migrants, mostly from Eritrea and Sudan, were transferred to Holot, which is located in the Negev desert and can hold as many as 3,000.

On Sunday, 250 migrants fled Holot for a sit-in in Jerusalem to demonstrate against rules keeping them in the detention center. Hundreds of migrants were arrested during the sit-in.

I’ll wager that all this protesting is not winning over the average Israeli.

The fact that the migrants are not happy with the new facility with small dining areas and recreation areas, a bed, food, freedom in the daytime, etc. says to me that they aren’t that destitute and are being egged-on by Leftists—members of the ‘human rights industrial complex’—which are eager to break down borders the world over.  Breaking down Israel’s borders would be a real feather in their caps.

The facility has an open-door policy in which residents are permitted to leave the site during the day but are required to return three times for a roll call. The Holot gates are locked between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. every night, during which time all residents must be behind its fences. Around a dozen migrants were to be housed in every dorm room, and each wing, with a capacity of 140 residents, has its own dining room and recreation areas.

Here is Prime Minister Netanyahu, as always, cutting to core of the issue:

“The infiltrators who were transferred to a special facility can stay there, or return to their home countries,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement Tuesday.

See our special category, Israel and Refugees, for more.