Imagine, if you will, that the Israeli border police fired on Sudanese refugees sneaking across the border from Egypt. Now imagine what would happen if they killed a woman and critically injured four others, including women and children. Now imagine the number of headlines screaming about it in the world media.
That is exactly what happened yesterday, only it wasn’t Israelis that killed a Sudanese woman trying to sneak into Israel. It was the Egyptian border police.
Egyptian police shot and killed a Sudanese woman and seriously wounded four others Sunday on the Sinai Peninsula as they tried to sneak into Israel, a local police officer said.
Many refugees trying to enter Israel from Egypt have been arrested, and some wounded, by police, but Haja Abbas Haroun’s death was the first of its kind.
Note how the AP does not quote exact numbers, which it does in every article describing dead Palestinians (or Iraqi civilians or American soldiers in Iraq, for that matter). A general “many … have been arrested” and “some wounded” suffices. Here’s where you get numbers, in the very last paragraph of the article:
Many Sudanese find life difficult in Egypt, a country that struggles to provide jobs and social services for a growing refugee population. Egyptian riot police violently cleared a refugee encampment in central Cairo in 2005, killing nearly 30 people.
Go search on articles about Israel’s care of Sudanese refugees from the last few weeks, and you will see a markedly higher number of articles. There was a spate of articles all over after Israel said it would return to Egypt any Sudanese refugees that got into Israel. Funny how the treatment of Sudanese refugees in Egypt merits almost no world notice—until those refugees flee to Israel, where they know they will find better treatment.
It’s also a mystery to me as to why the UN doesn’t work with Israel to take care of the Darfur refugees. Oh, wait. They’re already taking care of the refugees in Egypt, and they’re doing such a great job, the refugees are fleeing to Israel instead.
I’m conflicted about this issue. On the one hand, the refugees need to be taken care of, and as Jews, it is our responsibility to take care of those in need. But Israel has more than enough on her plate these days, and she has her own problems with poverty and joblessness. Where will Israel find the funds and human resources to take care of an influx of Sudanese refugees?
This is clearly a case of the UN not doing its job, and the world having a separate standard for Israel and for the rest of the world. There will be no uproar from the UN, and very little from human rights organizations, over this incident. Haja Abbas Haroun will be buried and forgotten—because Israelis didn’t kill her. So there’s no need for outrage.
Israeli Double Standard Time: It’s in effect every day of the week that ends in “y.”
> Where will Israel find the funds
> and human resources to take care
> of an influx of Sudanese refugees?
it’s not every day you have a genocide taking place within easy driving distance. Israel should dig deep and find the resources, manage the risks, etc, in order to help these people.
Maybe a friendly country far away can be found to house them and help, in order to mitigate the obvious risk of terrorist infiltration.
I’m thinking Japan, for some reason. no point in blowing yourself up in a refugee camp in Japan, after all, so the jihadists will have to make do with free meals and call it a win.
Instead of looking the other way, the world should establish a dedicated refugee organization for Sudanese fleeing persecution and poverty, and fund the construction and supply of camps in Israel — where, after all, these victims of Islamic charity want to go.
Call it UNDER — UN Darfur Emergency Relief. In honor of their desire for Judaic refuge, establish the camps in Judea itself, with overflow perhaps in Samaria.
Maybe after we clear the rabble out of Gaza, we can resettle a couple of million Darfurian refugees in their own state along the Mediterranean coast — Israel’s first true Islamic ally!