Jewish Groups To Netanyahu: Don’t Deport African Asylum Seekers
African asylum-seekers protest outside Israel’s Holot detention center in the Negev, February 2014 Image by Getty Images
By Nathan Guttman January 16, 2018
In a rare rebuke of Israeli government policy, two major Jewish American organizations are publicly expressing their concern over a plan to deport thousands of African asylum seekers.
״As American Jews, one of our greatest concerns is the well-being and security of Israel; we want to see it prosper and overcome all of the challenges its precarious location imposes on it,” the groups state in a letter to Prime Minister Netanyahu. “We also care about our shared Jewish values and refugee heritage — a very human concern that reaches across borders and distances—and unifies us as a people.”
The Israeli government recently approved a plan to force African migrants, mainly from Eritrea and Sudan, to leave and resettle in third countries in Africa, or stay and face incarceration in an open detention center in the Negev desert. Human rights groups warned that asylum seekers who had agreed to leave in the past faced violence and dangers.
“We therefore strongly urge the Israeli government to refrain from implementing this plan,” ADL and HIAS conclude their letter to Netanyahu. “Addressing this issue in a humane and responsible manner remains no easy task, but it is the Jewish and ethical thing to do.”
Contact Nathan Guttman at guttman@forward.com or on Twitter @nathanguttman
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
