Published: 25 January 2018
Last updated: 4 March 2024
Over the past two weeks, Shira, 23, has become active in “Stop the Expulsions,” an ad hoc student group that has spontaneously formed to oppose the government’s plan to forcibly expell asylum seekers from Israel. The group has organised demonstrations, conducted training sessions for “explainers,” and published sets of facts and talking points.
“Stop the Expulsions” is one of dozens of groups and thousands of individuals – including writers, academics, rabbis, pilots and Holocaust survivors- organising against the government’s plan. Citing Jewish values, universal human rights, Biblical injunctions and lessons from the Holocaust, the opposition is passionate and determined. But can it actually dissuade the government from implementing the plan?
There are currently approximately 35,000 - 38,000 undocumented persons in Israel, almost all of them from Eritrea and Sudan who came across Israel’s porous southern border until 2013, when Israel completed construction of a fence to stop the influx. In addition, there are also an estimated 22,000 Ukrainian and Georgian migrants who have entered Israel over the past two years as tourists, and an unknown number of foreign workers who have stayed long after their visas expired.
These people want to go home when the situation is safe for them. Until they can, we, the Jews who were refugees, must provide for them.”
The Africans, whom the government refers to as “infiltrators,” are the only group towards whom the government has formulated any policy, ostensibly because the other groups at least originally entered the country legally. The majority of the Africans have settled in inner-city, crime-ridden South Tel Aviv, which has a population of approximately 29,000, most of them Mizrahi’im.
Prohibited from working, with no source of support or income, the Africans crowd the streets, parks and alley ways. Along with repeated declarations that “Israel must remain a Jewish state,” the “rescuing” South Tel Aviv is the primary reason that the government gives for the expulsions.
IN DECEMBER, the Knesset voted to deport the Africans to a third country. Those who leave “voluntarily” will be given the sum of US$3,500; those who do not leave “voluntarily” will be imprisoned indefinitely. The Supreme Court has ruled that this is legal, as long as they will be deported to a safe destination and that Israel follows up on their welfare.
The government says that it has signed agreements with “several” countries and said yesterday that individuals will only be deported to Rwanda in accordance with international law, after Rwanda denied it would accept them against their will. The media has reported that Rwanda will receive US$5,000 for every individual it accepts. Rwanda, however, has denied that it has come to any such agreements.
Israeli groups aiding the asylum seekers report that the papers and monies of those who have left Israel for Rwanda have been confiscated by government officials, leaving them vulnerable and without any legal status. Some have continued to flee to Europe through Libya, where they are in danger of trafficking and violence. An unknown number have been reportedly tortured and killed.
As reported in The Jewish Independent (Tel Aviv neighbours face off in the streets over African refugees), it was in South Tel Aviv that the first large demonstration against the deportations took place, with activists claiming that the expulsion was based on discrimination of people of colour – Africans and Mizrahi’im alike – and part of a scheme to develop and gentrify potentially valuable real estate in the area.
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Several days later, the prestigious Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem, in conjunction with Rabbis for Human Rights, held an open meeting against the expulsions, which was attended by hundreds, including rabbis of all streams and denominations.
“How have we fallen so low that we are going to throw them out?” Rabbi Donniel Hartman, president of the institution, demanded. “With all of our history? 35,000 people are a threat to the Jewishness of the State of Israel?! That is ridiculous!”
At that meeting, Rabbi Susan Silverman introduced the Anne Frank Home Sanctuary Movement initiative, known in Israel as L’ Mivakshei Miklat Israel (for asylum seekers in Israel) to hide refugees in people’s homes in case of mass expulsions. Within days, the initiative, which is coordinated by HRH, raised enough funds to pay for a full-time coordinator and more than 250 individuals and families have registered.
“If it comes to this, I will be harbouring a fugitive, and that is illegal,” says Mira, who has registered and asked not to give her full name because she is a civil servant. “But my grandparents were fugitives in Poland, and they survived the Holocaust because of righteous gentiles who broke the Nazi law and hid them. Being a human being is more important than being law-abiding.”
In a similar vein, graduates of the Hashomer Hatzair youth movement are circulating a petition calling on the kibbutzim to take the refugees in, both to ease the tense situation in South Tel Aviv and, if it comes to this, to shelter them.
LAST WEEK, the Knesset held an emergency meeting organised by MKs from Meretz, the Zionist Camp and the Joint List, and attended by hundreds of citizens. Outside, a dozen asylum seekers stood on makeshift auction blocks made of milk crates, while an auctioneer called out, “get your slaves, slaves for half price,” over a megaphone.
On January 18, a letter signed by 35 of Israel’s most prominent writers and intellectuals, including David Grossman and Amos Oz, was submitted to the Prime Minister. “We call on you to stop the deportation of asylum seekers from Eritrea and Sudan, men and women carrying horrific scars on their bodies and souls from their journey and from torture camps in Sinai, and children born in Israel who are asking of us only one thing: to live,” their letter read.
With all of our history? 35,000 people are a threat to the Jewishness of the State of Israel? That is ridiculous!”
A few days later, a similar letter was sent to Netanyahu by 470 academics from nearly all of Israel’s universities and colleges. Over the past few days, hundreds of teachers and principals have signed petitions addressed to Netanyahu and Education Minister Naftali Bennett, as have journalists, psychologists, social workers, medical and para-medical personnel, 400 film and television personalities, and other professional groups.
Pursuing the legal route, early this week, 119 human rights activists petitioned the Supreme Court to freeze the agreements that the government has purportedly signed. Citing the money allegedly promised to the Rwandan government, the petitions state that “this agreement makes each of us into an active investor in the Rwandan dictatorship.” The court has given the government until next Thursday to respond.
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TWO OPPOSITION GROUPS, Holocaust survivors and flight crews, have received particular attention. Leah Balint, 80, a child survivor of the Holocaust from Poland who established a data base to enable Jewish children who were saved by Christians to reconnect with their families and Judaism, is contacting other survivors and asking them to speak out.
“I think of [the ship] the St Louis, crowded with Jews that no one wanted so they were sent back to their death in Germany. We must not do the same thing. These people want to go home when the situation is safe for them. Until they can, we, the Jews who were refugees, must provide for them.”
Over the past two weeks, Zazim Community Action, a non-profit that organises social campaigns, has spearheaded a call to pilots and flight crews to refuse to fly, based on the actions of German pilots who refused to fly after being notified that a refugee was on board and thus prevented 222 deportations between January and September 2017.
Within days, more than 9,000 individuals had signed the petition. Initially, three pilots wrote on their Facebook pages that they would not fly the deportees, and on January 24, more than 150 airline personnel, including flight and ground crews, published in the Haaretz newspaper that they would not fly African asylum seekers back to what they consider to be a death sentence.
Another effort is aimed at clogging up the government’s bureaucratic efforts. The government is currently recruiting people, especially especially young men with combat experience, to carry out the expulsion, even offering bonuses to those who are particular successful at finding the “infiltrators.”
Organising quietly, students who oppose the expulsions are applying for the job – hoping that in that way they will hamper the process. “In the government’s thinking, I’m an ideal candidate,” said Tamir, with a smirk. “I’m an officer in an elite combat unit, and I do reserve duty, so I’m like ‘the salt of the earth.’ It will give me great pleasure to let this government know that people like me do not support these immoral efforts.”
And in a somewhat off-beat effort, wearing a black star on her chest, Ayala Ring, the granddaughter of Jewish refugees, told the online publication, Ynet, that she and “many of her friends,” would marry refugees in to prevent the government from deporting them.
Netanyahu agrees asylum seekers will only be deported to Rwanda according to international law (Haaretz)
A state founded by refugees does not expel refugees (Times of Israel)
El Al pilots say they won’t fly deported asylum seekers to Africa (Haaretz)
Amos Oz, David Grossman, Etgar Keret implore Netanyahu: Do not deport asylum seekers (Haaretz)
THE TONE OF THE PROTESTS is impassioned but Professor Gadi Wolfsfeld, of Communication at the Interdisciplinary Centre, Herzliya, says that he doubts that Israelis will engage in mass acts of civil disobedience over this issue.
“Effective civil disobedience requires intense anger and large numbers, and I don’t think that either of these are strong enough to challenge the authorities. Since the 1960s, except for scattered incidents, there has been little real civil disobedience in any Western country.”
So what effect can all these efforts have? It would appear that at least the administration is attempting to improve its own image. A source close to the government told The Jewish Independent that Netanyahu has ordered his ministers to lower the levels of the rhetoric and to avoid statements that could be construed as racist or inflammatory.
And the Director General of Population and Immigration Authority, Professor Shlomo Mor Yosef, turned to the Israeli media on Thursday, soothingly insisting that “only single men, no families and no children born in Israel, would be expelled, and only to countries where they would face no dangers.” Or as the Prime Minister said yesterday, all asylum seekers would be deported according to international law.
Says Shira, the student activist: “The government is trying to placate us. I don’t think the public will buy it. And I do think people will risk breaking the law. I don’t know if we’ll stop the expulsions, but we have to try. This is against everything we believe in, as Jews and as human beings.”
Main photo: Eritrean asylum seekers, who entered Israel illegally during the past years, hold placards in October showing their compatriots who they say were killed after being deported to Eritrea, during a protest against (Menahem Kahana/AFP)
Second photo credits: David Bachar, REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes, Daniel Bar-On, Leonardo Cendamo /AFP
