Race, Religion and Rounding Up Africans in Israel

The 55,000 continental Africans that have arrived in Israeli in recent years do not claim to trace their ancestry to ancient Israelites, nor do they claim to practice a variant of the religion written about in the Bible. In other democracies, neither of these are necessary to make a case for immigration, and that is why asylum-seekers from the same nations as those who have entered Israel are granted refugee status by the United States and the European Union in over 80% of cases.
The horror stories of forced labor and ethnic cleansing recounted by these asylum-seekers when they managed to reach Israel’s borders should have been enough to melt the hearts of even the most security-conscious Israelis. But they were met by a powerful propaganda machine that inflamed anti-African sentiment, well oiled from decades of instilling in the hearts of Israelis a fear of Palestinians, other Arabs and non-Jews in general. And so they have suffered a fate far worse than the first group of Africans, since they have no American citizenship to leverage in their own favor.

”Official police statistics show that the crime rate of African asylum-seekers is significantly lower than that of native Israelis.”

To nullify any empathy their tales of torture would elicit, the Israeli government claims that more than 99% of these Africans experienced no persecution at all, and that they only came to the country to make more money than they would have at home. It has refused to review almost all applications for refugee status – and then claims that this is evidence that almost all don’t deserve it. It won’t allow almost any Africans to work – and then claims that their resulting widespread poverty is evidence that they are a blight on Israeli society. It won’t grant them access to nearly any medical services – and then claims that they pose a major health risk.

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