Some balance in the world?

Israel vows entry ban on Darfur refugees

Laurie Copans, Associated Press in Jerusalem
Monday August 20, 2007

The Guardian

Israel yesterday said it planned to turn back refugees arriving from Sudan's war-torn Darfur area, prompting arguments over whether the Jewish state had a duty to take in people fleeing persecution.

David Baker, an Israeli government spokesman, said people from Darfur would not be immune from Israel's ban on unauthorised migrants.
He said: "The policy of returning anyone who enters Israel illegally will pertain to everyone, including those from Darfur."

Late on Saturday Israel handed over 48 Sudanese, allegedly including Darfurians, to the authorities in Egypt, security officials in Egypt said.
For months Israel has been concerned about how to deal with the flow of Africans, including some people from Darfur, who have passed over its southern border with Egypt's Sinai desert.

The decision to turn back asylum seekers from Darfur contradicts the pledge of Israel's prime minister, Ehud Olmert, to "absorb" the newcomers. Mr Baker said that those already in Israel would be allowed to stay, the turn back policy affecting only new arrivals.

Fighting between pro-government militias and rebels in Darfur has led to the deaths of more than 200,000 people and displaced 2.5 million since February 2003. Most of the displaced people remain in Darfur, but the UN estimates that 236,000 fled to Chad. Tens of thousands of other asylum seekers have sought refuge in Egypt. Israel's response to the arrivals has been contradictory: threats to expel them have clashed with humanitarian sentiments inspired by the memory of Jews trying to escape Nazis. Eytan Schwartz, an advocate for Darfur refugees in Israel, said about 400 refugees had entered Israel in recent years. "The state of Israel has to show compassion for refugees after the Jewish people were subject to persecution throughout [their] history," he said.

But Ephraim Zuroff, of the Nazi-hunting Simon Wiesenthal centre, said the Jewish people could not be expected to right every wrong just because of their past. "Israel can't throw open the gates and allow unlimited access for people who are basically economic refugees."

Asylum seekers found sanctuary from mass murder by going to Egypt, Mr Zuroff said, and the desire to enter Israel was "motivated primarily by the difficult living conditions and bleak economic prospects in that country".
Israeli law denies asylum to anyone from an "enemy state", which includes Sudan - whose Muslim government is hostile to the Jewish state and has no diplomatic ties with it.

About 2,800 people are estimated to have entered Israel illegally through Sinai in recent years. Nearly all were from Africa, including 1,160 from Sudan, and many had first spent months or years in Egypt. This June, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, as many as 50 people were entering illegally each day.

Egypt, which has been urged by Israel to step up surveillance of the border to prevent the illegal transit of goods and people, has increased its efforts recently. However it denies any obligation to take back refugees. Many Sudanese find life difficult in Egypt where, two years ago, riot police killed nearly 30 people when clearing a refugee encampment in Cairo.

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A poem by Theodore Roethke, and a painting by John Squire - to remind me that 'though there are murderers in this world', there is also art.

The Waking

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.

We think by feeling. What is there to know?
I hear my being dance from ear to ear.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Of those so close beside me, which are you?
God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,
And learn by going where I have to go.

Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?
The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Great Nature has another thing to do
To you and me, so take the lively air,
And, lovely, learn by going where to go.

This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.
What falls away is always. And is near.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I learn by going where I have to go.

Theodore Roethke

John Squire