By Hadas Ziv, Executive Director, Physicians for Human Rights Israel
Edited version originally published as a comment in Hebrew on Israeli website Ynet, 11.1.10. Translation into English by JNews
"It is a strategic decision, that will ensure the Jewish and democratic nature of the State of Israel," said PM Netanyahu, when he decided to adopt the IDF's plan to erect a fence on parts of the Israeli-Egyptian border. The PM's honesty stems from the general loss of shame among our leaders: No more security excuses, but clear and unapologetic racism. But this honesty does include some untruths too, the first of these being that fencing in the border has nothing to do with democratic values, and this is not the only misleading comment in the words of the Prime Minister.
First untruth: "Israel will remain open to refugees of war". The fence will be an obstacle to all those who flee via Egypt into Israel. It will not distinguish between those who are refugees and will eventually be recognized by Israel for asylum and residency and those who are infiltrators. Who can ensure that, for a refugee fleeing from an Egyptian soldier ordered to open fire, the fence will not be the difference – of a few seconds – between life and death? Why not make a safe space inside Israeli territory, for refugees to escape to?
Second untruth: "[Israel] will not allow the exploitation of its borders for a flood of illegal foreign workers". Most migrant workers arrive in Israel with a work visa and lose it because they are employed in ways that violate human rights. Netanyahu and [Minister of Interior] Yishai will do nothing against this, because the state, the contractors, and other interest groups make a good profit from importing and deporting these immigrants, in what is well-known here as the 'revolving door' policy.
Third untruth: "We are talking about a social ticking time-bomb". The refugees escaping Sudan and Eritrea reach us after going through horrible trauma. They have seen family members murdered before their eyes; some have been raped and abused either in their home country or on their way to Israel. They need emotional rehabilitation before they can work and adapt to life in Israel. Without rehabilitation they will continued to be pushed to the margins of society through no fault of their own. Defining them as guilty, as ticking bombs - itself an unacceptable image that has been used by those who justify torture - is a disgrace in a state that should have the plight of refugees at heart.
Fourth untruth: "The Prime Minister seeks to address the problem in a multiple systemic way". If the Israeli government sought to meet the challenge of absorbing the refugees in a systemic way, it would examine the moral considerations of the matter and the nature of the state of Israel, before reaching a decision. It is predictable, if unfortunate, that the army and the police, whose task is security, should demand complete closure, fences, electronic devices and personnel. But politicians might be expected to use foresight and to establish neighbourly relations that would eliminate the need for fences. They might be expected to remember that the State of Israel was one of the initiators of the international convention for the protection of the rights of refugees, and that when we say "never again," we mean the moral imperative to protect all refugees, irrespective of their religion or country of origin.
"Before I built a wall," said Robert Frost, "I'd ask to know what I was walling in or walling out, and to whom I was like to give offence." But here we build first and think later. Perhaps there is no reason to be surprised that Israel is shutting itself exclusively into its Jewish definition and abandoning universal messages and morals. This ambivalence has guided us from the start; we cannot look honestly at the refugee issue on the international level because we fear to look honestly at the Palestinian refugee issue. And so we will continue to speak contradictory sentences and hide behind fences that will separate 'us' from 'the other'. This is the systemic approach that characterizes the Israeli vision today, and it dominates us through cement and concrete, from the separation wall in the occupied territories to the walls of the villas on the Jaffa beach, or the separation wall between the impoverished town of Or Akiva and rich Caesarea. Yes, we feel safe behind walls and we invest in them more than we invest in our children (education) or our lives (health; and while building them we never noticed that it is ourselves we are fencing in, and our own horizons that we are blocking.
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