Growing anger in Israel over refugee deportation

At first authors protested, then El Al pilots, followed by school principals, psychologists and Holocaust survivors. Together they managed to mobilize large parts of the Israeli public to protest against the deportation of tens of thousands of asylum-seekers and economic migrants to a grim and dangerous fate in Africa, drawing on a strong collective memory of the Holocaust of European Jews and humanistic Jewish values that at times seem to have disappeared.

It is too early to tell whether the growing protest would succeed in causing the right-wing government headed by Benjamin Netanyahu to ease the decree of deportation. But regardless, it will force the leadership to answer questions of principle on Jewish ethics and mutual responsibility. In other words, the mass deportation of African asylum-seekers will not pass quietly.

This is a relatively young protest, which has gathered steam in the last week. It started following preparations to implement the infiltrators law the Knesset passed in December and the closure of the Holot refugee detention center in the Negev Desert. As a result, the government decided on a plan to deport infiltrators to a third country in Africa. According to the plan, whoever does not agree to leave to Rwanda or Uganda, in exchange for $3,500, will be imprisoned. According to estimates, between 20,000 and 40,000 people are at risk of deportation.

The first public act of protest was led by several dozen respected authors, including winners of the Israel Prize, Amos Oz and A.B. Yehoshua. In a Jan. 18 letter to government ministers, they wrote, “We call on you to act morally, humanely and with compassion worthy of the Jewish people, and to stop the deportation of refugees to the hell from which they fled before it starts. Otherwise, we will have no reason to exist.”