Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Da Forward - Come Israele è riuscito a fare una legge sull'immigrazione clandestina che farebbe inorridire perfino Maroni

http://forward.com/articles/109596/
Illegals in Limbo, Now Cast Out of Israel’s Center
By Nathan Jeffay
Published July 15, 2009, issue of July 24, 2009.
Tel Aviv, Israel — They are the inhabitants of Israel who live in
limbo. Since 2005, an estimated 12,500 people have arrived in Israel,
seeking asylum from Sudan and Eritrea.
One group, the Sudanese, are suffering because their native country is
Israel’s enemy; the Eritreans, because their country is Israel’s
friend. Israel refuses to give residency to people from enemy states,
and therefore will not consider Sudanese for refugee status. The only
exception was in 2008 when Israel gave temporary residency to 450
arrivals from the war-torn Sudanese region of Darfur as a one-time
humanitarian gesture, though without granting them official refugee
status.
Israel also refuses to offend Eritrea, with which it has trade ties,
by deeming its citizens in need of a haven from persecution, meaning
that their status is also not up for consideration. Israel’s only
concession here has been to grant temporary work permits to 2,000
people in 2008 in a one-time decision, while again assiduously
avoiding granting them offical status as refugees.
“These two groups are in limbo because the government does not
consider their requests,” said Sigal Rozen, public activities
coordinator for the Hotline for Migrant Workers, an advocacy and
support organization. Yet, based on reports of horrific human rights
conditions in their native countries, few deny that many, if not most
of them, have fled their homes out of a legitimate fear of persecution
for religious, ethnic or political reasons.
The limbo surrounding the status of most Sudanese and Eritrean asylum
seekers has translated, until now, into a laissez-faire approach on
the ground. Israel has taken almost no action except for imposing a
stint of administrative detention on them when they arrive, as most
do, through illegally crossing in from Egypt. In the absence of a
deportation policy, almost all are eventually released into an
uncertain life in Israel.
But now, the government is getting tough, keeping them, along with
anybody else who lives in Israel illegally, from the city of Tel Aviv.
Plans are being pushed to give prison time to Israelis who help
illegal entrants.
At the start of July, a newly created Interior Ministry task force
began enforcing a previously ignored official directive. It tells
authorities to carry on what they have been doing for years — namely,
to turn a blind eye to the fact that people are residing and working
illegally, but on one condition: that they are not in the center of
the country.
This directive was introduced in February 2008, before which asylum
seekers could move about freely. It came into being after the Tel Aviv
municipality complained that while it was doing its best to provide
services to all residents, it was having difficulty coping with the
concentration of almost all the asylum seekers in its area.
Since July 1, the task force, known as Oz (Hebrew for “strength”), has
sent its inspectors to conduct regular raids in Tel Aviv, detaining
around 400 people breaking this restriction. Oz does possess the power
to jail illegal immigrants administratively without formal judicial
charge but, for the most part, has subsequently released them outside
the center of the country.
Following the directive, authorities have accepted their residence
north of Hadrea or south of Gedera (with the exception of Eilat) and
turned a blind eye to their employment in these areasDespite being
illegal, they are protected by employment law and entitled to social
security as long as they register with tax and National Insurance
authorities, which they are able to do.
But asylum seekers and groups that advocate on their behalf say that
enforcing the so-called Hadera-Gedera restriction amounts to
condemning them to poverty and isolation.
“People come to Tel Aviv because they know someone and will be able to
eat and then find a job,” Oscar Olivier, an asylum seeker from Congo,
told the Forward. “Taking them to Haifa or Jerusalem, where they know
nobody and don’t know the language, will mean they have no choice but
to steal.”
Avital Banai, refugee program coordinator at the nongovernmental
organization Brit Olam, said: “It is far more difficult to find work
outside the center of the country. As well as that, the services and
support networks they need are concentrated here in the center, and
here it’s possible to rent somewhere to live without papers and
collateral; this is far rarer in the north or south.”
In addition to the hotline for migrant workers, the services
concentrated in Israel’s central region include medical care. There,
Physicians for Human Rights offers the only health care available for
those not paying National Insurance, which includes many of the
immigrants.
In early July, Oz arrested an asylum seeker from Sudan on his way to
receive medical treatment at the Physicians for Human Rights-Israel
open clinic in Jaffa. “I know that I am forbidden to be in Tel Aviv,
and I live in Or Akiva [just north of Hadera],” said the asylum seeker
to a Ministry of Justice review tribunal, “but I had an appointment
with Physicians for Human Rights.”
Following the incident, Physicians for Human Rights released a
statement condemning the Hadera-Gedera restriction as a “draconian”
hurdle to obtaining medical treatment for refugees and asylum seekers.
The Ministry of Interior rejects such claims. Interior officials say
they are doing what they can to accommodate asylum seekers, but argue
that the only way Israel can cope with the large numbers is if they
spread out.
The ministry also claims that the directive is its way of making the
best out of a challenging situation. “It’s not instead of them being
legal, but rather instead of them being in jail,” ministry spokeswoman
Sabine Hadad told the Forward.
Whatever hardships enforcement of the Hadera-Gedera restriction causes
for asylum seekers, the situation is freer than it will be if the
Knesset passes the new Prevention of Infiltration Law, which is due to
go to the chamber’s Interior Committee at the end of July. The
proposed legislation passed a first reading in May 2008, and on June 3
it passed a further Knesset vote — a re-endorsement needed for all
legislation after a general election. The vote was 59-1.
The law, which is being promoted by Defense Minister and Labor leader
Ehud Barak and supported by the coalition, would increase the maximum
sentence for illegal residence in Israel to seven years from five for
“enemy nationals,” a category that includes the Sudanese.
No less important, the law would make Israelis assisting such illegal
residents in virtually any way subject to a similar sentence. This has
provoked a major outcry among Israeli human rights groups.
“At Yad Vashem, we give honor to people who helped Jews escape the
Nazis, yet we are apparently willing to punish people escaping
genocide,” Rozen said. “I can’t think of anything more absurd.” In
Banai’s view, “It’s as if we, as Jews, have learned nothing from
history.”
The Forward contacted Barak’s office several times for comment, but
received no response.
Lawmakers who have voiced support for the law have cited mostly
economic grounds. “Israel is acting in a few directions to halt the
massive infiltration of job seekers,” Tzipi Hotovely of Likud told
Haaretz. “The state is morally obligated to take care of war refugees,
but at the same time, it must stop migrant workers, and that is the
intent of the bill.”
Another section of the proposed law would protect, by statute, the
controversial military practice known as “Hot Return,” currently only
an army directive.
“Hot Return” is a practice by which army officers return illegal
entrants crossing in from the Sinai back to Egypt immediately upon
their entry. It is currently in force along about a quarter of the
Israel-Egypt border, over which virtually all illegal entrants enter
Israel.
Critics say that returning infiltrators to Egypt is akin to condemning
them to death. “We know that Egypt has been returning hundreds of
Eritreans to their country, putting their lives at risk, making ‘Hot
Return’ a completely unacceptable practice,” said Anat Ben-Dor, who
heads the pro bono Refugee Rights Clinic at Tel Aviv University. She
claims that it contravenes the non-refoulement principle of
international law, which prohibits sending asylum seekers back to
their countries if they could face persecution there.
Bar-Ilan University international law expert Avi Bell disagreed,
saying that despite his moral objections to the policy, given that
asylum seekers subject to “Hot Return” have not left the border, it is
“legally gray but probably legal.”

 wrote:
e il vero scandalo e' che i Reform sono cittadini.

 e il vero scandalo e' che i Reform sono cittadini.
e qui apprendiamo che Nahum approva le leggi razziste, se sono fatte
da una certa parte. And counting...