African Asylum Seekers in Israel

Possibly worse off than Palestinians.

The Israeli Knesset [has passed] a new law which would authorize the government to round any of the 55,000 African asylum-seekers currently in the country off the streets and into a desert detainment camp.

After all nine Supreme Court justices unanimously struck down the centerpiece of the government's anti-African legislation in September, the amendment was rapidly replaced with another. The High Court ruled then that to jail without trial people who have committed no crime except to seek asylum is an unacceptable violation of their human rights. To circumvent the ruling and keep the Africans behind bars, the government said it would allow them furloughs lasting a couple of hours at a time, and thus the place in which they would be held by force could no longer be properly called a jail.

In other respects, the new amendment is even more barbaric than its earlier version. While the January 2012 legislation mandated three years of incarceration, the December 2013 legislation allows for indefinite detention. As with the officially-designated prisons where asylum-seekers have been held until now, Israeli officials openly declare that the detention center is designed to convince the Africans to give up all hope of a normal life in Israel and convince them to take their chances back in the countries they fled from.

[...]

[The Israeli government] 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.

[...]

As long as the government doesn't deport tens of thousands of Africans in a matter of days, and instead only rounds them into a glorified ghetto a few thousand at a time until they despair of the frying pan and elect to jump back into the fire, Israel's allies in Washington, D.C. will likely remain silent.

  Black Agenda Report

I think you can bank on it.

Isn't it interesting that a people whose major complaint in the world is that they have been mistreated and driven out of numerous other countries would vehemently seek to ban any other race or population from their own?

But, I must admit that this may not be the will of the majority of Israelis.  We know from our own immediate experience that a people's will is not necessarily embodied in its government.