Israel’s plan to deport Africans is dividing the country

An uncomfortable comparison

COMPARISONS with dark chapters in Jewish history tend to elicit the knee-jerk Israeli response of asur le’hashvot, the Hebrew for “you can’t compare”. But a government plan to deport more than 34,000 African migrants to Rwanda is provoking more hand-wringing than usual, not least because Israel itself was created by refugees and survivors of the Holocaust.

The government has proposed a plan to offer financial incentives including the payment of $3,500 to African migrants who agree to leave Israel “voluntarily” and go to Rwanda or Uganda. It said that those who do not agree to leave may be expelled by force or imprisoned.

In response activists in Israel are promising to hide Africans threatened with expulsion in their homes. They have named their campaign to provide shelter the “Anne Frank Home Sanctuary”, after the Dutch-Jewish girl who hid with her family from the Nazis in Amsterdam....Continue reading

Source: Middle East and Africa http://ift.tt/2FBXysL

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