Abraham Rabiinovich, Jerusalem
The Australian – 12 January 2010
ISRAEL yesterday announced plans for a new border fence, this one aimed at keeping out African migrants rather than Palestinian bombers.
Construction of the fence, to be built along the border with Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, is aimed at stemming the inflow in recent years of thousands of Sudanese and other Africans across the open frontier seeking work. Residents of southern Israeli towns such as Eilat and Arad have complained of what they term an overwhelming influx that has hurt their quality of life.
In approving construction of a fence along the more accessible stretches of the 170km-long border, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu termed it “a strategic decision to secure Israel’s Jewish and democratic character”.
Although the border has often been tested by Bedouin drug-smugglers and, more recently, by Palestinian militants from the Gaza Strip attempting to carry out attacks inside Israel, army patrols have been deemed sufficient to cope with the problem. However, the mounting tide of economic migrants has proven a more difficult challenge.
Internal Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch last week said that up to 200 African infiltrators were caught every week on the border. Many others reach Tel Aviv, where they often sleep rough while they seek work.
Israel has been loath to close the border to political refugees because of the memory of Western countries barring entry to German Jews on the eve of World War II.
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And in other news, Saudi Arabia still blocking access to Jews and racially-profiling people according to ethnic and religious tradition.
http://www.mideastweb.org/log/archives/00000205.htm
Saudi may not be a perfect state let alone a Muslim state, I’d be the first to agree. However to compare the atrocities/war crimes/killing of innocent men, women and children that is perpetuated by the illegitimate apartheid state of Israel to Saudi Arabia is ludicrous.
Also, America/Israel both racially/Ethnically/religiously profile people, is it OK for them but wrong for other countries?