From Mondoweiss: Israel has refused to take a single refugee.
Opposition leader Isaac Herzog called on Netanyahu’s hard-line right-wing government “to act toward receiving refugees from the war in Syria, in addition to the humanitarian efforts it is already making.”
“Jews cannot be indifferent while hundreds of thousands of refugees are looking for safe haven,” Herzog added.
Netanyahu, however, refuses to admit any asylum-seekers, arguing Israel “lacks demographic and geographic depth.” “We must control our borders, against both illegal migrants and terrorism,” the prime minister said.
In fact, the Israeli government is going so far as to build a wall on the Jordanian border to prevent refugees from coming into the country. They plan on connecting the wall with those already built on the Egyptian and Golan Heights borders.
An anti-refugee cartoon in conservative Israeli newspaper Makor Rishon
Journalist David Sheen shared a racist cartoon published by right-wing Israeli newspaper Makor Rishon. The cartoon depicts a drowning Syrian refugee child crying for help while a white European man “drowning” in a crowd of (literally) brown people also cries for help.
Israel has been notoriously harsh in its treatment of refugees, particularly Africans. The Israeli government has granted refugee status to just 0.07% of African asylum seekers. Thousands of refugees are held in internment camp-like conditions in the Holot detention center. Israeli politicians call African refugees “infiltrators” and “cancer,” and openly use the n-word to refer to them.
