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African Refugees in Israeli Prison
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Created: 11/04/07
Last Edited: 01/10/08
Views: 3552
Appreciations: 79
Comments: 13
Project featured on 1/9/08
From: Dan Seltzer's Portfolio
African Refugees in an Israeli Prison
A two day visit to the new tent-camps built a specially for the growing flow of African refugees (mostly from Darfur) crossing the Egyptian border.
A two day visit to the new tent-camps built a specially for the growing flow of African refugees (mostly from Darfur) crossing the Egyptian border.
Entering the prison one feels a sudden stillness and a grave tension. The men crowed together in small groups, usually formed by their ethnic or national origins: Sudan, Eretria, Congo, Ghana, Togo, Cot d’Voire, Burkina Faso and even one from Iraq. Their life here swings by a curious pendulum, a tedious boredom on the one hand and the authority’s slow and mysterious process on the other. Having no papers, no radio, no TV or phones, they slowly circle the half-shaded yard, awaiting their turn in the over looking office where interior officers sit by a low ranking court judge, together forming a flawless mechanism. After gathering a brief account of their story the officials demand to expedite their deportation; they then appear before a judge who must wight there claim in light of the UNs' report. So far only a few were given official temporary refuge. The rest are either given to work manual labor for a transitional period or remain in prison until their final deportation.
Formally dubbed “Ansar 3”, the 3rd version of an infamous prison in southern Lebanon, the Israelis are now extending its facilities to inhabit the African refugees who for the past months are crossing the Egyptian border in growing numbers. This rather new phenomena has so far attracted the local press due to the majority of Sudanese amongst them. But the problem exceeds the tragedies of Sudan. Deep in the desert the prison now holds about 400 refugees, around them preparations are being made to hold more then a thousand. And though the Israeli government has yet to post a formal decision on the issue, the authorities are well on their way to extradite them back. Even the local human rights organizations are focusing on the Sudanese issue �" maybe counting on the publics’ awareness of Darfur. But not only war and genocide drives them here: local strife, weak governments, ruthless war-lords, slave herders, pandemic hunger and a thirst for honest living and work - the African condition.
The pages they bring back from the interior officers seem to transmit nothing but a brief statement: that the prisoner knows he has illegally entered Israeli soil, that he agrees to his temporary imprisonment and, accordingly, that he’s aware of Israel’s lawful intention to deport him. They sign and then try to decipher the Hebrew document, but the guards won’t help, nor will most of the local media who come to view and marvel the extra humanitarian effort their government has so quickly assembled. Compared to the camps in Africa, remarks the head gourd, this is heaven. Or maybe, if only to follow his apologetic imagination, compared to hell this looks somewhat like purgatory: only no one seems to be sure where it leads.
Or maybe, better yet, compared to the refugees from WW2 who come to seek asylum in what was then a British colony this looks grimly familiar. But then again they were Jewish not Africans, and while one is profoundly known as antisemitism �" this here is a well hidden liberal racism. This popular alarm from losing the Jewish (and “western”) majority to the Muslims (be they Arab or African) barely excuse Israel’s refusal to recognize and unite Palestinian families from both the 48 and 67 wars �" but this same argument now seems even more grotesque in light of “the thousands!” of refugees awaiting in Egypt lest they should learn of the Israeli weakness. In all the official statement I could read the judge was consistent in quoting (and perhaps in copy-pasting) two high court announcements: that Israel is committed to the international protection of human rights and that wail doing so it must protect its citizens from the “good of a few” (strangers). The combination of both seem to highlight one of the hypocrisies of our liberal though: that wail the one hand fights gloriously for humanity the other hand “balances” its actions for the “good” of a known few, though completely disagreeable to countless others. With this in mind, a solution has recently formulated between Olmert and Mubarak: from now on all refugees who somehow manage to escape the shoot-on-sight Egyptian border police and cross into Israel are immediately handed back to the Egyptian. In return Mubarak promised Israel they will not be transported to their native lands, though no one really knows what will become of them. Perhaps the 48 refugees who were transported back to Egypt only last month know.
Some B/W side shots
Taken on September 2007 with two cameras: 35mm and 6\4.5.
Due to questionable editorial reasons the article (commissioned be Yediot Tikshoret) was canceled.
Due to questionable editorial reasons the article (commissioned be Yediot Tikshoret) was canceled.
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