JERUSALEM — Israel has reached an agreement to send thousands of
African migrants to an unidentified country, according to a court
document obtained Monday, a plan that has elicited criticism over its
potential harm to the migrants.
The plan, if implemented, is an attempt to address one of Israel's
more pressing issues: what to do with an influx of roughly 60,000
African migrants who have sneaked into Israel from Egypt over the past
eight years.
Their arrivals have put Israel in a bind. Many Israelis
believe that the Jewish state, founded in part as a refuge for Holocaust
survivors after World War II, has a responsibility to help the
downtrodden. But others fear that taking in tens of thousands of
Africans will threaten the country's Jewish character and question the
extent of Israel's moral obligations beyond those of other nations.
Most of the migrants have come from Eritrea or Sudan, some fleeing repressive regimes and others looking for work.
