And it makes me wonder…

Settlers throw stones at Palestinians as IDF soldiers stand by in the West Bank village of Asira al Qibliya. April 30, 2013 (Oren Ziv/Activestills.org)

Ring, ring! Ring, ring!

Operator: Atrocities Unlimited, how can I help you?

Palestine: Hello, my name is Palestine.

Operator: Hello Mr. Palestine, what can I do for you?

Palestine: Yes, well, I understand you end atrocities and human rights violations.

Operator: That’s very true. Are you suffering from an atrocity or human rights violation, sir?

Palestine: Yes, I am. I have been under occupation for 46 years.

Operator: Occupation?

Palestine: Yes, occupation.

Operator: Sir, you do understand that we assist on a Worst Come, First Serve basis?

Palestine: Excuse me?

Operator: A Worst Come, First Serve basis.

Palestine: What does that mean?

Operator: It means we deal with the worst atrocity first. You are not the worst atrocity, sir.

Palestine: I didn’t say I was, but… but… I am suffering.

Operator: I’m sure you’re suffering but there are others out there who need our help before you, sir.

Palestine: But…

Operator: …and until then you just have to sit quiet and wait your turn. Will that be it, sir?

Palestine: But wait! OK, OK… so, tell me where I am in line… can you do that?

Operator: 31.

Palestine: 31?!?!? There are 31 peoples before me?

Operator: Yes, sir.

Palestine: But, what does that mean? How long do I have to wait?

Operator: That depends.

Palestine: On what?

Operator: Many things. For example, if there’s an international intervention in Syria, you might move up a space or two.

Palestine: A space or two?

Operator: Yes, sir.

Palestine: I don’t feel well. Who else is in front of me?

Operator: Well, according to my board here, there’s some rough stuff going down in Sudan, China, Mali, Myanmar and others, to name a few. But, it’s all pretty fluid.

Palestine: So… You can’t tackle more than one at a time? I have to wait?

Operator: I’m afraid so, sir.

Palestine: But I’ve been waiting so long.

Operator: Well, have you tried a change of tactics?

Palestine: I’ve tried everything.

Operator: Patience, sir. All I can say is: patience. And thank you for calling Atrocities Unlimited!

The trip was organized by ASSAF – Aid Organization for Refugees and Asylum Seekers in Israel, with the participation of Physicians for Human Rights, the Hotline for Migrant Workers and Amnesty International. Aid workers and reporters are not allowed into the prisons, so we were only able to enter the construction site of the Sadot facility, which is still under the jurisdiction of the local regional council. We observed the three other facilities from the outside.

There are some 60,000 African asylum seekers in Israel, most of them from Eritrea and Sudan. Many of them survived atrocities not only in their countries of origin but also on the way. Especially notorious is the situation in the Sinai Peninsula, where refugees are subject, for ransom, to kidnapping, torture, rape, and murder. Those who arrive in Israel are the strongest and the luckiest.

Despite having signed 1951 Refugee Convention, Israel doesn’t review the asylum claims of Eritreans and Sudanese, and doesn’t grant them residency rights. The government has extended group status to all Sudanese and Eritreans, which protects them from deportation, but doesn’t give them the right to work or to any other social services in Israel. Israeli politicians have pledged a tougher approach to the refugees, as a means of deterring others from attempting to cross the border to Israel.

Ketsiot, near the Israeli-Egyptian border

Early this year, the Knesset passed the amendment to the Prevention of Infiltration law, which sanctions the detention of everyone who enters Israeli illegally, including minors, for a minimum of three years. A person from an enemy state (for example, anyone from Sudan) can be imprisoned indefinitely. The construction of the prison camps is intended to enable the implementation of the anti-infiltration law.

The Ketsiot area is one of the most remote corners in Israel, a desert region south of Gaza on the Israeli-Egyptian border. We traveled there on November 1, and the heat became unbearable at around noon. Temperatures easily exceed 100 degrees in the summer, and winter nights are very cold.

The first asylum seekers were brought to Ketsiot prison, in which Israeli used to hold thousands of Palestinian prisoners (500 of them are still there). Right next to it, Israel built the Saharonim facility, which has been operating for several years. Across the road, construction of the Sadot prison is under way, and a couple of miles east, one can see rows of tents that comprise the “Nachal Raviv” holding camp.

This is Nachal Raviv. It was built on army land in order to bypass the local zoning committees and objections expressed by the regional council, which claimed that the conditions were not suitable for humans. The planned capacity is said to be between 2,000 and 4,000 inmates.

Nachal Raviv holding facility (photo: Noam Sheizaf)

Construction work on the Nachal Raviv site stopped recently. This facility seems to be the least likely to be populated soon, yet it is still being maintained and could become operational on short notice.

Nachal Raviv holding facility (photo: Noam Sheizaf)

This is the construction site for the Sadot facility, nicknamed “the pizza” for its round shape. Sadot will be able to hold up to 8,000 people.  The regional council has approved the zoning and construction plans for Sadot, and a representative from the council told us that if the construction goes according to plan, the facility will be “suitable.” Still, one should remember that the people who are about to be held here – for indefinite periods of time – have committed no crime.

Sadot prison (under construction). (photo: Noam Sheizaf)

The rooms in Sadot are mobile units. Here is a picture I took through one of the windows. As you can seen, the bunk beds are already ready. The rooms are not air-conditioned and they get very hot in the summer. Sections may have one air-conditioned space where inmates will be able to spend time during the days, but those details aren’t yet clear.

A room in Sadot prison (photo: Noam Sheizaf)

One also needs to consider the effect of holding such a huge population in such conditions for months and years. Even if diseases can be avoided, social problems, from violence to drug abuse, almost certainly can’t. We were told that some inmates in Sadot may be able to work in the area during the day, but those details are not yet clear.

Ketsiot is located on next to Sadot. Taking photos was nearly impossible (it’s an army base), but here is one shot I took through the window. Ketsiot is currently said to hold 500 Palestinians and around 800 asylum seekers, and it has room for more.

Ketsiot prison (photo: Noam Sheizaf)

Saharonim prison is just to the south of Ketsiot (the two can be mistaken for one facility). It is currently reported to hold some 1,700 asylum seekers, including women and children (including infants). Some inmates are said to be held there for years. Saharonim has room for up to 3,000 people.

Here is a picture from afar of the center of the Ketsiot/Saharonim compound.

Saharonim and Ketsiot prisons (photo: Noam Sheizaf)

The thought of children growing up between barbed-wire and watchtowers is heartbreaking.

While the new law allows the state to imprison all asylum seekers, there seems to be no clear arrest policy. It seems that everyone who crosses the border these days is sent to prison. The number of those entering Israel is very low these days, thanks to the fence Israel has constructed, but also because IDF soldiers are said to be operating on the other side of the border, where they hand groups of refugees over to the Egyptian army.

The police is also using the new anti-infiltration law in criminal cases involving asylum seekers. A new decision allows the state to detain Africans who were arrested on suspicion of criminal acts, even after those charges were dropped.

Here is the entrance to Saharonim. Once a refugee is there, it’s very hard to get him or her out.

The gate to Saharonim prison (photo: Noam Sheizaf)

Related:
Abducted from Sudan, tortured in Sinai: Mother and child languish in Israeli jail
A scorching desert jail for asylum seekers, with no way out

By Amir Heinitz

“No one cares about what happens to refugees anyhow. Last week 300 Egyptians were detained without cause,” expressed an employee at a Cairo-based refugee organization in response to the arrest of Monim Atron Soliman, a Darfuri refugee activist, just weeks before Egypt’s first democratic presidential elections. Fear runs deep. Publicly expression of political views constitutes a gamble. Unencrypted phone calls, emails or Facebook risk being intercepted. According to journalist and activist Hossam el-Hamalawy, the dreaded Egyptian intelligence services continue to work as usual. Security agents monitor, intimidate, and shut down NGOs, and detain troublemakers and political opponents suspected of collaborating with the enemy — an enemy that is everywhere and nowhere. In early October 2012, Amnesty International observed that “endemic abuses by police have continued since the uprising.”

For a decade, Monim Atron Soliman lived in a world where secrecy and safeguards against infiltration by government spies were the basics of everyday life. Born and raised in Darfur, a student of political science at the University of Khartoum, he fled in 2002 during what turned into the first genocide of the 21st century. Monim’s route first took him and his family to a refugee camp near Nyala, in South Darfur. Due to his studies and his open opposition to the regime of Omar al-Bashir, Monim quickly fell on the radar of the Sudanese National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS). After continued threats to his life, he tried in vain to escape to South Africa, and eventually landed in Gaddafi’s Libya in 2004.

Monim Atron Soliman

Upon his arrival in Tripoli, Monim became one of many Africans in the land of the self-proclaimed “King of Kings of Africa,” and one of nearly 2,000 Darfuri refugees. Throughout his regime, Gaddafi invited Africans of various nationalities to Libya to work in Libyan hospitals and ministries or serve as mercenaries in the army. Just as Gaddafi supported outfits like the IRA, British trade unions, or Austrian right-wing populists, his regime also allowed Sudanese opposition groups, like the Sudanese People’s Liberation Movement (SLM), the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), and the Sudanese Liberation Army to operate on Libyan territory. Monim established the “Sudan Contemporary Center for Studies and Development” (SCC) and the “Swadna Organization for Sudanese Youth,” which concentrated on teaching and community activities.

For the Sudanese, like for most Libyans, open organization remained impossible, but Gaddafi saw the opportunity for greater influence in Sudan by tolerating the activities of Darfuris. In the spring of 2005, he invited Sudanese rebels to a series of peace conferences at the Grand Hotel in Tripoli. Monim also received an invitation. A few days before the start of negotiations in September 2005, friends warned him that agents of the Sudanese Embassy were following him. On the way back from the Grand Hotel, three Libyans chased him down the road, as Sudanese agents lay in wait to beat him with an iron pole. Darfuri residents of a nearby neighborhood drove away the attackers and discovered Monim, his face so smashed and bloodied that he was identified only through his clothes. It took twelve hours to find a doctor who would treat Monim, for a fee of $1,200. He was comatose for 25 days and lost sight in his right eye.

The position of the Sudanese and other Africans in Libya began to change fundamentally in 2004, after the international community began to reengage with Gaddafi. Italy and other European countries saw an opportunity for gas concessions in Libya, and to stop African migrants traversing the Mediterranean. From then on, Gaddafi prevented African refugees from crossing the sea to Lampedusa and other European gateways. The EU invested 60 million euros into strengthening the Libyan borders, including the country’s detention and deportation capacity. As a result, Sudanese, Eritrean and Somali refugees who arrived in Libya after 2005 would often disappear in prisons indefinitely, undergo torture, and as surviving refugees in Cairo recount, be finally pushed over the closest Libyan border or left to die in remote desert areas.

After 2004, the popular refugee route that once ran from the Horn of Africa via Egypt to Libya, came to a stop in Egypt. Refugees and migrants began gather in the slums of Cairo. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) registered around 50,000 refugees and asylum seekers in 2010, and 95,000 in 2011. But taking into account non-registered migrants asylum seekers brings the unofficial numbers in Egypt to anywhere from 500,000 to 4 million.

The route to Israel

Starting in roughly 2005, refugees began taking the route through the Sinai to Israel. The Egyptian military enacted a shoot-to-kill policy for refugees who attempted to cross into Israel through the peninsula. At least 70 refugees, but possibly many more, have been shot dead by the Egyptian army since 2007. In 2010, Israel began the construction of a border wall along the western Negev frontier to keep out “infiltrators.” The allocated budget of $337 million is expected to be vastly exceeded.

The fence on the Egypt-Israel border (Yuval Ben-Ami)

The Egyptian government has struggled to re-establish authority in the Sinai. In addition to the terrorist cells that have made headlines in recent months, some Bedouin – mostly members of the Bedouin tribe Tarabin, and to a lesser extent Tayaha – have used the historic power vacuum to deepen their exploitation of migrants on their way to Israel. In 2009, reports began to emerge of refugees being tortured by Bedouins in camps in the Sinai to extort ransoms from relatives living abroad. Demands range from $2000 to $ 40,000. Refugees and Bedouins opposed to the practice have reported the removal of organs from refugees whose relatives are unwilling or unable to pay, often resulting in death.

Recovered from the attack, Monim moved to Cairo, where he and other Darfuris rebuilt the SCC and reported on human rights violations in both Egypt and Sudan. The SCC is one of a number of associations representing the Sudanese population in Cairo. Incidents of the Sudanese embassy tracking and persecuting Sudanese refugees in Egypt are widespread. “If you leave your house, we’ll get you,” is a familiar threat in late-night phone calls. A number of refugees from Sudan and Ethiopia reported that they have been pursued by gangs, who they have reason to suspect were hired by the Sudanese or Ethiopian embassies. The children of Sudanese refugees are kidnapped and identification papers stolen. Others have been assaulted by motorcyclists, who reportedly speak Arabic with a Sudanese accent.

The Egyptian police remain inactive at best. Victims usually have to find and deliver the culprit to the police station, and police often do not recognize UNHCR identification cards, which they sometimes even destroy. Racial discrimination against Sudanese leads to frequent mistreatment or abuse by the police. It is UNHCR Egypt, not the Egyptian government, that registers and recognizes Sudanese, Eritreans, Iraqis, Somalis and Ethiopians seeking asylum. While this recognition grants the refugees limited legal status in Egypt, and gives them access to small amounts of financial and medical assistance, the absence of the Egyptian state from the process has resulted in the growth of unchecked parallel structures, leading Michael Kagan in a 2011 paper to pronounce a “Country of UNHCR.” Refugees have complained that their cases are not always treated confidentially by UNHCR, who they fear cooperate with Egyptian authorities.

Sudan remains a significant grain supplier for Egypt’s ever growing population. Egypt’s dependency on Sudan’s support in the conflict over Nile water rights with Ethiopia is a major element in Sudanese-Egyptian relations. Since the ascension of the Muslim Brotherhood, which is ideologically close to the ruling National Congress Party in Sudan, Sudanese activists believe that Sudanese-Egyptian security cooperation may intensify – to the detriment of the Sudanese refugee population in Egypt.

The SCC researches human rights violations in Sudan, and intimidation and violence against refugees in Egypt. Fighting the removal of organs of African refugees in Egypt and organ trafficking in the Sinai increasingly comprise the SCC’s other activities. In January 2009, the Egyptian state security stormed Monim’s apartment and arrested him alongside two other members of the SCC. He was accused of being financed by Israel and smuggling Sudanese migrants through the Sinai. After a representative of the South Sudanese SPLA in Cairo advocated heavily with the Egyptian government, Monim was released on condition of shutting down the SCC and stopping all public discussion of the Darfur issue. Monim reported several times by phone to the security agencies and was finally left alone until the outbreak of the Egyptian revolution.

Life after the revolution

With the political upheavals in Egypt, insecurity for refugees increased. Police presence has been scant in shanty towns. UNHCR and Caritas, the only official health provider for refugees in Cairo, remained closed for months. Two Sudanese women set themselves ablaze in front of the UNHCR office in early 2011. As frustration rose, up to 2,000 refugees demonstrated in front the UNHCR office in Egypt for week. UNHCR staff was beaten with shoes by enraged refugees.

Some refugee activists saw new opportunities to further their political aspirations after the political changes in Egypt in 2011. On July 9, 2011, South Sudan declared independence after 20 years of war against the North. A couple of weeks later, about a hundred Sudanese of all ethnic groups demonstrated in front Sudanese Embassy in downtown Cairo against the Bashir regime. One year later, in June and July 2012, students, lawyers, religious figures, and laborers demonstrated in Khartoum and other Sudanese cities, calling for lower food prices and the fall of the regime. Bashir cracked down on the protests with force. Activists have since been disappearing without charge.

The Egyptian revolution has been progressing in twists and turns. Offices of human rights organizations, like the Hisham Mubarak Law Center, were stormed and ransacked by the military at the beginning of the Revolution. A string of U.S. and German organizations were raided by government officials in December 2011. On October 15, 2012, the el-Nadim Center issued a report detailing 34 deaths, 88 cases of torture and seven of rape committed by the police during the first 100 days of Morsi’s presidency. Harsh criticism has been voiced by academics, opposition figures, and women activists against the constituent assembly, charged with drafting a new constitution to replace the one Anwar al-Sadat had tailored for himself in 1971, as merely replicating the protection of those in power, rather than establishing a legal system guaranteeing rights and freedoms as called for in the January 25 revolution. Refugee rights have not surfaced in the constitutional debate.

Disturbing the peace

In January 2012, the SCC and Monim were again targeted by Egyptian national security. He was again accused of illegally receiving funds from abroad to disturb Egyptian peace and order. The web portal Sudan Online reported that the Sudanese ambassador in Cairo, Kamal Hassan Aly, had demanded the Egyptian security authorities arrest and deport [Arabic] 30 members of the SCC to the Sudan. Monim and his newly wedded wife went into hiding for four months.

While the media is focused on the border conflict between South Sudan and Sudan, the conflict in Darfur has intensified. In January 2012, a paper circulated at the UN in New York and Geneva suggested the UNAMID mission in Darfur was too intimidated by the regime in Khartoum to fully research and report on battles and human rights violations. After meeting with Darfur rebel leaders from various groups in Uganda in September 2012, Ambassador Dean Smith, US Special envoy for Darfur, noted in an interview with Radio Dabanga that the security situation in Darfur had deteriorated since 2011. Smith sharply criticized the Sudanese army for bombing civilian areas in Darfur. The total of IDPs and refugees of the Sudanese conflicts in Darfur, Abiyei, the Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile State since 2011 alone stands at upwards of 500,000.

A UNAMID police officer patrols the Zamzam IDP camp in Darfur (United Nations Photo)

On May 6, 2012, Monim was arrested by the police and brought to Qanater prison, north of Cairo. Friends were not able to establish contact. Refugee relief organizations were informed, but prevented further information from surfacing to avoid jeopardizing negotiations for his release. SCC members feared that Monim would be secretly shipped to Sudan. Bashir Suleiman of the SCC recounted to me the story of a former SCC member who was murdered upon his return to Sudan, assuming that two other returnees he knew of were similarly threatened by the Sudanese intelligence services. According to the UN Refugee Convention, signed and ratified by Egypt, deportation of a recognized refugee to his country of origin is illegal, if there are reasonable grounds to believe that persecution will continue upon arrival.

With Monim in prison, his wife received threatening phone calls from the Egyptian secret service. Nothing further was known about her husband’s condition. Modeled after the online advocacy for Egyptian activist Khaled Said, who was kidnapped in Alexandria from an internet cafe by the Egyptian security forces and tortured to death in 2010, Sudanese refugees spread a picture of a demonstration in front of UNHCR on Facebook, entitled “We are all Monim Soliman.” In June 2012 it emerged that Monim Soliman Atrun had been resettled to Norway. At the time of his release, Monim reported that thirteen other recognized refugees – from Sudan (from Darfur and the Nuba Mountains) Somalia, the Congo, Somalia and Sri Lanka – had been languishing, some for more than two years, in Qanater with unclear charges. In early September an Ethiopian refugee activist reported that she had been in touch with three Eritrean refugees, who met the same fate.

As the euphoria of last spring has receded, new political forces have emerged and old ones beaten back. Little has changed for refugees in the region. The battle between repressive regimes, regional rebel groups, and urban opposition movements continues to displace and exile thousands in Sudan and the Horn of Africa. Countries like Egypt or Libya, themselves engaged in conflicts over national and religious identities, tribal or class power structures, economic resources and long-held privileges – are of their own accord unlikely to champion the cause of refugees any time soon.

Rather, despite the European Court for Human Rights’ ruling earlier this year against the expulsion by sea of 24 migrants by the Italian navy back to Libya, Italy has been busy drafting new anti-immigrant agreements with the newly elected Libyan government. Some 1,500 people died trying to cross the Mediterranean in 2011. In Israel, Interior Minister and Shas Chairman Eli Yishai announced that North Sudanese have until October 15 of this year to repatriate voluntarily (though it later emerged that he had done so without government authorization), and that “their lives will be made miserable” until they leave. The Israeli army has been reported to patrol 100 meters into Egyptian territory to keep migrants out. In response to Israeli human rights groups condemning an incident in September where a group of refugees was left in the scorching heat on Israeli territory, the foreign ministry announced it has “no legal obligation to let in anyone beyond the fence” and that “there has been no determination by any international body according to which Sudanese or Eritrean citizens are persecuted or that their lives are in danger in Egypt.”

Monim and his family live to see better days in Norway. (Although a recent diplomatic row between Sudan and Norway revealed that the Sudanese Embassy may be spying on Sudanese refugees in Norway.) Meanwhile, Taha, a Darfuri refugee, invited a few friends over to celebrate on a recent Thursday evening. Bedouins had kidnapped and tortured him with electric shocks for three weeks, after he refused to pay ransom for other refugees stuck in the Sinai. His body weakened from previous assaults and torture in Cairo and Sudan, his captors decided after consulting with a doctor that his organs were worthless. In the middle of the night they dumped him, naked and covered in blood, on a suburban road. After five days in the hospital he returned to his family, with his back and chest covered in long scars. Joyously jumping on their fathers lap, his young ones lift his shirt to peek at his scarred body. As he shakes back and forth, he says “I have seen sad days.”

Amir Heinitz is Cologne born journalist based in Berlin. He  worked with refugees in Egypt between 2010 and 2011, and previously researched migration and intercultural negotiations with the Truman Institute in Jerusalem. He studied international affairs in Brussels and Islamic and Middle Eastern studies at the Hebrew University Jerusalem. His main interests are migration, political movements, social mobility, marginalized populations and xenophobia. A version of this piece was originally published in German in Zenithonline.

I was reminded of the above when reviewing Oren Ziv’s images of the mother and daughter being arrested at a kindergarten in the Hatikva neighborhood of Tel Aviv. Naturally, no human can deny the human emotions as evident in the photos. Some will say that the Left is exploiting such images to make those who are for deportation feel and look bad. The Left will use these photos as evidence that people who have done nothing illegal are being treated as criminals.

Hence, you need the facts.

Entering a country without legal documentation is not a crime if you have legitimate reasons for doing so. In most cases, those reasons are based on the notion of having escaped persecution.

African refugees in Levinsky Park (Activestills)

Few would argue that the Syrians who have crossed into Turkey are not refugees, except, ironically, the Turkish government (which labels the camps which house them as “recovery centers” rather than “refugee camps”). Yet many would argue that the Africans currently in Israel, and those arriving, are not legitimate refugees. They are, their argument goes, jobseekers.

Whether it is the former or the latter, there is only one way to find out: processing those that are in Israel.

The Israeli government has refused to do so, fearing that the majority of those from Sudan and Eritrea, who make up the majority of the asylum-seeking Africans in Israel, are, according to international law, legitimate refugees. If they are confirmed as such, Israel would be required to provide them with temporary housing (a refugee camp being an acceptable standard), freedom of movement, and the ability to work. Ironically, the guidelines are in place thanks to Israel of the 1950s.

By not processing them, the Israeli government of 2012 – and thus the Israeli people – get to absolve themselves of any responsibility. The result is that these people live in a state of limbo, exploited by a right-of-center bloc seeking reelection based on, among others, instilling fear in the minds of the general public.

The United Nations High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR) defines a refugee as someone who:

…owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality, and is unable to, or owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country.

(Gender and sexual orientation are not explicitly included within the initial UNHCR definition, and their absence has been the source of some controversy. However, for many countries – not including Israel – gender and sexual orientation-based persecution fall under the “membership of a particular social group” ground.)

The UN’s Refugee Agency was initially created in response to the displacement in Europe after World War II. The idea was to ensure that there would never be a repeat of the atrocities of the 1940s when an entire people (legitimate refugees) were turned away by countries that found it domestically inconvenient to accept them.

(As a side note, the UN’s agency for dealing with Palestinians, and thus Palestinian refugees, was set up in 1949, before UNHCR. It is for this reason, among others, that Palestinian refugees maintain a different status than UNHCR refugees. That agency, UNHCR, does not for the most part deal with the protection of Palestinians. UNRWA, however, does call for the right of return of refugees to their homes. Danny Ayalon, the Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister, has repeatedly called for UNRWA to be dismantled and for Palestinians to fall under UNHCR’s classification, which, ironically, could be worse from Israel’s perspective.)

UNHCR’s mandate requires member countries to process individuals claiming refugee status. It also requires those who are found to be legitimate refugees through such processing to be granted specific rights, as part of a short-term solution. The agency then sometimes helps resettle to third-party countries those who are given such status.

Asylum seeker child, Sept 5, 2012 (photo: Haggai Matar)

Emotions aside, this is the legal framework for dealing with the Africans coming into Israel.

The other half, if Israel wishes, is to strengthen border defenses to ensure less individuals are able to enter the country without documentation. There is a moral argument to be made, but one that Israel, as a sovereign country, has the right to make. But the issue of deciding how to keep people out has nothing to do with the legal obligations of the country to those who are already here.

Those things should not be mixed by one group of people who are too eager to dismiss another group of people. Among them could be, and likely are, people who will die if sent home. That’s not an emotional statement.  That’s a fact.

Click here for more coverage on seeking asylum in Israel

By Anat Ben-Dor

There are things one can do only when no one else is looking. Detaining a baby girl a year and three months old for a period of three years, for instance. We met Ambat* yesterday in Saharonim prison – an active child, she was dressed in red and was held in her mother’s arms. We sat in the oppressive 30 degree heat for an hour, and while we interviewed her mother, little Ambat attempted to entertain herself. She hopped around gleefully, laid down on her stomach in order to peek under the caravan, scanning the floor in the hopes of finding some new form of entertainment.

The two of them have been in this prison, surrounded by fences, security towers and barbed wire for over three months. Trapped in a tent with 12 others – six women and six children. It is doubtful whether Ambat’s mother, who is only 23, knows that she and her daughter will spend the next three years in this place.

Ambat and her mother Zabib* have been jailed for “infiltration into Israel.” This past January, the law was amended to to allow placing “infiltrators” under administrative detention for a period of three years, in order to deter future “infiltrators” from entering Israel. However, Zabib never intended to go to Israel. She was born in a small village in Eritrea, where she was married. Her husband was drafted into the military, leaving Zabib in the village, where she could barely support herself through selling food. She saw her husband just once every half year. When she was six months pregnant, her husband defected to Sudan, where he lives today. After the birth of her daughter, Zabib and Ambat left Eritrea in an attempt to reunite with her husband in Sudan. Shortly after crossing the border, the two were kidnapped at gunpoint by smugglers. That is where their long and painful journey began.

Zabib and Ambat were transferred from one person to another on their way to Sinai. Sometimes, they would lay down in the trunks of vehicles, and sometimes inside boats. The elderly people that were with them during the journeys often fainted due to the trying conditions. It is still unclear how little Ambat managed to survive. In the end, they were brought to a smugglers’ camp in Sinai. There, Zabib’s legs were cuffed, while the smugglers demanded a ransom of $25,000 in exchange for her release. This is when the baby turned into her mother’s protector. While other women were raped and sexually abused, Zabib was only the victim of beatings and lashings. The smugglers often dangled Ambat out a window, threatening to throw her in front of her mother. They also slapped her when she cried. Zabib says that Ambat learned from the smugglers: she gently strokes her mother’s cheek before suddenly slapping her, in much the same way as the smuggler slapped Ambat.

They stayed at the camp for five long months. Some of the other detainees died after being tortured, or from the harsh conditions. In the end, however, after her family sold all of their belongings, Zabib and Ambat were released. After crossing the border with Israel, Ambat was brought to Soroka Hospital due to fatigue and malnourishment. She is currently in Saharonim Prison, and the future that she faces is especially frightening: this is a baby that will never taste freedom – will never take a walk in the park or along the beach. In the next few years, she will sit with her mother behind bars, victim to Israel’s policy, despite the two not having done a thing to deserve such a fate. It is doubtful that she will meet her father in Sudan, or whether she will ever be able to reunite with him. It will be interesting to see what kind of behavior she will adopt from Israeli prison.

When we said goodbye, Ambat blew us kisses. Luckily, she is too young to know what awaits her.

*All names used in this piece are fake

Anat Ben-Dor is the clinical instructor of the Tel Aviv University Refugee Rights Clinic. This piece was originally published in Laissez Passer.

Read more here on seeking asylum in Israel.

Related:
Asylum seekers can now face years in prison over false accusation
A scorching desert jail for asylum seekers, with no way out

Research shows that the people behind “Innocence of Muslims,” the film which disrespects Islam and the Prophet Muhammad and set off riots across the Middle East after it was uploaded to YouTube, are nothing more than a few Islalmophobic individuals. They produced a very a low cost, low quality film which aims to mock the Prophet Muhammad, and present Islam as a violent and irrational religion.

The producers of the film were able to achieve more than what they desired or expected. It was not the film itself that had an impact on those watching, but rather the violent response of Muslims protesting the film in Libya, Egypt, Yemen, Sudan and other countries. These violent protests gave power to the producers. Without them, it is probably fair to guess that the film would not have gotten any attention or almost any views.

However, by now thousands of people watched the trailer due to the protestors. Since one of the goals of the film is to show Muslims as violent irrational people, the violent protestors confirmed the negative image of Muslims. Those who do not know much about Islam or Muslims are watching the protests on television; they see Muslims attacking embassies, and appearing angry and untrustworthy.

If we take a deeper look, I am convinced that the self-proclaimed Muslims attacking embassies and foreigners are the true enemies of Islam. It is they who are insulting the Prophet legacy more than any film or production. The real challenge facing Muslims today is how stop such people from becoming the face of Islam.

The film is disgusting and disrespectful, but should these protestors punish diplomats from foreign countries? Aren’t these diplomats guests that should be respected? One cannot fix a wrong with another wrong, and attacking Americans or foreigners to punish few individuals behind the film is a criminal act. Instead, a good Muslim would follow in the footsteps of Prophet Muhammad. The Prophet used to tell his followers not to respond to insults with insults, but rather to do good to those who insult. He said, “I have family that I do good to them, but they insult me, and I visit them and they don’t reciprocate. Therefore choose the better path. A person you have enmity with, be to him like a dear friend.” Perhaps self righteous Muslims who are violently protesting should take more time to learn about Islam, rather than use it in a disgraceful way.

According to the Hadith (saying of the Prophet), the Prophet said, “he who believes in God and the Last Day must honor his guest” (Sahih Bukhari). When the prophet was asked by other Muslims to pray against their unbeliever enemies, he responded. “I was not sent to curse but to be merciful” (Sahih Muslim).

One of the stories I grew up hearing in my Islamic school is about the Prophet’s Islamophobic neighbor. This person would leave his garbage outside the Prophet’s house every day without fail. One day, the neighbor was to sick to leave his garbage. The Prophet was so concerned for his neighbor that he went to visit him at his home in order to offer his assistance.

Now, as I watch the television stations and read the calling of some self-declared Imams to protest – to attack and kill – I ask myself why. Where did these people get their knowledge from? These self-righteous preachers and protestors are the ones insulting the Prophet and his legacy. While thousands of people are dying on a daily basis in Syria, these protestors seem more concerned with a crappy film than with innocent lives. Why aren’t they in streets protesting the massacres in Syria?

Muslims today face a challenge to protect Islam from radicals and ignorance. Preachers, leaders and Muslim communities must speak louder and louder against such violence. However, the ignorance is a result of an education failure. These protestors did not learn the Islam that teaches peace and love, but rather have gotten a corrupted version which calls for violence.

Yet in the midst of this depressing week, I found some inspiration. My encouragement came from Libya, the place where U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens was killed last week. People came out and spoke up against the thugs and killers in the name of Islam. Some Muslims decided to stand up to those trying to brand Islam as a violent, intolerant religion. Most importantly, they were willing to take responsibility. During the protest, people held signs denouncing the murder of the American ambassador. Other signs disowned the killers and apologized to the American people.

I found that the photo below generated much discussion on Facebook. Some took the negative route, comparing Muhammad to Jesus as if they were sworn enemies, while others claimed that this was a minority of Muslims who believe in peace and respect. What was most important for me is that people were inspired by this photo. Thousands of people liked and shared this photo because it strengthened hope in a future without religious enmity.

Muslims protesting the killing of the American Ambassador in Libya (facebook)

I believe the people in the photo represent the silent majority among Muslims. They represent a majority that needs to follow in the footsteps of the courageous ones who speak up and defend their faith. This is the kind of protest that honors Islam and the Prophet Muhammad. Now, we need more Muslims to toughen up, get rid of their indifference, get out and speak up for peace and against the misrepresentation of Islam.

By Joseph Monyde Malieny

March to UN refugee agency in Tel Aviv in demand of refugee rights. Sunday, June 10, 2012 (photo: Oren Ziv / Activestills)

This is a genuine, heartfelt letter to the great Israeli society, and an expression of the pain in my soul to Israeli authorities, due to their unethical attitude toward African communities in Israel.

We, the South Sudanese community in Israel, understood the decision by the Jerusalem District Court to allow our deportation. But we call upon the Court to base our return on legal procedures on repatriating refugees.

We came to Israel with our UNHCR documents. We are not regular illegal migrants who are sometimes deported by the migration police. But Israeli policy regarding the Sudanese has sabotaged our rights. We are here in Israel as refugees seeking protection, and we are appealing to the Court for legal status.

There is nothing worse than being unwanted in the home of your friend. After a life of tragedy and trauma, we now see hatred strike the human soul, as we live among our blessed brothers and sisters of Israel. Something deep within our core was shattered when we heard Interior Minister Eli Yishai make statements such as, “Muslims who arrived here do not even believe that this country belongs to us, to the white man.” Mr. Minister, we are not Muslims and we are not conquerors of Israeli land. We have our own blessed land in South Sudan, but due to the brutal Islamic regime in Sudan, we fled death to reach your country. Death is our first and our last enemy.

It has been so difficult for us to feel any sustained wind of love and respect. We ask ourselves: Will the time come when the pain we have experienced so intensely in Israel ever heal? I refer to pain in our souls, not physical pain. We came to Israel looking to heal our souls, seeking protection. We South Sudanese felt amazed from the moment we entered Israeli society.

But then the authorities made us feel such discomfort. According to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, “the breach of Israeli borders by infiltrators could threaten the Jewish and democratic state,” and in order to remove the “infiltrators” from Israel, he will begin by removing the South Sudanese. This statement shocked us; we felt the heat of hatred and racism that has occupied the air in Israel.

We were not equipped to understand how our early experiences of friendship fit with the hatred expressed by MK Miri Regev of Likud who called the Sudanese “cancer” in Israel’s body. Interior Minister Eli Yishai indicated that we have diseases such as Hepatitis B, measles, and AIDS. According to Minister Yishai, it turns out that Africans are the main source of “various phenomena such as the rape epidemic, violence and theft, although not all Africans are in that business.” Danny Danon of Likud attacked African people on his Facebook wall, writing that “Israel is at war with an enemy state of infiltrators established in Israel, and its capital is south Tel Aviv.” Michael Ben-Ari of National Union accused our kids of carrying unknown diseases and MK Aryeh Eldad called for the “shooting of whoever touches Israeli borders.”

But being a black man or woman doesn’t turn an African into a disease carrier.

With these descriptions, one begins to feel as though he or she has a tail or fur, rather than feeling like a being human among other human beings. As a result, the South Sudanese in Israel have lost the trust and respect of Jewish society, who now view us in general as wrongdoers.

I call on my African people who are going to remain in Israel to distance themselves from such evil things. Please, live in harmony with neighbors and friends. I will support the interior minister and other protective authorities in applying legal means to anyone who thinks of committing unlawful acts. Rape can scar a person for life, with emotional, mental, and physical scars. It damages psychological health and can cause a person to shut themselves down from people due to fear.

But we too have experienced fear, from their racist language and their fear of the demographic problem.

Despite all this, I would like to give special thanks to the head of Defense Ministry, Ehud Barak, as well as any other protective authorities, and each and everyone in uniform for their honesty at the borders. The values of Israel and Jews are with those people I met at the border and in prison when I entered Israel in 2006. I would also like to express appreciation for the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Avigdor Lieberman, for his leadership based on the rule of law; he has said that that “no person has the right to violate the law and resort to violence against others, certainly not to endanger lives.”

Joseph Monyde Malieny is a native of South Sudan and a Postgraduate in Government, Administration and Development Studies at the University of South Africa (correspondence). He has been in Israel since 2006 and is seeking asylum. He can be reached by email here.

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Last Friday, a couple of days after the south Tel Aviv riot, I interviewed William Tall, representative in Israel of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), and came away thinking that there is a way to settle the crisis decently, which I didn’t think there was before. Not that I believe Israel will settle it decently, just that there is a solution that would be fair to the African refugees, to the Israelis in south Tel Aviv, and to the State of Israel.

(Point of information: The current rate of Africans crossing from Sinai into Israel is about 1,500 a month, the same as last year’s. The 2,000-3,000 monthly figure I quoted last week was what Tall told me in late March, at the end of the “spike” in refugees seen from late 2011 into first months of 2012. Since then, the rate of arrivals has gone back to the average monthly rate for 2011.)

A solution to the refugee crisis has to 1) stem the flow of Eritreans, Sudanese and other Africans arriving, who in nearly all cases have no other country to continue on to afterward; 2) treat the refugees decently; and 3) relieve the pressure on south Tel Aviv.

Tall says the border fence Israel is building, and which can reasonably be expected to be finished by the end of the year, should bring down the numbers of new refugees ”dramatically.” He also says that once the camp for 10,000 refugees is built in the Negev, it could legitimately be offered as a refuge – in lieu of work permits – to Africans who enter the country even after the fence is completed. Thus, once the fence and the refugee camp are up and running (construction of the latter, however, is barely underway), Africans would know that even if they got through the fence, they would not be allowed to work here, which should deter the great majority from making the extraordinarily hellish, expensive trip through the Sinai to Israel in the first place.

Tall says that if Israel sets up a border fence with crossings where officials grant fair hearings to people’s appeals for asylum, and operated the refugee camp as an open, properly-run facility, Israel would be within its rights under international refugee treaties (signed by Israel itself) to deny newcomers the right to work.

“We’re not against the fence, and if they operate the camp in a proper way - good luck to the camp,” said Tall. He also said the rate of refugees coming here and their concentration in poor neighborhoods like Hatikva Quarter, where the riot took place, was ”a genuine and reasonable concern of the Israeli government.”

Whether Israel would give fair hearing to asylum requests at the border fence, and whether it would run the camp properly, with refugees being free to come and go, is, of course, another story. But it does seem at least possible to drastically reduce, if not altogether stop,  the number of refugees coming to this country - which now stands at upwards of 60,000 and which could grow indefinitely if nothing is done - without turning them away or denying them the means to get food, shelter, clothing and health care.

At the same time, though, the refugees who are here now have to be allowed to work. The legitimate fear that letting them work will encourage more to come should be allayed by the fence and, later, the refugee camp. Meanwhile, they can’t be left destitute for obvious moral as well as practical reasons – it forces them into crime. They can be given jobs that otherwise would go to Chinese, Thais and Eastern European guest workers. This would naturally distribute the refugees around the country, relieving the social pressure on south Tel Aviv.

In my opinion, Israel should rebuild a lot of the mobile home parks it built for the Ethiopian and Russian immigrants in the early 1990s and house tens of thousands of Africans there. I wrote last week that they should be absorbed by cities, towns, kibbutzim and moshavim while acknowledging that Israeli communities would never agree to it. But given the emergency in south Tel Aviv and various other poor neighborhoods, I think the government might agree to pay for mobile home parks.

Regarding the suddenly popular idea to deport the refugees, most of whom are from Eritrea, back to their home countries, Tall said that what he hears about Eritrea “makes North Korea sound like Alice in Wonderland.” He doubts the government would go through with the threats, citing a remark last year by Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon, no less, that Israel cannot send refugees back to a death trap like Eritrea.

But regarding the South Sudanese, who number up to 3,000 and whom the goverment is determined to deport, Tall said that if Israel first gives a proper hearing to each of them and makes no move against anyone whose safety or life would genuinely be endangered back home, Israel is within its rights to send the others back. He pointed out that about 800 South Sudanese have gone back voluntarily and another 100 or 200 want to.

“If you have somebody from Abyei [a border area between South Sudan and Sudan where there's been terrible fighting], you don’t want to send him back. But if, say, he comes from a family connected to the government with a house in Juba [South Sudan's capital], then that’s a different story,” said Tall.

Still, the South Sudanese are a maximum of 3,000 people; the Eritreans and Sudanese, who are about 50,000 combined, cannot be deported because they would be in grave danger back in their countries. In the case of Sudan, it is also an enemy country that has no relations with Israel, and is certainly not going to oblige it by taking refugees off its hands.

The statements by government ministers that Israel is seeking “third countries” to accept refugees, possibly with inducements of money and/or arms – this has been talked about for years, but no third country has come forward because they all have their own refugees and don’t want Israel’s too. ”There’s nothing new happening in that direction,” said Tall.

I looked at the UN’s figures for the worldwide movement of refugees last year, and it seemed to me that Israel was now taking in a much higher proportion of them, compared to its population, than any Western country. “I hear this a lot from people in the government,” said Tall. “If you look at the cumulative total over time, refugees make up less than one percent of Israel’s population. European countries have taken in much larger proportions than that.”

So we’re not so unique in being “flooded” by Third World refugees. As a tiny, prosperous country in a poor region, and a country that can be reached by land from Africa, we may be uniquely exposed to the world’s greatest pool of refugees – but the fence and refugee camp should narrow that exposure “dramatically.”

Israel is going to have many tens of thousands of Africans inside its borders for a long time, maybe indefinitely, and chances are that a few thousand additional Africans will continue to arrive year after year. If those who’ve arrived before the completion of the fence and camp are allowed to work , and they’re not living on top of one another in a handful of poor Jewish (and one or two Arab) family neighborhoods - if instead they are spread out, with many if not most living in mobile home parks for working refugees, then it seems to me this crisis can be solved in a decent, mutually satisfactory way.

Will it happen? With this government and with dangerous demagogues like Knesset members Miri Regev, Danny Danon and Michael Ben-Ari, I wouldn’t bet on it.

But on the other hand, if Israel can’t deport these refugees – and to deport someone, there has to be a country on the other end to accept him, and so far such a country hasn’t been found – then Israel will have no choice but to learn to live with these people as best it can.

William Tall, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’ man in Israel, is convinced there is genuine hope. So who am I, who is anyone, to say there isn’t?

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Here’s my suggestion for preventing more vigilante riots like last night’s in South Tel Aviv’s Hatikva Quarter. One, put lots and lots of older, cooler-headed cops and soldiers on the southside, and in Eilat, Arad and every other place where there are large concentrations of African refugees. The main purpose is to deter further attacks on them, the other is to cool the locals’ grotesquely inflated – though not entirely imagined – fear of getting murdered, raped or mugged by them.

Two, the refugee population in south Tel Aviv and Eilat has to be drastically thinned out and relocated throughout the country,  to cities, towns, kibbutzim and moshavim, whether the Africans or Israelis at large like it or not. We cannot “dump” this problem on South Tel Aviv and other poor communities; it’s unjust to the Israeli residents there and dangerous as hell for the refugees.

After being relocated, the Africans have to be allowed to work, or at least be given food, shelter, clothing and health care so they can live.

The big flaw in my plan, though, is that it would not stop the influx of Eritreans, Sudanese and other Africans coming across the border from Sinai, an influx that now stands at 2,000 to 3,000 people a month. In fact, it would probably increase their numbers (though the border fence, supposed to be completed by the end of the year, should reduce them). At some point, Israel would have to decide whether to let the refugees remain where they are, or start building many, many refugee camps in which to hold them. (Currently, there are some 60,000 African refugees in the country.)

By rights as well as by international agreements that Israel has signed, deportation is not an option. These people’s health, safety and very lives would be in danger if they were sent back to Eritrea and Sudan, if not because of the monstrous violence, humanitarian and human rights conditions for everyone there, then because they “deserted” their homeland and went, of all places, to Israel.  Until now, no other country has agreed to take more than a tiny handful of them, even for money; other countries have their own refugees, why should they take Israel’s?

So that’s my plan. Of course, it would never be adopted because Israeli cities, towns, kibbutzim and moshavim would not agree to take in thousands or even hundreds of Africans. And it’s not necessarily because they’re Zionists or racists. On Sunday, Haaretz ran a story about the Israeli Arab village of Kafr Manda, which welcomed the entry of Sudanese refugees when they numbered a few dozen, but which feels overwhelmed now that there are hundreds of them.

“I know people are starting to look at us suspiciously and that bothers me. I see young women walking down the street who, when they see one of us, they run away, and that’s hard. We didn’t come here looking for problems, but to make a living and get away from worse conditions,” Ismail says.

Sheikh Mohammed Nimr, the imam of the Ashuhada mosque on the eastern edge of Kafr Manda, where many of the Sudanese men come to pray, is concerned. “When they first came here and found work, we welcomed them. After all these are people who suffered persecution and are looking for shelter and we as Palestinian Arabs and Muslims view it as our moral duty to help them.” But Nimr says concern over their numbers is growing. “What started out as a few dozen is now many hundreds,” he says.

Nimr said religious and community leaders called a meeting in the mosque where they explained to the refugees “that we would not tolerate social problems or God forbid behavior that does not conform to our values as Arabs and Muslims. Nimr said, “No doubt the issue now requires the central government to step in.”

The main problem with such large numbers of African refugees being concentrated in South Tel Aviv, or Kafr Manda, is not the threat of violent crime, including rape, although, as I’ve written, this was pretty likely to arise because of where they come from, what they’ve been through and what they’re going through now.

No, the real problem for the communities where they’ve settled is that they are black, male, young, poor and on the streets in large numbers. The sight of them scares the hell out of people. Their presence would be scary in a residential black community, too; in a non-black residential community, they appear all the more alien and threatening.

“I don’t want to even see them,” a woman in Hatikva  told me after an angry, loud, racist (though at least non-violent) anti-refugee rally there about a year ago. Of everything I’ve heard from people in the neighborhood, that remark seems to be the bottom line.

So the idea, very popular among progressives (and police) to let the refugees work since that would bring down their crime rate, however high or low it may be, is beside the point. Even if every single African refugee in South Tel Aviv, Eilat and everywhere else they’re concentrated were perfectly law-abiding, they would still be widely feared and loathed. They are a large, alien-looking, suspicion-arousing presence in residential, family neighborhoods.

For at least a year, people have been using the term “time bomb” to describe this situation. Last night, the time bomb went off. For refugees and Israelis, we  all have a real, serious, dangerous problem on our hands, and I don’t see any decent, humane solution that has a chance of being adopted. Meanwhile, I don’t think I’m alone in expecting the vigilante violence to get worse.

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By Christiane Marie Abu-Sarah

Alongside the creation of the new Republic of South Sudan has come a flurry of excitement among political pundits, who see the nascent state as a perfect ally for Israel. As the reasoning goes, the Christian-majority South Sudan, which has long been embroiled in an internecine conflict with the Arab-Muslim population of the north, should make a bosom friend for Israel, itself buffeted by a sea of Arab hostility. But is South Sudan really the next battleground in a “clash of civilizations” between Islam and the West?

Middle East Forum director Daniel Pipes has been one of the more vocal proponents of this apocalyptic vision. In January, Pipes published an article in the Washington Times, in which he lauded South Sudan as having the potential to become a “regional power and a stalwart ally not just of Israel but of the West.” His viewpoint is seemingly corroborated by reports that Hamas has been cozying up to Omar al-Bashir’s Islamist regime in north Sudan.

Many Israeli businessmen and politicians have similarly interpreted South Sudan’s statehood as a boon for Israeli interests, both political and economic. Meir Greiver is one such businessman, who recommended in an interview with the Jerusalem Post that Israeli firms take advantage of raw materials and low wages in South Sudan. Samuel Shay, founder of the Republic of South Sudan Development organization (RSSD), has proposed similar investment projects. Shay’s organization is particularly notable for its mixture of ideological and economic appeals– as his company website proclaims, “Israel is facing a radical Islamic Arab threat, so it would benefit from having an ally against many enemies, in this strategic part of the globe.”

The prevailing sense that South Sudan will soon become a bastion of Western political and economic interests in the region is not unique to American and Israeli policymakers: Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and other Arab states have expressed concern about the state’s future as well. The Saudi newspaper Al-Riyadh aired its unease in January, arguing that South Sudanese independence represented the fragmentation of an Arab country and is part of an Israeli strategy to play a larger role in the Nile Basin. Khartoum and Cairo are also concerned about Israel making inroads in the region. Recently, Egyptian media even carried an appeal from Sudanese Foreign Minister Ali Karti for an increased Arab and Egyptian presence in the South Sudan, so as to “monitor and weaken Israel’s role in the south.”

South Sudan steering clear of either side

Despite these signs that battle lines are being drawn in regards to South Sudan, the government in Juba has indicated that it is a mistake to envision North Sudan and the Arabs states as aligned against South Sudan and Israel/”the West.” Instead, the South Sudanese government seems to recognize that such polarities do not necessarily serve Sudanese interests, as both the Arab states and the “West” are guilty of exercising patronizing foreign policy positions toward the region. Particularly, foreign-owned raw material extraction enterprises and low-wage jobs, such as those proposed by Greiver, are unlikely to set South Sudan on the road to development. As the Jerusalem Post reported, “When asked about suspicions that Israeli businessmen and other westerners are eagerly waiting to come in and exploit one of the world’s poorest corners, [Greiver] said “Look, I don’t only want to do this for the sake of some higher purpose, I also want to make money.”

As a result, South Sudan has been trying to steer clear of a “clash of civilizations” paradigm and pursue an independent course by building Arab, American, and Israeli contacts, in addition to exploring alliances in Asia and Europe. Articulating this stance, South Sudan Foreign Minister Nhial Deng Nhial has dismissed speculation that the country is forming an alliance with Israel “in anticipation of Islamist regimes” in the Middle East following the Arab Spring. In an interview with Al-Masry Al-Youm a few weeks ago, Deng assured the paper that even if an Islamist government comes to power in Cairo and forges a partnership with Khartoum, South Sudan will maintain a “strong relationship with Egypt.”

South Sudan’s commitment to maintaining contacts in the Arab world may be important in the coming weeks. Today, a South Sudanese delegation arrived in Khartoum ahead of talks scheduled to start April 3^rd. These talks will reopen negotiations over oil rights along the border, and American analysts fear the failure of the summit could lead to war between the two states. Arab states in the region do not appear to be lining up behind Khartoum, however. As a three-day investment summit currently underway in Juba has revealed, Saudi Arabia and Egypt are instead busily investing in agricultural production in South Sudan. The timing of the conference further emphasizes South Sudan’s message that any coming conflict with its northern neighbor will be about material rights and interests, not a clash of civilizations.

Talk of conflict between north and south also obfuscates the fact that neither nation represents monolithic political interests. Instead, South Sudan has been rent by ethnic strife, most recently between the Murle and Lou Nuer tribes in Jonglei state. Khartoum, for its part, is facing multiple rebellions in Darfur, the Nuba Mountains, and the Blue Nile state. Consequently, any renewal of fighting between Khartoum and Juba will undoubtedly be complicated by internal divisions in both nations. For South Sudan, diversifying her foreign alliances and developing her economic capacities are thus part of a strategy of shoring up support in the face of both external and internal challenges.

Juba has made it clear that while it may be easy for Arabs and Israelis alike to envision the Christian South Sudan as a ready ally for Israel, such thinking will do nothing to help the Sudanese people. Instead, it is likely to exacerbate conflict in the region, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy that casts South Sudan as a pawn in a larger geopolitical game while ignoring internal divisions. As a result, South Sudan has charted an independent course, and other world powers would be wise to do the same. Arab states in the region should continue reaching out to the new state as a regional partner, while Israel and United States should continue working on improving their diplomatic ties with both the north and the south. More importantly, South Sudan’s efforts to maintain an independent foreign policy should be seen as a commendable example for those who would reduce the new state to a Western client, for it is only by challenging the “Islam vs. the West” paradigm that South Sudan can hope to confront her own internal challenges.

Christiane Marie Abu Sarah is a historian and research associate at the Center for World Religions, Diplomacy and Conflict Resolution at George Mason University and a PhD candidate at the University of Maryland.

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