This morning’s key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com:
- Tens of thousands of migrants to Israel protest in Tel Aviv
- Mideast ‘peace talks’ near collapse as Kerry leaves without deal
- Hamas welcomes the Palestinian Authority back to Gaza
Tens of thousands of migrants to Israel protest in Tel Aviv
Tens of thousands of African migrants to Israel, mostly from Sudan,South Sudan, and Eritrea, have been massing and protesting in front ofembassies in Tel Aviv. They are protesting that migrants are treatedpoorly, that few if any migrants have been granted refugee status, andthat a new law will allow an illegal immigrant to be held indetention in a facility in Holot for up to a year with no chargesfiled. Israel has a program by which it will pay an illegal immigrant$3,500 plus a one-way plane ticket if the immigrant will go backhome. Israel is threatening to deport other immigrants.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UN refugeeagency – UNHCR) is joining with international NGOs to pressureIsrael to grant an unlimited number of asylum requests torefugees. According to a UNHCR statement:
Placing asylum seekers in duress that may forceasylum seekers to opt to return without having examined theirasylum claim could amount to a violation. The current policy andpractices create fear and chaos amongst asylum seekers, not takinginto account their specific situation. ‘Warehousing’ refugees inHolot is not a solution in line with the 1951 RefugeeConvention.
Israelis who oppose granting asylum say that the migrants are notrefugees at all, but have come to Israel to get jobs and send moneyback to their families at home. Some Israeli commentators say thatUNHCR and the international NGOs are exploiting the migrants andsometimes endangering their lives in order to gain a broader politicalobjective of diluting the population with tens or hundreds ofthousands of migrants in order to change Israel from being a Jewishstate. CS Monitor and Jerusalem Post
Mideast ‘peace talks’ near collapse as Kerry leaves without deal
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry left the Mideast on Monday, havingfailed in four days of intense negotiations with Israelis andPalestinians to get agreement on a “framework” to guide future peacetalks. Kerry parroted the usual claim that “progress has been made,”but the opposite appears to be true. There were bitterrecriminations from both Israeli and Palestinian leaders. TheIsraelis said that the Palestinians were “continuing their campaign ofinciting hatred,” while the Palestinians adamantly refuse to recognizeIsrael as a “Jewish state” and remain steadfast in their oppositionto stationing any Israeli troops in the occupied Jordan Valley whichforms a third of the West Bank.
There is an April deadline for the current round of “peace talks,” andKerry will be making one more trip before then in a last-ditch attemptto salvage the negotiations before having to deal with yet another major Obama administration foreign policy debacle.Ma’an News Agency
Hamas welcomes the Palestinian Authority back to Gaza
Ever since they went to war in 2007, the Palestinians have been splitinto two groups. Hamas, considered a terrorist group by the West, isthe governing authority in the Gaza Strip. The Palestinian Authorityand Fatah are the governing authority in the West Bank. The so-calledMideast “peace talks” have been between Israel and the PalestinianAuthority, but one of the many reasons why they’ve failed is thatHamas opposes them.
On Monday, Hamas’s prime minister Ismail Haniyeh said that all Fatahmembers, except those accused of killing Hamas members in 2007, wouldnow be welcome to return to Gaza after being exiled in 2007.However, a Fatah spokesman called the announcement a “superficial”gesture, and demanded that Hamas agree to elections for a governmentfor both Gaza and the West Bank. Al-Jazeera
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.