Best of the web revisited again

I add this to the blog page for two reasons. 1) He is one of the best local columnists that Pittsburgh has to offer and 2) I had the honor of working with Tony this past week as he sat in on one of Lynn's vacation days and did so with great aplomb. Far be it from me to pass on the opportunity of sharing, because I do it so well anyway. So everyone, say hi to Tony Norman.

The promised land and Sudan's exodus

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

It's official: God has a tragic penchant for irony. How else does one explain the moral dilemma confronting Israel? Sudanese refugees are crossing over from Egypt seeking asylum in a land established by refugees who took similar routes into Canaan nearly 4,000 years ago.

What does a modern state born of persecution and genocide in the heart of Europe do when modern victims of persecution and genocide in Africa cross its borders illegally?

When a humanitarian crisis with such an ironic face comes along, one can only hope that Israel's notoriously fractious political culture hasn't gotten around to producing homegrown versions of Lou Dobbs or Tom Tancredo.

For several months, refugees from Darfur have crossed the harsh and inhospitable desert border areas separating Israel from Egypt. The Sudanese refugees are only a small part of a diaspora that includes economic migrants from other distressed African nations.

Africans have been risking their lives to get to Israel to fill low-wage jobs once occupied by Palestinians.

Because Egypt's social welfare system is dangerously overburdened by the unfulfilled aspirations of its own increasingly frustrated citizens, its security forces have looked the other way as African refugees by the hundreds swarm the porous desert border with Israel every week.

According to The Associated Press, up to 50 Africans a day have entered Israel in recent months, sparking fears of an unchecked wave of illegal immigrants. Nearly 3,000 African migrants have entered the country by way of the Sinai already. Of that number, 1,160 are believed to be Sudanese.

Obviously, the plight of refugees fleeing Khartoum's genocidal regime has special resonance for many in Israel where the memory of Jews fleeing the Nazis in the years before and during World War II are still vivid.

In 1942, more than 700 Romanian Jews on the ship Struma were denied entry by the British to then-Palestine or to disembark in Turkey. The damaged ship was towed out to the Black Sea by Turkish authorities and abandoned. The next day, a torpedo from a Russian submarine killed all but one passenger.

Everyone remembers the more than 900 Jews stranded on the St. Louis and denied entry to either the United States or Cuba in 1939. Their plight became the basis for the book "The Voyage of the Damned" and a movie.

Those incidents of international betrayal and many more like it are invoked in every discussion about the Sudanese refugees. No Israeli wants a debacle like that on his or her conscience.

Consequently, the debate has been fierce. That didn't stop Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's government from beginning the process of returning all but 500 asylum seekers from Darfur to Egypt last weekend.

Now an inflexible policy that makes no exception for any illegal aliens has gone into effect in Israel. According to the AP, 48 Africans have been returned to Egypt already.

Meanwhile, refugee advocates continue to call upon Israel to remember its moral obligation to do unto others what was not done unto them when Jews have had to flee pogroms in Europe and the Middle East over the centuries.

It is a compelling argument that appeals to the heart of average Israelis. Still, there is a great fear in Israeli society that there aren't enough resources to accommodate these strangers, as much as they would like to.

It shouldn't be up to Israel to bear the weight of these refugees alone. The international community with its incessant foot-dragging and coddling of dictators bears much of the blame for the catastrophe in Darfur.

The Chinese-backed government in Khartoum laughs off U.S. sanctions. Foreign investment in Sudan from the Chinese and our allies reached $2.3 billion in 2006, making the pariah state one of the most prosperous in all of Africa.

Meanwhile, 2.2 million people have been displaced and more than 200,000 have died as a result of the violence, disease and hunger that plagues the western region of Darfur. It is the world's most glaring example of genocide since the Rwandan tragedy more than a decade ago.

Once again, the post-Holocaust promise "never again" has been drowned out by international indifference fueled by economic self-interest. When will we ever learn?

Though Moses was ultimately denied permission to enter the Promised Land after wandering the desert for 40 years, a new generation of Africans hope God's mercy won't be based on the ruthless pragmatism of those who cite political expedience over the biblical mandate to show hospitality to the stranger.

Tony Norman can be reached at tnorman@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1631.