Little Israel cannot absorb everybody. Refugees will remain, infiltrators - the time has come for them to leave. Which population is preferred for Israel - the Palestinians or the Eritreans? definitely the Palestinians are preferred.  They are not coming to live here in Tel Aviv. The Palestinians are "the poor of your city", when it is better for them it will be better for us. 

  -- Minister of Interior Aryeh Deri

Minister Aryeh Deri is, once again, being sued, in beis din, for his work as Interior Minister.

This time it is a fellow named Dr Uri Weiss suing Deri.I don't know anything about Dr Weiss, but he seems to bear the description of being a leftist activist.

Weiss is suing Deri for his decision to deport illegal African migrants to Rwanda. I guess he figured a Haredi minister would not be able to ignore the decision of a beis din.

Weiss's claim is that the decision to deport them to Rwanda puts them in danger of being abused violently there and treated very poorly, and that is in opposition to the Torah commandment to not give over an escaped slave to his master - לא תסגיר עבד אל אדוניו.

Weiss explains that sending them to Rwanda is a death penalty for many and will be torture for many. Rwanda has not promised them citizenship and it does not follow the Noahide laws. The solution of the Torah for such a person is the passuk that says to let him live among you.
source: Kikar and Actualic

I wait to see what happens. A private beis din really should refuse to hear such cases that involve national politics and the like. At most this should have to go through the official Rabbanut beis din, but even they really should not be empowered to hear such cases. I am curious as to what a beis din would say. Especially in light of the fact that these are not slaves and the statement of the passuk might not apply to them.

May Golan, an activist in Tel Aviv, writes:
For anybody interested,
Yesterday in the meeting of the City Council of Tel Aviv and Eritrea, a resolution was passed by vote to give all the children of the migrants free nursery school until the age of 3 years old. Not to the children of struggling Israelis, not to needy families - no. Only to the illegal infiltrators from Eritrea and Sudan and their high percentage of children - yes!

The next stage in the fight against the influx of the illegal migrant workers is now beginning.

All over the western world people travel from countries in bad financial situations in order to find work. Much of what they earn is sent back to their family back home to help them. Sometimes it is to help them survive, while at other times it is with the goal of saving enough to eventually bring them to the new country.

This is not just true nowadays with workers from the Sudan and Eritrea, from Poland, the Philippines or anywhere else. It was also true 100 years ago when Jewish men left Russia and Poland to earn some money in the USA and they would send much of it back to support their families they had left behind.

The African migrants in Israel do the same. They come here knowing work is available and that they will earn better parnassa than they would back home (or in many other places).

The Ministry of Justice has proposed an amendment to the law preventing migrants that would prohibit them from sending money abroad. A migrant worker who would send money back to their family would be liable to 6 months in jail or a fine of nearly 30,000 NIS! Anybody caught assisting in the sending of the migrant's money would be liable to up to a year in jail, or to the same fine, or double the amount that was being sent abroad.
(source: Ynet)

When the migrants are planning their trips to countries where they would be able to work and save up money, it is assumed that if the country will not let them send the money back home to help the family that Israel will then be a less-attractive option. Maybe they will stick Israel further down their list of options.


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Interestingly, according to this report on News1 (Yoav Yitzchak's news portal), the police have information, including testimony, that the bank windows that were smashed the other day at the social protests in Tel Aviv were actually smashed by Sudanese migrants who had each been paid 400 NIS to smash the windows.

1. It could be a libelous charge to make the Sudanese look bad.

2. Assuming it is true, which was really my initial belief, I am impressed that even at a protest in which the protesters got violent, and clearly intended in advance to get violent, they still did not want to carry out the violence themselves and instead hired non-Jews to be violent on their behalf. What can I say - Jews just don't like to get their hands dirty!

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Quote Of The Day

My plan is finally receiving validity. Everyone said this is an extreme and delusional plan, but the building of the fence [along the border] is nearing completion, the detainment center and the enforcement among employers - this is a combination that will succeed, with God's help... The operation is important, and it is good. This is an operation that will protect the Jewish identity. our Zionist dream. But it is not finished: It will be long and hard, it will not be simple, but we are determined to act in full force, with all our strength, on behalf of the Jewish identity of the State of Israel.

  -- Minister of Interior Eli Yishai, about the beginning of the plan to evict illegal migrants

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