Date: Wednesday, 14 March 2018
African asylum seekers protest their pending deportations from Israel in front of the Rwandan embassy in Herzeliya, Israel, on Feb. 7, 2018.Which brings us to the peculiar manner in which this government has been aggressively critical of a recent Israeli policy regarding that country’s treatment of asylum seekers who have entered the country illegally since 2005. Approximately 37,000 individuals from Eritrea and Sudan have fled extreme hardship in their home countries and survived treacherous journeys across the Sinai desert to reach relative safety in Israel.
Virtually all of these asylum seekers do not qualify as refugees under Israeli law and are accepted as temporary residents, required to renew their visas every two to three months. After April 1, there will be no further visa renewals permitted and the individuals either face deportation to a third country or indefinite incarceration.
Asylum seekers protest against deportation in Tel Aviv, Israel, on Feb. 24, 2018. The deportations are to unspecified third countries rumoured to be Uganda and Rwanda. Each individual — only single men will be deported — will receive a one-way airplane ticket and approximately US$4,000. Families and all children will be exempted from this measure, which has been decried by some NGOs and many Israeli citizens as being unjust.
Migrants protest their pending deportations in Tel Aviv on Feb. 24, 2018. In response to a request to explain this position, the department provided irrelevant written blather about the importance of Israel ensuring “equal and non-discriminatory institutional access to health services to asylum seekers and minorities.” These are all important issues, of course, but not remotely on point.
Speaking on background, a senior Israeli government official confirmed its position that, legally, its treatment of asylum seekers does not run afoul of the Geneva Convention. In fact, the Israeli Supreme Court, known for its activist left-of-centre stance on many issues, raised no such concerns when it considered matters related to contemplated deportations.
Furthermore, prominent Liberal and former Canadian minister of justice and international human rights legal expert, Irwin Cotler, recently commented on the issue and was careful to moderate his criticism of the Israeli policy and process. Presumably, given his peerless stature, he would be the first to call out Israel on such a serious international legal issue.
African asylum seekers, who entered Israel illegally via Egypt, lean at the fence of the Holot detention centre in Israel’s southern Negev Desert, on Feb. 17, 2014, as they join other migrants who came to protest outside the detention facility. His main concern, however, seems to be that Israel lacks what he considers to be an “effective and comprehensive refugee status determination process,” and that without such a system in place, even the most well-intentioned policy-makers may act “arbitrarily.” While a significant concern, it falls far short of a breach of an international convention.
In December, 2015, when the Kingdom of Jordan deported 800 Eritrean asylum seekers on the basis that they were in the country for “medical treatment,” Canada was silent. Women and children were among the deportees, many of whom were reportedly nabbed in the street without notice. There were no court hearings or appeals in Jordan nor were there mass civil protests. And there were no harsh comments from Canada.
