3rd state agrees to take Israel’s Eritrean migrants – Jerusalem Post
In High Court discussion, state says deal reached whereby undisclosed country will absorb illegal migrants from Eritrea. A third country has agreed to absorb the majority of Eritrean migrants to be deported from Israel, it emerged
![](https://archive.assenna.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Eri_Israel.jpg)
In High Court discussion, state says deal reached whereby undisclosed country will absorb illegal migrants from Eritrea.
A third country has agreed to absorb the majority of Eritrean migrants to be deported from Israel, it emerged during a hearing at the High Court on Sunday.
Attorney Yochi Gnessin, representing the state, said a third country had agreed to take in the Eritrean deportees when the time comes, and that Israel was in talks with two other countries to allow Sudanese migrants to return by way of their territory, as was done for an estimated 2,100 Sudanese who have returned to Sudan from Israel through a third country.
Gnessin also said that the percentage of Eritreans in Israel who were dissidents who opposed the regime was very small, and that the state was expected to reject nearly all of the asylum requests for the around 35,000 or so Eritreans in the country.
Following the statement by Gnessin, the court ordered the Justice Ministry to present an explanation of the agreement reached, including the countries involved. A ministry representative said that when the information was presented to the court, it would most likely be released to the public.
Gnessin’s statement came during a hearing held before a panel of nine High Court justices on a petition to overturn the amendment to the Prevention of Infiltration Law (1954) that was passed by the Knesset in January 2012. Some 2,000 people are being held under the amendment, which allows detention for at least three years of a person caught illegally entering the country.
On March 12, the High Court issued a conditional order against the state regarding the amendment, demanding a response to the claim that it violates the fundamental rights of African migrants.
The order did freeze implementation of the law. The order was given in response to a petition filed by six migrants’ rights organizations, including the Association of Civil Rights for Israel on its own behalf and on behalf of five Eritrean asylum-seekers, including a child, being held indefinitely in detention camps.
The petition stated that most of the detainees are from Sudan and Eritrea, countries to which “the Israeli government itself recognizes that it cannot deport people because of their expected fate upon their return.”
The petition argues that under Israeli and international law, the state cannot detain migrants in cases where they cannot be deported. It added that the law also violates the Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty, which would require the High Court to strike it down.
In an unusual development, the UN, which has repeatedly been publicly critical of the amendment, filed an amicus curiae brief on the subject.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, meanwhile, responded to statistics released by the Population, Immigration, and Borders Authority on Sunday showing that only two infiltrators came across the southern border last month, as opposed to 2,031 in May 2012, by saying that the fence built on the Egyptian border achieved its aims.
Netanyahu shepherded through construction of the NIS 1.6 billion, 230-kilometer fence that was completed in January.
The prime minister said that now, since the waves of infiltrators had been stemmed, it was necessary to focus on sending back those infiltrators illegally in the country.
“We will also achieve that goal,” he said.
In December, Netanyahu appointed former Mossad official Hagai Hadas as his envoy to spearhead efforts to send the migrants back home or find third countries willing to take them.
Hadas served Netanyahu for two years as his chief negotiator in efforts to free tank gunner Gilad Schalit from Hamas captivity.
Diplomatic officials said they did not know whether Hadas had indeed succeeded in finding a third country to take the infiltrators.
The Foreign Ministry, meanwhile, refrained from commenting on the state’s claim that an undisclosed third country had agreed to absorb the majority of Eritreans who illegally entered Israel.
A ministry official said Sunday was the first time he had heard of such an agreement, adding that it sounded implausible that a third country would agree to take in tens of thousands of Eritrean asylum- seekers. He said it was most likely that there was an agreement for a certain country to be used as a transit point for returning Eritreans, and that Israel probably would not have the money to pay the incentives necessary to convince a third country to take the deportees in indefinitely.
Officials at the Interior Ministry and PIBA both referred questions about the reported agreement to the Justice Ministry.
Jerusalem Post: 3rd state agrees to take Israel’s Eritrean migrants
josef June 3, 2013
On yahoo news it reads the undisclosed country is in east africa, poor guys they are dreaming of Canada or Australia, most of them will get in coma when they read at the airport “welcome to juba, addiss ababa or kampala”. I WISH THEM ALL THE BEST ANY WAY.
Gebez June 4, 2013
My guess: UGANDA.
Gebez June 4, 2013
yahoo news: <> <>
hmmmmmm……I now know which country they are talking about. lol. So, “that country” is exchanging Eritreans to some kind of expertise as if they were commodities? ወይ መርገም!! ኣብዚ ተበፂሑ? መንኮን እዩ ረጊምዋ ነዛ ኤርትራ?
luna June 4, 2013
When it comes to immigration issues Israel has its own problem with the Palestinians which is long standing. The ‘law of return’ is what gives the ‘Jews’ in exile the provision to claim and return to the land as their forefathers and a spiritual home as well. Through the years, thousands have come from different parts of the world including Ethiopia to resettle permanently. Thus, a welcome mat is spread for those who prove to be one.
Knowing the size of the country it is very hard for Israel to absorb these many asylum seekers. Based on the numbers of asylum seekers the country has at present it is not in the interest of the nation. The reality does not permit them to be able to absorb refugees. Thus, Israel’s hand is tied.
Above everything else, for Israel, the Palestinian issue is a very big question not yet resolved. The state of Israel is founded in 1948. Since then, thousands of Palestinians have been living in refugee camps. Think of the territory of Gaza in relation to this topic. No answer has yet been found to resolve the problem.
Palestinians who claim to have a birth right to the holyland are ONLY on the doorsteps of Israel. Are we to have better arrangements when this group have less than what they wish to have? Based on this truth, Eritrean asylum seekers who are in Israel must not be bitter about the latest decision made by the court. From what is known the court has decided not to absorb Eritreans instead make a passage for them to go to a third country. I know, this may not be what we were waiting for. But, what it comes to is choosing one of the lesser evil from what we are given.
There is nothing like ones own homeland. Let us keep our ‘eyes on the ball’ which is Eritrea. May freedom ring its bells once again in our homeland to the delight of peace loving Eritreans followed by a huge reunion.
Long live to our martyrs!
Kalighe June 4, 2013
“The ‘law of return’ is what gives the ‘Jews’ in exile the provision to claim and return to the land as their forefathers and a spiritual home as well. Through the years, thousands have come from different parts of the world including Ethiopia to resettle permanently. Thus, a welcome mat is spread for those who prove to be one.”
luna
Isn’t Judaism a religion ?, or you think all Jew are one ethnic group ?
According to Zionists and their sympathizers like Luna yes, all Jews are blood related, wherever they are the people who lived in historical Palestine three or four thousand years ago.
But in reality, Judaism which is originally a Mesopotamian religion, spread throughout Middle East in the same way the other monotheistic religions did in later centuries. Middle Eastern Jews were not of the same tribe nor are ethnically related: Iranian Jews, Yemeni Jews, Syrian Jews, Moroccan Jews, Egyptian Jews, Iraqi Jews and Palestinian Jews (the so-called Sabira) are not blood related.
Turkish Jews who were doing most of clerical works for Ottoman Empire have nothing to do with other Jews. They escaped from Spain and were resettled some of them in Morocco and others in Turkey. They spoke Ladino and used Hebrew for only prayers. The same way a Chinese Muslim speaks his native language but uses Arabic for prayer. Judaism in Europe was there even when most of continental Europe was under Romans. It had spread in the same way as Christianity. The idea that they are all of the same blood is a Zionist propaganda that insults the intelligence of anyone who knows a bit of world history. European Jews suffered discrimination and were victims of holocaust. But that does not justify to build their nation on the land of another people. Palestine historically is the land of Arabs (Jews, Christians and Muslims). Justifying injustices is a disservice to peace. Even when the victims are weak and cannot stand on the face of world powers who have damped their Jewish communities in Palestine, we have a moral obligation to stand for justice. When the so-called “law of return” of Israel give chance to French or German Jews to settle in Palestine, while an indigenous Palestinian family is living in tents, because they cannot build a home in their land, waiting to be evicted from their land, there is little prospect of peace.
Said June 5, 2013
We look like we are in the same page .good job .
Kalighe June 5, 2013
May be on this issue, but on the ones that concern us most, i.e. Eritrean issues, you seem to stand with the tyrant. Why ?
Michael, B. June 4, 2013
Which third state?
Ethiopia? Uganda? Can these countries afford to shelter our people? No. More than the people and state of Israel could do? No. What a shame. Who is trying to devalue the holocoust? The people of Israel? or the regime of Netaneahu?
Please, do not let the Jewish regime devise cynical and cruel alternatives to plain refugee status in accordance to the tenet of the UN!
Those who suffered untold pain in the Sinai desert, had suffered enough.
Zaul June 5, 2013
They don’t care about UN-resolutions, they are the chosen people.
No Eritrean should’ve ever set foot there.
Israeli Violations of U.N. Security Council Resolutions.
http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2010/01/27/rogue-state-israeli-violations-of-u-n-security-council-resolutions/
abel June 5, 2013
Who did stretch its hand to the thankless Eritrean refugees in Egypt before? ETHIOPIA.
I hope Ethiopia doesn’t do the same mistake again.Let them get dumped in some Arabic country.
salim yahiya June 4, 2013
It is most likely ityobya…another 3rd world.
Yodahe June 5, 2013
Isreal is a country with heaps complex issues, probably more than the “refugees” originally came from. We don’t want more problems. Thank you.
hit pfdj June 5, 2013
when it comes to demonstration against the the cruwel regime in eritrea they failed to show the real case for what they left home . SO NOW THEY HAVE TO PAY FOR IT.
A.Salim June 5, 2013
You do not like them because they do not belong to your ethnic group. Bloody criminal!!
abel June 5, 2013
Who did stretch its hand to the thankless Eritrean refugees in Egypt? ETHIOPIA.
I hope Ethiopia doesn’t do the same mistake again.Let them get dumped in some Arabic country.
Ali June 12, 2013
Well to roman you Eritrea is state Nicosia. Arab lok to east Red Sea ho you rest bat we now sour papilloma shel adalegey he’s trey Bogor 19th sentrey
Robel June 10, 2013
Hey guys we are Eritreans must be united more than any time to throw this dictator leader unless we will migrate for another decade every where to find peace so stand up for our people basic rights don’t be jealous each other. Enough is Enough bye