.bmp)
.bmp)
JERUSALEM-Israel said Sunday it would no longer accept refugees from Sudan's Darfur region, touching off debate over whether the Jewish state, founded after the Nazi genocide, has a duty to take in people fleeing persecution.Israel has been grappling for months with how to deal with a swelling flow of Africans, including some from Darfur, who have crossed its porous southern border with Egypt's Sinai desert. Overnight, Israel returned 48 Africans to Egypt.Israeli government spokesman David Baker said he did not know if any were from Darfur, but noted Darfurians would not be immune from Israel's ban on unauthorized migrants."The policy of returning back anyone who enters Israel illegally will pertain to everyone, including those from Darfur," he said.Egyptian police said Darfurians were among the 48 - and would be expelled from Egypt to Sudan.The decision to turn back asylum-seekers from Darfur contradicts Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's pledge earlier this summer to absorb them. Baker said those already in Israel would be allowed to stay, and that the turnback policy applied to new arrivals.Though the case of the Darfur refugees is unusual, the late Prime Minister Menachem Begin set a precedent in 1977 when he offered asylum to nearly 400 Vietnamese boat people.That the refugees are from Sudan further complicates matters, because Israeli law denies asylum to anyone from an enemy state. Sudan's Muslim government is hostile to Israel and has no diplomatic ties with the Jewish state.....To read more go to:
As in the days of Noah...
