Acquaintances in Efrat sent over this moving account about Israel's policy toward African refugees written by their son who is doing reserve duty on the Israel-Egypt border.
My name is Aron
Adler. I am 25 years old, was born in Brooklyn NY, and raised in Efrat
Israel. Though very busy, I don’t view my life as unusual. Most of the
time, I am just another Israeli citizen. During the day I work as a
paramedic in Magen David Adom, Israel’s national EMS service. At night,
I’m in my first year of law school. I got married this October and am
starting a new chapter of life together with my wonderful wife Shulamit.
15-20
days out of every year, I'm called up to the Israeli army to do my
reserve duty. I serve as a paramedic in an IDF paratrooper unit. My
squad is made up of others like me; people living normal lives who step
up to serve whenever responsibility calls. The oldest in my squad is 58,
a father of four girls and grandfather of two; there are two bankers,
one engineer, a holistic healer, and my 24 year old commander who is
still trying to figure out what to do with his life. Most of the year we
are just normal people living our lives, but for 15-20 days each year
we are soldiers on the front lines preparing for a war that we hope we
never have to fight.
This
year, our reserve unit was stationed on the border between Israel,
Egypt and the Gaza Strip in an area called “Kerem Shalom.” Above and
beyond the “typical” things for which we train – war, terrorism, border
infiltration, etc., this year we were confronted by a new challenge.
Several years ago, a trend started of African refugees crossing the
Egyptian border from Sinai into Israel to seek asylum from the
atrocities in Darfur. What started out as a small number of men, women
and children fleeing from the machetes of the Janjaweed and violent
fundamentalists to seek a better life elsewhere, turned into an
organized industry of human trafficking. In return for huge sums of
money, sometimes entire life savings paid to Bedouin “guides,” these
refugees are promised to be transported from Sudan, Eritrea, and other
African countries through Egypt and the Sinai desert, into the safe
haven of Israel.
We
increasingly hear horror stories of the atrocities these refugees
suffer on their way to freedom. They are subject to, and victims of
extortion, rape, murder, and even organ theft, their bodies left to rot
in the desert. Then, if lucky, after surviving this gruesome experience
whose prize is freedom, when only a barbed wire fence separates them
from Israel and their goal, they must go through the final death run and
try to evade the bullets of the Egyptian soldiers stationed along the
border. Egypt’s soldiers are ordered to shoot to kill anyone trying to
cross the border OUT of Egypt and into Israel. It’s an almost nightly event.
For
those who finally get across the border, the first people they
encounter are Israeli soldiers, people like me and those in my unit, who
are tasked with a primary mission of defending the lives of the Israeli
people. On one side of the border soldiers shoot to kill. On the other
side, they know they will be treated with more respect than in any of
the countries they crossed to get to this point.
The
region where it all happens is highly sensitive and risky from a
security point of view, an area stricken with terror at every turn.
It’s just a few miles south of the place where Gilad Shalit was
kidnapped. And yet the Israeli soldiers who are confronted with these
refugees do it not with rifles aimed at them, but with a helping hand
and an open heart. The refugees are taken to a nearby IDF base, given
clean clothes, a hot drink, food and medical attention. They are finally
safe.
Even
though I live Israel and am aware through media reports of the events
that take place on the Egyptian border, I never understood the intensity
and complexity of the scenario until I experienced it myself.
In
the course of the past few nights, I have witnessed much. At 9:00 PM
last night, the first reports came in of gunfire heard from the Egyptian
border. Minutes later, IDF scouts spotted small groups of people trying
to get across the fence. In the period of about one hour, we picked up
13 men - cold, barefoot, dehydrated - some wearing nothing except
underpants. Their bodies were covered with lacerations and other
wounds. We gathered them in a room, gave them blankets, tea and treated
their wounds. I don’t speak a word of their language, but the look on
their faces said it all and reminded me once again why I am so proud to
be a Jew and an Israeli. Sadly, it was later determined that the
gunshots we heard were deadly, killing three others fleeing for their
lives.
During
the 350 days a year when I am not on active duty, when I am just
another man trying to get by, the people tasked with doing this amazing
job, this amazing deed, the people witnessing these events, are mostly
young Israeli soldiers just out of high school, serving their compulsory
time in the IDF, some only 18 years old.
The
refugees flooding into Israel are a heavy burden on our small country.
More than 100,000 refugees have fled this way, and hundreds more cross
the border every month. The social, economic, and humanitarian issues
created by this influx of refugees are immense. There are serious
security consequences for Israel as well. This influx of African
refugees poses a crisis for Israel. Israel has yet to come up with the
solutions required to deal with this crisis effectively, balancing its’
sensitive social, economic, and security issues, at the same time
striving to care for the refugees.
I
don’t have the answers to these complex problems which desperately need
to be resolved. I’m not writing these words with the intention of
taking a political position or a tactical stand on the issue.
I
am writing to tell you and the entire world what’s really happening
down here on the Egyptian/Israeli border. And to tell you that despite
all the serious problems created by this national crisis, these refugees
have no reason to fear us. Because they know, as the entire world needs
to know, that Israel has not shut its eyes to their suffering and pain.
Israel has not looked the other way. The State of Israel has put
politics aside to take the ethical and humane path as it has so often
done before, in every instance of human suffering and natural disasters
around the globe. We Jews know only too well about suffering and pain.
The Jewish people have been there. We have been the refugees and the
persecuted so many times, over thousands of years, all over the world.
Today,
when African refugees flood our borders in search of freedom and better
lives, and some for fear of their lives, it is particularly noteworthy
how Israel deals with them, despite the enormous strain it puts on our
country on so many levels.
Our
young and thriving Jewish people and country, built from the ashes of
the Holocaust, do not turn their backs on humanity. Though I already
knew that, this week I once again experienced it firsthand. I am
overwhelmed with emotion and immensely proud to be a member of this
nation.
With love of Israel,
Aron Adler writing from the Israel/Gaza/Egyptian border.
