For two years, Israel has been looking for a third country, Christian if possible, to absorb up to 1,800 infiltrators from Africa who are currently living here. Most of these infiltrators are from Eritrea. Sunday's announcement to the High Court that Israel has made an agreement with a third country willing to absorb them, and may even find one or two others, indicates that Israel is taking the right steps. On the one hand, Israel is working to improve their circumstances and transfer them to a society where they have a chance at successful integration, and on the other hand Israel needs to insist that it is not a collection reservoir for all the unhappy people of Africa. Israel's Prevention of Infiltration Law is too crude and does us damage in the international arena. Israel needed to find a country through negotiations and good will, and needs to non-coercively prod infiltrators to go there. It's no accident that the Foreign Ministry complained on Saturday that it had been left out of the two years of talks. Had it taken part in the secret negotiations, there would have been leaks before any agreement could be made or carried out. On its merits, expatriating 1,800 African infiltrators is no longer as important as it was in the recent past. The new border fence between Israel and Egypt, which is necessary for security reasons as well, was meant to stop infiltrators, and has in fact done so. The number of Africans entering Israel has diminished to the point where if the government does not find a solution for those who are here, they can easily be absorbed into Israeli society without much ado. There are certain nongovernmental organizations that constantly align themselves with the prosecution and demand that Israel capitulate, or ignore its own laws, or change them. This attitude is mistaken and undermines our moral status as the state of a nation of refugees. The best solution is to block the infiltrators' path to Israel. There is no reason for Israel to be more indulgent than Egypt is toward refugees from the African continent. When they arrived here, Israel appropriately took strong measures to stop the threatening wave. Now it seems that Israel has achieved its goal. It is right and good for the public to know that the government sought a third country to absorb refugees. But let's not dwell on this too much, lest a little bird carry the message that Israel will make sure migrants are settled in an unnamed land of milk and honey, and African infiltration increases once again.
