Infiltrator illogic

The Jerusalem Post Editorial

Another UN body is taking Israel to task for purported human rights infringements, this time because of Egyptian callousness.

The latest critique was scripted by the UN High Commission on Refugees and submitted to Israel’s Supreme Court in an affidavit backing arguments that Israel violates international law when returning African infiltrators to Egypt within the first 24 hours of their illegal entry and if they are still within 50 kilometers of the border. So far this year, over 200 infiltrators were sent back under what is dubbed the “Hot Return” policy.

This policy is already being challenged in the courts here by the Hotline for Migrant Workers and Tel Aviv University’s Refugee Rights Project. Now the UNHCR has chimed in on behalf of the petitioners because…Egypt is heartless towards African infiltrators.

By UNHCR logic, Egyptian ruthlessness requires Israel to admit all migrants whom Egypt rejects. Egyptian attitudes are evidently regarded as immutable facts; different standards are applied to Israel, which is apparently required to compensate for Egyptian harshness.

INTERNATIONAL REGULATIONS indeed specify that refugees are not to be returned to their lands of origin while they still face mortal danger. Egypt, however, is neutral territory and thus a presumed safe-haven. It isn’t the migrants’ land of origin. The relatively few authentic refugees among the migrants should expect asylum in Egypt no less than in Israel. The vast majority, though, are not refugees. They are economic migrants hailing from conflict-free countries. Israel does not owe them a living any more than Egypt does.

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