Jews blamed for Darfur; refugees crossing into Israel

With really remarkable chutzpah, the racist and antisemitic government of Sudan is claiming that the Jews are responsible for Sudan’s genocidal activities in Darfur:

Sudan’s defense minister, Abdel Rahim Mohamed Hussein, has accused “24 Jewish organizations” of “fueling the conflict in Darfur” last week in an interview with a Saudi newspaper…

A journalist from Saudi Arabia’s Okaz newspaper asked Hussein: “Some people are talking about the penetration of Jewish organizations in Darfur and that there is no conflict there?”

“The Darfur issue is being fuelled by 24 Jewish organizations, who are making the largest amount of noise over the issue, and using the Holocaust in their campaigning,” the Sudanese defense minister replied…

“…they provide political and material support through their control over the media and across American and British circles,” Hussein said, adding that Jewish groups were using “all means to fuel these conflicts.” — YNet

Meanwhile, thousands of refugees from Darfur have made the difficult journey across Egypt, and into Israel, where they are finding refuge.

Stephen Kramer writes,

More than 2,000 African refugees, about half from Sudan, are provoking strong reactions in Israel. Some of these desperate people are Christians from Darfur [in Sudan], while many are Muslim. None are Jewish. Opinions are divided between those who want to open Israel to refugees, remembering how borders were closed to Jews fleeing the Nazis, and those who want to deport the refugees who are already here and prevent others from crossing our borders, fearful of adding more non-Jews to our population…

“As Jews, who have the memory of the Shoah embedded within us, we cannot stand by as refugees from genocide in Darfur are knocking on our doors. The memory of the past, and the Jewish values that underpin our existence, command us to [perform] humanitarian solidarity with the persecuted.” This was what Yad Vashem Chairman Avner Shalev told a small group of Sudanese refugees who were touring the museum that commemorates the struggle of Jews in the Nazi period. Many Jews, both in Israel and the Diaspora, feel that solidarity with the refugees from Sudan means absorbing a large number into Israel.

And this is undoubtedly what will happen, despite the fact that Israel has only a limited capability to absorb such refugees.

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