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When last in South Sudan's new capital, Juba, 1 joked with African friends that Gd likely named the city after die Jews who secretly provided arms (and an anti-slavery movement) to emancipate them from Arab/Muslim rule and create the world's newest nation-state. It's really "Jew-ba!," I quipped. We fell upon ourselves, laughing.
That was then. Today, not so much. Israel is forcibly deporting the 700 South Sudanese who sought refuge in the Holy land - back to Juba. These, our natural allies against jihad and Arab racism, got caught in the net of Israeli politics. There are 60,000 to 70,000 African refugees in Israel, the majority from Eritrea. They are creating huge social problems: unemployment, crime and a vast drain on the social service budgets of Israel's Jews, who have enough problems in "normal" times, and now even more so with the glorious Arab (Muslim Brotherhood) "spring."
Many Eritreans, it is argued, fled not just for economic reasons, but also because of war and oppression. Where in Africa is mere not conflict? Much of Africa would, if it could, trek from the third world into the first, by foot (wouldn't you?) - and too much of it could. And any Israeli leftist "internationalists" who see only "racism" in Israel's need to protect itself from this threatening tide, should be - as we used to say in Newark - slapped upside the head. Yes, we also were refugees - and that is what causes pain, even among us Jewish realists. But realism must prevail over dreamy fantasies - a lesson many Jews haven't managed to learn.
That said, why are our...