Last week, two stories appeared in Israeli news media, that concern the lives of two women, one originally from the Philippines, and one from Sierra Leone. It is safe to assume that most Israelis didn’t even hear these stories though and even if they did, felt no need to relate to them in any way.
The first story is about a sixteen year old girl, originally from the Philippines, where she was abandoned by her mother as a baby and lived with her abuse family. When she was ten years old she was sent to Israel to live with her father. However, her father had no interest whatsoever in his daughter, and according to the girl, mostly kept her locked up in a dark room. The man, who was in Israel illegally, was deported and left the girl alone in Israel without family or support. About three years ago she was found wondering the streets of Tel Aviv by welfare authorities and subsequently diagnosed as being autistic and suffering from PTSD. She was placed in a facility of AKIM, an NGO taking care of disabled children, where she is receiving appropriate care and where she has found a home and people she considers her family.
A story with a happy ending it appeared. But, being the child of an illegal, deported alien, she has been on the radar of the Immigration Authority and the “Humanitarian” committee of the authority recently made a decision that the girl needs to be deported. In the words of the committee, “it will be in the best interest of the girl, to be returned to her homeland”. Homeland? She doesn’t speak the language, she doesn’t know anyone in the Philippines, and the plans for her is the have her interned at a closed facility for mentally disabled people, with severe overcrowding and dangers of abuse.
After Prime Minister Lapid intervened and asked Interior minister Shaked (who is the only one who can reverse a decision by the humanitarian committee) to reconsider the case of this young girl, and it appears that in the end the deportation of this girl my still be avoided.
The second story concerns a woman from Sierra Leone who is seeking asylum in Israel because she fears that she will be forced to undergo female circumcision in her home country. Already in 2019, the Israeli Supreme Court ruled that genital mutilation (of minors) should be considered as a threat, making these persons Refugees under the Refugee Convention. After the Humanitarian committee ruled that the woman must be deported, the Interior Ministry looked into the matter, and in a forty-three page report issued by Interior Minister Shaked, ridiculous and astonishing arguments are being used to justify the decision, with one argument particularly absurd. Shaked argues that since in Israel genital mutilation (as in circumcision) is an accepted and allowed practice, it is inconceivable that for foreigners, the danger of genital mutilation is used as a reason to declare those foreigners as refugees. Thus, since circumcision is allowed in Israel, female mutilation should be allowed in other countries.
Shaked shed some light on the absurd reasoning behind this argument by stating that since in more and more places (particularly in Europe, circumcision (for both Jews and Arabs) is under scrutiny, it cannot be that Israel will use a “similar” procedure performed on women and girls as a reason to give these women asylum. It would imply that also circumcision is a mutilation that should be stopped and that Israel concurs with that opinion.
Shaked is very well aware that circumcision, while it is in some eyes genital mutilation, is a minor procedure, with no ill effects to the boys undergoing it, female genital mutilation results in life-long effects that cannot be undone. So why the strange and rather absurd reasoning by the Interior Ministry and Ayelet Shaked?
And this is where these stories come to a common ground that is obvious to all and ignored by most.
These two women, from very different backgrounds and with very different problems have one overriding issue in common. They are not Jewish. If these women had been Jewish, their story would never have reached the news media, because there would not have been a story. They would be granted residency status (if they already didn’t have this since it is granted almost automatically to Jews entering Israel), they would be taken care of and would not have any of the fears they have to live with now.
The reason that so many absurd arguments are being used in both cases to justify a totally inhuman decision is simply to avoid having to come out with the only reason the Interior Ministry, its Minister and the Humanitarian Committee have to allow these women to be deported because it cannot be said out loud to avoid unpleasant discussions both here and abroad about how Israel is a racist State.
It is amazing that these things are still happening (and these two cases are the rare ones that see the light of day, with most similar cases being handled quietly and without outside scrutiny) but the Interior Ministry only does what it does and acts the way it acts because, as long as it doesn’t concern Jews, the average Israeli, couldn’t care less. With the horrific history of the Jews in mind, what does this say about the Jew of 2022?
I hope you found this article interesting and I welcome any comments you may have.
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