Israel – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday rejected a call by Israel’s opposition leader to provide refuge to Syrian refugees, saying the country is too small to take them in.
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Images in recent days of thousands of refugees herded on and off trains in Europe as they sought a safe haven from Middle East conflict struck a chord in Israel, a state created three years after the Nazi Holocaust which killed six million Jews.
Isaac Herzog, head of the main opposition Zionist Union party, appealed to Israeli leaders to “absorb refugees from the fighting in Syria”, a northern neighbor that Israel considers an enemy state.
In public remarks at a cabinet meeting, Netanyahu said Israel was “not indifferent to the human tragedy” of refugees from Syria and noted that Israeli hospitals have been treating wounded from its civil war.
“However, Israel is a very small state. It has no geographic depth or demographic depth,” the right-wing premier said, suggesting that taking in Arab refugees would upset the demographic balance in a predominantly Jewish state where about a fifth of the 8.3 million population are Arab citizens.
Though there have been no international calls on Israel to open its borders to Syrians, Herzog said Netanyahu had a moral duty to accept refugees.
“The prime minister of the Jewish people would not shut his heart and the gates when people are fleeing for their lives, with babies in their arms, from persecutors,” Herzog said.
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Citing dangers faced by Palestinian refugees who have long lived in camps in Syria, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said they should be allowed into the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where he exercises limited self-rule.
Israel has said the overall issue of a right of return for Palestinian refugees would be settled only as part of a final peace accord. Israeli-Palestinian talks broke off in 2014.
At the cabinet session, Netanyahu coupled his remarks on Syrian refugees by saying that Israel must further secure its borders against African migrants and Islamist militants.
He announced the start of construction of a new 30-km (18-mile) stretch of fence along the frontier with Jordan, which signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1994.
Israel completed a 230-km (143-mile) barrier along the Egyptian border in 2013. Israel and Egypt made peace in 1979.
Israel has fences on the Lebanon border and along the line between the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and Syria.
Much of the West Bank is also divided by an Israeli-built barrier, while the Islamist Hamas-controled Gaza Strip is closed off behind high fences and walls.
Let giant SAUDI ARABIA take them in!
Incredible how israel politicians think one guy says something stupid the other guy has to justify it these refugees have a DNA to kill you they were born with that thought Second they have enough brothers and cousins all around the middle east That have enough place to take them why doesn’t any of them open their doors to their loved ones so it’s not the same like in the time of the Nazis the Jews didn’t think that way and Jews had nowhere to go. I have to stop reading the news that makes me sick it’s a big distraction in the life.
The image of the dead baby on the sea shore strikes a chord in everyone’s heart. But let us not forget, these little cuties turn into vicious anti Semites and terrorists. Look what has already happened to Europe, before this mess. France, England , Spain have huge issues with radical Islam and these countries have become increasingly anti Semitic due to the influx of Muslims. Kurt Shilling got fired from ESPN for noting that to say “only 5%” of Muslims are terrorists is like saying well only 7% of Germans were Nazis. So now with the invasion of MILLIONS of Syrians Europe need not worry because only 5% of them will be terrorists or ISIS sympathizers.
For Israel to allow any additional Muslims into the West Bank or anywhere else , is suicide. Herzog knows this. But the political left is more concerned about being PC than concerned about their own welfare.
While all the commentators are correct in that these Arabs are not without a place to go, do not forget that no country wanted jews after WW II because they were thieves, scrounges of society, dirty and parasites.
Hashen judged yishmael ba’asher hoo shom, and that’s why He saved him. The fact is, these are mothers, fathers, and children, who, like we jews, deserve a chance to live.
Herzog is an idiot. Let him go live In an Arab country and we will see how long he lasts, even with his wonderfully pro Arab views.