The Scotsman has an interesting article on Muslim Sudanese refugees making their way to Israel. (Hat tip: Antidhimmi)

It illustrates a key point that James C. Scott makes in his book Domination and the Arts of Resistance: what people say as part of the public transcript is often contradicted by what they say in private. This recalls what happened when the Phalangist massacres of Palestinian refugees at Sabra and Shatilla started. The Palestinians ran to the Israeli posts for protection, thereby showing that, when the chips are down they knew Israelis don’t massacre, no matter what Arab leaders and media told them. One can find similar examples of the massive gap between what an “honor-shame” propaganda-oriented public sphere continually repeats for the sake of its own self image, and what people know privatley, but won’t contradict publicly.

In this case it sheds an interesting light on the issue of refugees. Part of the “Zionist narrative” is that they treated their refugees from the Arab world with as much consideration and concern as possible, working hard to absorb them, while the Arab countries froze their refugees from Israel into a state of permanent suffering. Using moral equivalence, criticizing Israel for not sufficiently respecting the cultures from which these refugees came, the anti-Zionists have heaped contempt on this effort to distinguish the Israeli record from the Arab. But these Muslim refugees from Sudan, with limited access to anything but the Muslim press, know better… two generations later.

Sun 4 Jun 2006
Sudan refugees seek home in Israel
ANNETTE YOUNG IN JERUSALEM

IN ALMOST perfect English, Sanka clearly states what his dream is: to build a life in Israel, learn Hebrew and become a filmmaker.

But Sanka is not a Jew seeking a new life in Israel. He is a 29-year-old Muslim refugee, one of more than 200 Sudanese – both Muslim and Christian – who have illegally made their way from Egypt’s Sinai into Israel in the last 18 months.

All came to seek asylum in the Jewish state. Instead, most, including Sanka (who for legal reasons does not want to use his real name), find themselves imprisoned as enemies because of the Sudanese government’s hostility towards Israel.

But as citizens of a nation itself ravaged by conflict, Israelis are becoming divided over their moral obligation to provide a home to Sudanese refugees from the war-torn Darfur region.

The number of Sudanese making the arduous trek to Israel has increased as fighting intensifies in Sudan, having claimed at least 200,000 lives and created more than two million refugees. Recent attempts to crack down on illegal Sudanese living in Cairo has also added to a rise in the numbers.

“If they know, everyone who pays $50 (£26) can come to a modern, democratic state and live happily ever after – why not come to Israel?” Yochie Gessin, an Israeli government lawyer, said last week. “We can’t accept this, there are some 40 million Sudanese.”

Such statements have sparked a bitter reaction. Avner Shalev, the chairman of Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust museum, has written to prime minister Ehud Olmert, urging him to “show solidarity” with the Sudanese refugees.

“As members of the Jewish people, for whom the memory of the Holocaust burns, we cannot stand by as refugees from the genocide in Darfur hammer on our doors,” Shalev wrote.

Michael Kagan, a lawyer with the Tel Aviv University Human Rights Clinic, which represents some 50 Sudanese refugees in the Israeli High Court, agreed. “This situation reveals just how much Israel is currently grappling with the issue of offering asylum to non-Jews,” he said.

The United Nations has also become involved as they attempt to resettle some of the Sudanese in Israel to other countries.

Now working in a kibbutz on the shores of the Dead Sea, Sanka is one of almost 30 Sudanese released on “house arrest” as their fate is decided in court. Despite being jailed for a year before being sent to the kibbutz, Sanka is remarkably upbeat about living in the Jewish state. “The Israelis here are really a free people, they have an open mind,” he said.

With his family from Dafur, Sanka, then living in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum, decided to leave Sudan after attracting unwanted government attention over his reformist views. “I am Muslim but I don’t agree with fundamental Islam,” he said. “Many of my friends who expressed similar views, were arrested, tortured or in some cases, disappeared.”

He spent four years in Cairo but, after being arrested as an illegal worker, he caught a bus to Egypt’s Sinai region where he then walked for two days across the desert and into Israel. He was picked up by an Israeli military patrol and taken to a military jail.

“The Jewish people I’ve met here understand my plight. For the first time in my life I feel free. I know that sounds funny but I do. I feel freer here than I ever did in Sudan.”

Tomorrow, Israeli human rights groups will hold a demonstration in Jerusalem, having petitioned the high court on behalf of the refugees. By Friday, the government must submit to the court a plan to grant judicial hearings for the refugees.

No doubt the anti-zionists will find some way to blame the plight of Sudanese refugees on Israeli racism.

On the other hand, maybe these Muslim refugees could serve as the seed of a form of Islam that really was capable of recognizing the good in others.