Bashing Israel Over Darfur, Is It Justified?

Here is another example that if there is an anti-Israel angle that the media can find they will publish it:

Israel said Sunday it will no longer allow refugees from Darfur to stay after they sneak across the border from Egypt, drawing criticism from those who say the Jewish state is morally obliged to offer sanctuary to people fleeing mass murder.

Israel has been grappling for months over how to deal with the swelling numbers of Africans, including some from Darfur, who have been crossing the porous desert border.

The number of migrants has shot up to as many as 50 a day, according to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, apparently as word of job opportunities in Israel has spread. The rise has led to concerns that the country could face a flood of African refugees if it doesn’t take a harsher stand on asylum seekers. [Matti Friedman – AP]

The article is titled “Israel to Turn Away Darfur Refugees”, but towards the end of the article the AP writer includes a quote that these refugees are economic refugees from Darfur that were living in Egypt:

“Israel can’t throw open the gates and allow unlimited access for people who are basically economic refugees,” Zuroff said.

The Darfurians found sanctuary from the killings in Sudan by fleeing to Egypt, he said, but their arrival in Israel “was motivated primarily by the difficult living conditions and bleak economic prospects in that country.”

So why isn’t the article titled “Israel to Turn Way Darfur Economic Refugees from Egypt”?

I am also wondering why the AP article did not include the fact that Israel accepted 500 legitimate refugees from Darfur and only expelled economic refugees from Egypt:

In a decisive move to address the African refugee crisis, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert announced on Sunday that Israel has agreed to absorb 500 refugees from Darfur among the 2,800 Africans that have illegally entered into Israel.

“Those who have entered Israel illegally from Egypt will be returned to Egypt,” government spokesman David Baker said, according to the Jerusalem Post. “These people are illegal economic migrants and will be returned.”

Also why didn’t the AP mention that Britian has done the same exact thing Israel has done only a few months ago?:

Mrs Ibrahim, 33, who arrived in Britain 18 months ago, is among 60 Darfuri asylum-seekers who have received letters in the past week, ordering them to report to immigration officials. At least two dozen more, who were in the process of making fresh asylum claims, have been taken into detention in preparation for their deportation — against the explicit advice of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, who insists that Darfuris are at risk if returned to Khartoum.

Lawyers and campaigners say that the unprecedented flurry of activity is the Government’s attempt to meet deportation targets before the Khartoum route is closed to it. John Bercow, the former Conservative frontbencher who raised the issue in the Commons this week, called on the Government to suspend the deportations until after the judicial ruling.

“It is unacceptable for the Government to steamroller ahead with a policy that may be very soon judged out of order,” he told The Times. “By returning them, the Government is exposing vulnerable people to possible imprisonment, torture or death.”

His comments came after revelations about a Darfuri deported from Britain to Khartoum who was tortured on arrival by intelligence agents. They had apparently been made aware of his return by Sudanese embassy officials in London who had worked with the Home Office to deport him.

Israel returns economic refugees to Egypt and their is a global outcry; when Britian returns them straight to Khartoum for the same reasons where they are tortured, little is mentioned about it. I just have to wonder, why is that? I think we all know the answer.