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Faced with the human catastrophe in Kabul, Israel needs to take in refugees from Afghanistan
The State Department's signing of a statement of American support for the Afghan people is a worthy but unsatisfactory step.
In the face of the shocking images that come after the occupation of the Taliban, Israel needs to join the rest of the Western world and absorb Afghan refugees, especially those who will be the target of persecution.
The move can also have political significance
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Afghanistan
Taliban
Refugees
Lightning Ravid
Monday, August 16, 2021, 7:30 p.m.
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This morning (Monday), the joint announcement initiated by the United States regarding the situation in Afghanistan was laid on the table of Foreign Minister Yair Lapid.
"The Afghan people have a right to live in security and dignity and we in the international community are ready to help with that," the statement said.
Lapid read the wording and gave permission to Foreign Ministry officials to update the Biden administration that Israel is joining more than 60 countries that have already signed the declaration.
It was a small step on the part of the Israeli government, which so far has mainly been looking to the side of the catastrophe in Afghanistan and trying to analyze its meanings.
As the hours go by more and more shocking pictures come from Afghanistan.
Members of the murderous Islamic organization are sitting armed in the office of the Afghan president who fled the country.
Citizens who remember the draconian Islamic laws, which ruled the Taliban in Afghanistan until 20 years ago, began painting advertisements with pictures of women on the streets of the capital Kabul to pre-empt a cure for Mecca.
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A country like Israel can and should join and receive refugees.
Residents who fled their homes because of the Taliban last week (Photo: AP)
Thousands of civilians fled to the international airport for fear of the Taliban, hoping for protection from US forces there. Amazing videos that came out of the place showed dozens of Afghans hanging on huge U.S. military transport planes, hoping hopelessly to take them to safety as well. According to reports from Afghanistan, three such civilians, who clung with all their might to the wheels of one of the planes as it took off, fell to their deaths a few minutes later.
Many around the world and also in Israel compared the images coming from Kabul to those coming from Saigon in 1975, when the North Vietnamese army took over the city and the United States evacuated its embassy in the country by helicopter. Two years after the Vietnam collapse, an Israeli merchant ship picked up 66 Vietnamese refugees who fled the country and got stuck in the middle of the sea. In Taiwan, Japan and Hong Kong refused to accept the refugees.
Then-Prime Minister Menachem Begin, who was in his first week in office after the "upheaval," passed a resolution in the government stating that Israel would absorb the refugees.
"The people of Israel, who knew persecution and knew, perhaps more than any other people, the meaning of the term refugee, could not see the suffering of these unfortunates," he declared.
The move could also have political significance ahead of his meeting with Biden.
Bennett (Photo: Official Website, Ohad Zugenberg)
Lapid's signing of the US declaration is a first but unsatisfactory step. Israel cannot remain indifferent to the sights coming from Afghanistan. A strong country like Israel, which defines itself as a liberal and modern democracy, can and should join other Western countries and absorb Afghan refugees - especially those who are likely to be the target of Taliban persecution - scientists, artists, journalists and especially women.
Next week, Prime Minister Bennett is expected to arrive at the White House for a first meeting with President Biden. The absorption of refugees from Afghanistan, even if it is a small number, will also be of great political importance to the new government in Israel with regard to its relations with the American administration.
A few weeks ago, Foreign Minister Yair Lapid published an article in the Haaretz newspaper in which he responded to criticism from the right of his anti-Semitic speech.
The things Torch wrote are very relevant to the catastrophe now taking place in Afghanistan.
"The Jewish people came out of the Holocaust and the exile with two conclusions," Lapid wrote.
"The first is that we must survive at all costs. No one will come to our rescue, no one will fight our wars ... The second conclusion is that we must be moral people."
Now is the time to turn those words into deeds.
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