We Stopped the Deportations!

25/04/18

Wow. After an incredible fight by tens of thousands of Israeli citizens and refugees against the forced deportation of African refugees to countries where their lives will be in danger, the Israeli government admitted that the deportation plan is cancelled!Image uploaded from iOS (4) (1)For the last few months, our community has worked tirelessly in the fight against the deportation - together we convinced Israeli pilots to refuse to fly refugees to their deaths, we organized a protest outside the Ethiopian Airlines offices and pressured them and other foreign airlines to end deportation flights, sent thousands of letters to the Ugandan government calling them not to cooperate with the forced deportations, called on Israel's largest union to accept refugees to their ranks, and joined residents of South Tel Aviv and refugees in massive protests against the cruel plan. The past couple of weeks have seen many ups and downs: we thought we had won a few times already, but each time Prime Minister Netanyahu went back on his deals in the last minute, leaving the refugee community destabilized and terrified about their future. Just two weeks ago, after signing a historic resettlement deal with UNHCR, Netanyahu immediately capitulated to far-right trolls on Facebook and extremists in the Knesset. He cancelled the resettlement deal, and then event attempted to circumvent the Supreme Court’s decision to end forced deportations. But his tricks didn’t work. The massive grassroots resistance against the deportation won - and the government was forced to admit that their plan collapsed. This is truly a huge victory - but even though the cruel deportations are off the table, the future for refugees is far from clear. Our community is continuing to work for a just plan for the refugees and residents of South Tel Aviv - and we are closely following developments. Together we will keep fighting against the racism and the deportation - until we win!