WITH APOLOGIES TO EMMA LAZARUS. Israel cannot accept everyone's tired and homeless. So writes Mark Krikorian at The Corner:

Zionism Is Not a Suicide Pact

Good for Israel in announcing it will turn back all Darfur refugees sneaking across the border from Egypt — thousands of Muslims claiming asylum would present an existential threat to the Jewish state. But here’s what the government has to deal with: the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, what appears to be the country’s equivalent of the ACLU, said that it is "Israel's moral and legal obligation to accept any refugees or asylum seekers facing life-threatening danger or infringements on
their freedom." That last bit is great – “infringements on their freedoms.” So,
apparently anyone, anywhere who doesn’t enjoy complete political freedom and
manages to sneak into Israel should be allowed to stay. This kind of
post-nationalism is bad enough in Europe and the U.S., but we at least have some
strategic depth, as it were – the very existence of such sentiments in a country
as small and insecure as Israel doesn’t bode well for its long-term viability.

It's great PR for Israel to be accepting these refugees--especially in light of the accusation of Israeli apartheid. By the same token, would the ACRI use the same argument to claim that Israel should accept Palestinian refugees from Lebanon for from the infamous UNRWA camps?

Still, why would Israel draw the line at the Darfur refugees, when those refugees have been shot by Egypt?

Technorati Tag: Israel and Darfur and ACRI.