There goes the neighbourhood

You may have heard that there's been a little unpleasantness in the Sinai peninsula recently. Nominally, it's part of Egypt, but the Egyptians haven't shown a lot of interest in the vast expanse of scrub and desert since their "army" was chased out of it in 1967. Suddenly, though, the Egyptian forces have been asserting themselves, ostensibly to deal with nests of Islamic militants, smugglers, terrorists and other undesirables.

An AP report from Cairo today suggests there's a bit more to the story. Seems the undesirables include 1000s of Africans, and it now appears that what the Egyptians are doing is driving them in a northeasterly direction, into Israel.

You might think that Israel, the homeland of the oppressed and dispossessed, would welcome these newcomers with open arms, much as it "welcomed" the black Jews of Ethiopia back in the 90s. You would be wrong.

Instead of giving refugees houses and cars [as the Canadians would do. Ed.], the Israeli government is sending its own troops into the Sinai to stop the migrants before they reach the ill-defined and ill-defended border. About 60,000 Africans -- most come from Sudan, South Sudan and Eritrea -- have already got through, probably at night when, if they don't smile, they can't be seen.

AP says the chosen people are worried that the influx could harm the Jewish character of their state. The Israelis didn't put it quite that way themselves. In a statement released today, the military spokesthingy's office said Israeli forces are working "to prevent the infiltration of both hostile terror elements as well as criminal smuggling."

The statement went on to say that Israeli soldiers have stopped groups several times and held them "until the arrival of Egyptian forces that took the infiltrators." They had no comment on where this took place, but Walt is guessing it wasn't Dade County.

Walt is also guessing that this news from the Sinai will not put even a temporary stop to American Jews' yammering about how African-Americans (and themselves, of course) are the victims of decades of discrimination and racism, and must be compensated. After all, America is not Israel. Why, there's no comparison!