400 Eritreans arrive at UN offices in Tel Aviv, seek refugee status

The Interior Ministry reported Sunday that 400 Eritrean refugees had arrived at the UN offices in Tel Aviv, announced that they had crossed the border from Egypt into Israel last week and applied for refugee status in Israel.

According to the Yossi Edelstein, director of the Interior Ministry's Population Administration's Foreign Workers' Enforcement Unit, said "IDF forces apprehended them shortly after they had crossed the breached border between Israel and Egypt, but due to a glitch in communication between the IDF and the Shin Bet (internal security service), they were let go, despite the fact that Ketziot Prison in the Negev has 500 places to house them in.

"I have no idea how they got to Tel Aviv or what they're living on," added Edelstein. "We're looking into what we can do for them, along with the Immigration Administration… Israel is doing all it can to help the refugees, but we can only take in so many."

The 400 Eritrean refugees have already been preceded by hundreds of refugees from Sudan, who infiltrated Israel last week. They choose to come here, said a source in the Interior Ministry, because Israeli is rumored to grant them refugee status.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3507778,00.html

Just as the Jewish refugees who fled Europe were able to realize their own national ambitions in the new state of Israel.

Why?
international law says that people have a right to return to their land of origin.
you disagree?

Whatever compromises are necessary to make this happen should be worked out by the parties involved.

I don't think Palestinians should have to live as refugees or under occupation any longer.

The best way to bring an end to that untenable situation, in my opinion, is by establishing an independent Palestinian state and proclaiming it the homeland of the Palestinian people.

I realize and appreciate that not everyone agrees with this, however, I think that would bring the greatest degree of peace and prosperity to everyone in the region.

Getting back to the OP, what do you think should happen to the Eritreans mentioned in the article?

Part of the reasons given here for this refusal to accept Palestinians who want to return to their homes is that "there is no room in Israel".
apparently there is room for others.

accepting 400 people is the same as several million.

Right.

Tell you what - if you stipulate that the right of return for Palestinians be limited to 400 people, I may accept it.

As regards the Eritreans, I hope they get accepted as refugees. The best would be if they were able to return safely to their own country, but sadly that isn't likely to happen any time soon.

People are kicked out of their countries all the time, and even if "international law" says that they have the "right of return", they are usually not welcome back in (think of the Arab countries, expelling 850,000 Jews, who cannot even visit, much less live there). Most have lost all of their land and belongings.

This is not only a "palestinian" problem, but a problem for refugees globally.

we disagree on that issue.
"It's okay because it's happened before" just doesn't cut it for me.

850,000 Jews were expelled from Arab countries, right when Arabs fled or were expelled from the current state of Israel (in almost the same numbers). We aren't even talking about the millions of Jews expelled all over Europe the prior ten years, most of whom became refugees, or were forced to locate to new countries (having lost everything, and for too many of them, not just their livelihoods, but their lives).

You can't discuss one set of refugees and ignore the other. It's unconscionable.

be denied the right to do so.

I do not think Palestinian refugees should be held responsible or held hostage to what other nations do or don't do.