In May, I attended a graduation party in Tel Aviv for Taj Jemy, a 28-year-old asylum seeker from Sudan. He gave a speech about the war in his home, Darfur, and how he wished his family could be in Tel Aviv to see him graduate and receive his bachelor’s degree. Africans, dressed in their best clothes, and some Israelis, filled the room, clapping and celebrating. He ended, “If I can do this, you can as well,” and everyone gathered there wanted to believe him. The celebration was interrupted by the Israeli police, who burst into the room, scattering the crowd. The partygoers recalling their skills of hiding, ducking and fleeing, spilled onto the street to find it barricaded and surrounded by horses. Seven people were arrested that night for not having their visas with them.

Israel’s policy toward African asylum seekers is to pressure them to self-deport or, as the former interior minister Eli Yishai put it, to “make their lives miserable” until they give up and let the government deport them. About 60,000 African asylum seekers have entered Israel since 2005, most of them Muslims from the Darfur region of Sudan, and Orthodox Christians from Eritrea; today that number is closer to 45,000.

The government and some media call them “infiltrators,” a word that for most Israelis evokes Palestinians illegally crossing into Israel to launch attacks, painting them as a threat. A law passed in 2013 requires male African asylum seekers already in Israel to be detained automatically and indefinitely in the open detention center, Holot, in the Negev desert. Detainees are allowed to wander the desert between three obligatory check-ins every day, and they must also remain in Holot overnight. If they miss a check-in, they can be transferred to the nearby prison. Their only alternative is to accept a sum of $3,500 to return to their country of origin, or a third country, usually Uganda or Rwanda, often without proper documentation to stay.



