Some positive news about Israel!

This morning's Times reports that hundreds of Muslims fleeing the slaughter in Darfur have found safe haven in Israel.

According to the Times, there are 220 Sudanese refugees being held in Israeli prison cells, army bases and kibbutzim. The Israeli Government believes that many more may have entered the country undetected, using Beduin smugglers to take them across the border with Egypt. The influx has accelerated sharply since December. For the time being, the refugees are set to stay. The Egypitans have refused to take them, and they cannot be returned to Sudan as they face certain death just for setting foot in Israel.

Technically the Sudanese are citizens of what Israel deems an enemy state and cannot stay. But their cause has been taken up by Holocaust campaigners and civil rights groups, who argue that Israel, of all countries, should give refuge to people fleeing genocide. “We cannot ignore refugees of the Darfur genocide when they knock on our door,” Avner Shalev, the director of Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial, said. He has written to Ehud Olmert, the Israeli Prime Minister, comparing their plight to Jews who in vain sought sanctuary from European countries during the Second World War.

This is the kind of news regarding Israel we'd like to see more of!