My name is Aron Adler.
I am 25 years old, was
born in Brooklyn NY, and raised in Efrat Israel. Though very busy, I don’t view
my life as unusual. Most of the time, I am just another Israeli citizen. During
the day I work as a paramedic in Magen David Adom, Israel’s national EMS
service. At night, I’m in my first year of law school. I got married this
October and am starting a new chapter of life together with my wonderful wife
Shulamit.
15-20 days out of every
year, I'm called up to the Israeli army to do my reserve duty. I serve as a
paramedic in an IDF paratrooper unit. My squad is made up of others like me;
people living normal lives who step up to serve whenever responsibility calls.
The oldest in my squad is 58, a father of four girls and grandfather of two;
there are two bankers, one engineer, a holistic healer, and my 24 year old
commander who is still trying to figure out what to do with his life. Most of
the year we are just normal people living our lives, but for 15-20 days each
year we are soldiers on the front lines preparing for a war that we hope we
never have to fight.
This year, our reserve
unit was stationed on the border between Israel, Egypt and the Gaza Strip in an
area called “Kerem Shalom.” Above and beyond the “typical” things for which we
train – war, terrorism, border infiltration, etc., - this year we were confronted
by a new challenge. Several years ago, a trend started of African refugees
crossing the Egyptian border from Sinai into Israel to seek asylum from the
atrocities in Darfur.
What started out as a
small number of men, women and children fleeing from the machetes of the
Janjaweed and violent fundamentalists to seek a better life elsewhere, turned
into an organized industry of human trafficking. In return for huge sums of
money, sometimes entire life savings paid to Bedouin “guides,” these refugees
are promised to be transported from Sudan, Eritrea, and other African countries
through Egypt and the Sinai desert, into the safe haven of Israel.
We increasingly hear
horror stories of the atrocities these refugees suffer on their way to freedom.
They are subject to, and victims of extortion, rape, murder, and even organ
theft, their bodies left to rot in the desert. Then, if lucky, after surviving
this gruesome experience whose prize is freedom, when only a barbed wire fence
separates them from Israel and their goal, they must go through the final death
run and try to evade the bullets of the Egyptian soldiers stationed along the
border. Egypt’s soldiers are ordered to shoot to kill anyone trying to cross
the border OUT of Egypt and into Israel. It’s an almost nightly event.
For those who finally
get across the border, the first people they encounter are Israeli soldiers,
people like me and those in my unit, who are tasked with a primary mission of
defending the lives of the Israeli people. On one side of the border soldiers
shoot to kill. On the other side, they know they will be treated with more
respect than in any of the countries they crossed to get to this point.
The region where it all
happens is highly sensitive and risky from a security point of view, an area
stricken with terror at every turn. It’s just a few miles south of the place
where Gilad Shalit was kidnapped. And yet the Israeli soldiers who are
confronted with these refugees do it not with rifles aimed at them, but with a
helping hand and an open heart. The refugees are taken to a nearby IDF base,
given clean clothes, a hot drink, food and medical attention. They are finally
safe.
Even though I live
Israel and am aware through media reports of the events that take place on the
Egyptian border, I never understood the intensity and complexity of the
scenario until I experienced it myself.
In the course of the
past few nights, I have witnessed much. At 9:00 PM last night, the first
reports came in of gunfire heard from the Egyptian border. Minutes later, IDF
scouts spotted small groups of people trying to get across the fence. In the
period of about one hour, we picked up 13 men - cold, barefoot, dehydrated -
some wearing nothing except underpants. Their bodies were covered with
lacerations and other wounds. We gathered them in a room, gave them blankets,
tea and treated their wounds. I don’t speak a word of their language, but the
look on their faces said it all and reminded me once again why I am so proud to
be a Jew and an Israeli. Sadly, it was later determined that the gunshots we
heard were deadly, killing three others fleeing for their lives.
During the 350 days a
year when I am not on active duty, when I am just another man trying to get by,
the people tasked with doing this amazing job, this amazing deed, the people
witnessing these events, are mostly young Israeli soldiers just out of high
school, serving their compulsory time in the IDF, some only 18 years old.
The refugees flooding
into Israel are a heavy burden on our small country. More than 100,000 refugees
have fled this way, and hundreds more cross the border every month. The social,
economic, and humanitarian issues created by this influx of refugees are
immense. There are serious security consequences for Israel as well. This influx
of African refugees poses a crisis for Israel. Israel has yet to come up with
the solutions required to deal with this crisis effectively, balancing its’
sensitive social, economic, and security issues, at the same time striving to
care for the refugees.
I don’t have the answers
to these complex problems which desperately need to be resolved. I’m not
writing these words with the intention of taking a political position or a
tactical stand on the issue.
I am writing to tell you
and the entire world what’s really happening down here on the Egyptian/Israeli
border. And to tell you that despite all the serious problems created by this
national crisis, these refugees have no reason to fear us. Because they know,
as the entire world needs to know, that Israel has not shut its eyes to their
suffering and pain. Israel has not looked the other way. The State of Israel
has put politics aside to take the ethical and humane path as it has so often
done before, in every instance of human suffering and natural disasters around
the globe. We Jews know only too well about suffering and pain. The Jewish
people have been there. We have been the refugees and the persecuted so many
times, over thousands of years, all over the world.
Today, when African
refugees flood our borders in search of freedom and better lives, and some for
fear of their lives, it is particularly noteworthy how Israel deals with them,
despite the enormous strain it puts on our country on so many levels. Our young
and thriving Jewish people and country, built from the ashes of the Holocaust,
do not turn their backs on humanity. Though I already knew that, this week I
once again experienced it firsthand. I am overwhelmed with emotion and
immensely proud to be a member of this nation.
With love of Israel,
Aron Adler writing from
the Israel/Gaza/Egyptian border.
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