Darfur through a Shoah Lens: Sudanese Asylum Seekers, Unruly Biopolitical Dramas, and the Politics of Humanitarian Compassion in Israel more

A Reader in Medical Anthropology Theoretical Trajectories, Emergent Realities Edited by Byron J. Good, Michael M. J. Fischer, Sarah S. Willen, and Mary-Jo DelVecchio Good i WILEY-BLACKWELL A John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., Publication 39 Darfur through a Shoah Lens Sudanese Asylum Seekers, Unruly Biopolitical Dramas, and the Politics of Humanitarian Compassion in Israel Sarah S. Willen The calamity of the rightless is not that they are deprived of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, or of equality before the law and freedom of opinion - formulas which were designed to solve problems within given communities - but that they no longer belong to any community whatsoever. (Hannah Arendt) ... as one gets deeper into humanitarianism a series of dimensions of what may be called a complex ontology of inequality unfolds that differentiates in a hierarchical manner the values of human lives. (Didier Fassin) Compassion begins from where we are, from the circle of our cares and concerns. It will be felt only toward those things and persons we see as important, and of course most of us most of the time ascribe importance in a very uneven and inconstant way. (Martha Nussbaum) In this essay, I explore how people seeking refuge and political asylum become engulfed in fraught biopolitical dramas that expose the inconsistencies, the contradictions, and even the violence that lurk within contemporary forms of humanitarian compassion. Ethno- graphically, I focus on the governmental unruli- ness and the hierarchy of suffering that emerged when more than 13,000 people - among them men, women, and children fleeing Darfur, the civil war in South Sudan, Eritrea, Somalia and the Ivory Coast - trekked through the Sinai desert and across the long, porous Egyptian-Israeli border in 2007-2008. Those who arrived on Israel's southern doorstep seek- ing protection are far from alone; they join a growing population of more than 16 million refugees and asylum seekers worldwide (UNHCR 2009). And like many of these mil- lions, their flight has not thrust them into an open-armed human rights-based or humanitar- ian embrace, but rather flung them against rigid Sarah S. Willen, "Darfur through a Shoah Lens: Sudanese Asylum Seekers, Unruly Biopolitical Dramas, and the Politics of Humanitarian Compassion in Israel." Substantially modified version of a piece that appeared in French in Cultures & Conflits n°72, autumn 2008, as "L'hyperpolitique du 'Plus jamais 5a!': demandeurs d'asile soudanais, turbulence gouvernementale et pofitiques de controle des refugies en Israel." 506 SARAH S. WILLEN walls - some metaphoric and some quite literal - of exclusion, denial, and dehumanization. Despite any moral obligations that may cling to for exude from) imperial histories, lingering postcolonial ties, or contemporary neocolonial imbrications, countries in the Global North - especially Western Europe, North America, Australia, and now Israel - have been loath to accept or integrate refugees from the Global South. At times, however, historical memory and "political emotions" (Hage 2009) are in- voked in ways that mitigate these exclusionary attitudes. Here I draw upon fieldwork conducted in Israel in 2007 to explore one such instance, which challenges us to ask: How ought a country built, to a great extent, by refugees fleeing geno- cide respond to a contemporary influx of refu- gees escaping similar circumstances? Given the volatile politics of refugee claims- making around the globe, it should come as no surprise that the unanticipated influx of over 10,000 African refugees into Israel generated an almost instantaneous wave of public atten- tion, political controversy, and grassroots activism. Although these anxious Israeli reac- tions echoed similar concerns in other North- ern refugee destinations, they bore a decidedly local cast. In one sense, public discussion and debate were framed by the country's demo- graphically inflected self-definition as a "Jewish and democratic state" and infused with a sense of "demographic trepidation" con- cerning the possibility that a much larger wave of refugees from distressed African countries would soon follow. Interrupting this xenopho- bic chorus, however, was a separate array of voices focusing on the small group of asylum seekers who had survived horrors that evoked collective Jewish-Israeli memories of the Shoah, or Holocaust: those fleeing what the international community described as genocide in Darfur. According to the leaders and citizen-activists who publicized this morally freighted historical analogy, Israeli Jews and refugees from Darfur are bound to- gether in what one newspaper called a "kinship of genocide" (Burston 2008). This analogy also spurred a high profile grassroots campaign led by Jewish communities in the United States under the slogan, "Save Darfur." Driving these novel kinship formulations was the ubiquitous refrain, if not the central organizing principle, of contemporary Jewish identity: "Never again!"1 Thus the slogans of one refugee ex- perience were adapted to evoke humanitarian compassion for other refugees - but not with- out friction and conflict. The localized biopolitical drama that ensued reveals new layers of complexity in the contemporary politics of international human rights and refugee migration. First, it intersects with the already complicated refugee stories of both Israelis (not only from Europe, but also from North Africa, Yemen, Iraq, Iran, and elsewhere) and Palestinians (in the West Bank and Gaza and in the wider Middle Eastern and global diaspora). Second, it shows how Israel has become a fortified way-station on the outer perimeter of "Fortress Europe"; now, its new "detention centers" must be added to similar carceral apparatuses in Turkey, North Africa, and Eastern Europe. In analyzing the ideological, performative, and emotional dynamics of Israeli reactions to this particular refugee influx, I aim to shed light on both the power and the danger embed- ded within contemporary configurations of hu- manitarian sentiment including, in particular, those motivated by symbolic (misidentifica- tion and political emotion. I begin by exploring the governmental "unruliness" that resulted when thousands of asylum seekers made their way through the Sinai desert and across the border into Israel. Unruliness, here, has two referents, both applicable far beyond the par- ticularities of the present case: first, the legal, political, and administrative disorder faced by asylum seekers and all those who interact with them on the ground; and second, the failings and failures of the "international refugee regime" (Malkki 1995) and its local counter- parts which, although purportedly anchored in rules, rights and laws, often do not deliver on their promise. I then turn to questions of rhet- oric and representation to explore how a stun- ningly diverse array of Israeli activists quickly took up the "kinship of genocide" analogy and cast themselves as legitimate "trauma brokers" (James 2004) on behalf of Sudanese asylum seekers from Darfur. In analyzing the power and the limits of this potent historical analogy, DARFUR THROUGH A 5HOAH LENS 507 I explore how different stakeholders respond to contemporary processes of asylum seeking, and to the forms of state violence that can arise in response, by reasoning through history in markedly different ways. In probing the dynamics of this unruly bio- politicai drama, my broader goal is to explore three problems that complicate contemporary enactments of humanitarian compassion. First, this ethnographic case clearly reveals the labil- ity and arbitrariness of the terms used not only by states but also by humanitarian actors to classify and, in effect, to rank candidates for empathy and compassion. Not only are terms like "asylum seeker," "refugee," "illegal immi- grant," and "infiltrator" implicated within broader techniques of governmentality, but they also reduce the "subjective trajectories" of individual men, women, and children to "indistinct, displaced, and localized bodies" (Pandolfi 2003: 374) - that is, to a form of what Agamben (1998) calls "bare life," or bio- logical life stripped of agency or political voice (cf. Arendt 1973). When subjectivity and polit- ical identity are sheared away, human distinct- iveness and dignity are deactivated and suppressed; they are "erased by the new cat- egories in which human beings are pigeon- holed" (Pandolfi 2003: 381). Once such unique, subjective trajectories have been an- nulled, it is only through suffering that hu- manitarian biopolitics can make room for compassion (Ticktin 2006). Such biopolitical operations beg important questions, both eth- ical and ethnographic, among them: "What is at stake when we recognize others through the lens of their suffering and not through their political subjectivity?" {James 2004: 132; cf. Biehl this volume, Ticktin this volume). Not all suffering is equal, and this brings us to the second troubling dimension of humani- tarian compassion. In the growing literature on migrants and refugees within local and global economies of humanitarian concern, three characteristics are particularly noteworthy. Suffering that engenders a particularly strong humanitarian response typically (1) bears the marks of trauma; (2) can be "proven" and packaged convincingly (Fassin and D'Halluin 2007; Giordano 2008; McKinney 2007; Tick- tin 2006); and crucially (3) tends to map closely onto the moral agendas and concerns of those who are empowered to bestow, with- hold, or withdraw the "gift" of humanitarian compassion (Fassin 2005, 2007; James 2004; Nussbaum 2003; Pandolfi 2003). In other words, humanitarian economies of concern are not neutral; they are always and inevitably shot through with politics, ideology, and his- torical consciousness. What happens, then, to those who have endured the "wrong kind" of suffering? The answer to this question reveals a third paradox: humanitarianism's not-so-hidden potential to generate, rather than alleviate, violence (James 2004; Nyers 2000; Ticktin 2006). In the pre- sent case, two groups have become casualties of this derivative form of humanitarian vio- lence. First, the vast majority of African asylum seekers in Israel are not from Darfur; as a result, they rank much lower in the local "hier- archy of suffering" that has emerged (Farmer 2003: 29-30, see also Fassin 2007). Second, the everyday struggles of another, nearby refu- gee population are thundering in their absence from public and political conversation: Pales- tinians in the West Bank and Gaza who are caught in the brutal gridlock of Israeli occupa- tion. I return to the roots and implications of this glaring absence in the article's conclusion. First, we must situate this biopolitical drama in ethnographic context. Refugee Migration Against the Backdrop of a Globalizing Labor Market The recent influx of African asylum seekers into Israel arrived at a tumultuous time - although it is always a tumultuous time in the region of Israel-Palestine - but nonetheless, it began just as the Israeli government and the Israeli public were finally, if reluctantly, begin- ning to acknowledge the country's new status as a destination for transnational migration from the global South. From 1993 to 2000, between 200,000 and 300,000 transnational migrant workers arrived in Israel, about half unauthorized and the other half unauthorized, and by 2000 they comprised over 10 percent of the country's labor force (Kemp and Raijman 508 SARAH S. WILLEN 2008; Willen 2007e). In the same time period, small numbers of asylum seekers, mostly from unstable African countries including Liberia, Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast, Ethiopia, and most recently Sudan and Eritrea, entered the country as well (Adout 2007; Anteby-Yemini 2009; Ben-Dor and Kagan 2007). In 2002, ostensibly in response to rising unemployment, the Israeli government initi- ated a costly, heavily mediatized, and occasion- ally violent mass deportation campaign targeting the country's non-Jewish, non-Arab residents (Willen 2007b, 2007d). Although "illegal" migrant workers were the campaign's primary targets, others - including asylum seekers - were occasionally caught in its drag- net (Willen 2010). More than 140,000 un- authorized residents were "distanced" from Israel, to employ the Immigration Police's sani- tizing euphemism, including about 50,000 who were arrested and forcibly deported and thou- sands of others who were "encouraged" - that is, regularly and systematically intimidated - into leaving "voluntarily." Meanwhile, Israel has continued to recruit "legal" transnational workers to perform work that Israelis won't, and Palestinians now can't, perform. Although the larger story of Israel's encounter with transnational labor migration lies beyond the scope of this discussion (but see Kemp and Raijman 2008; Willen 2007c), it is important to emphasize that the smoldering conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians, the recent glob- alization of Israel's labor force (partly in response to the conflict), and the harsh government crack- down on burgeoning populations of trans- national labor migrants all contribute to the overall "unruliness" animating Israel's response to this new wave of African refugees. So, too, do persistent memories of the Shoah, Israel's "founding trauma" (LaCapra 2001), as I will elaborate momentarily. The Lability of Labels and the Arbitrary Deployment of Juridical Categories Another, broader factor contributing to this governmental unruliness is the epistemological and classificatory confusion associated with newly arrived border-crossers, whom the state resists describing as either asylum seekers or refugees, instead calling them "infiltrators" (mistanenim). More precisely, the Israeli gov- ernment, military, and police have been reluc- tant to distinguish between economically motivated migrants, like the "illegal migrant workers" the state has invested heavily in rounding up and expelling since 2002, and "asylum seekers" or "refugees" fleeing war, pol- itical conflict, or government repression. By mid-2008, national politicians had fused their parallel accusations of unlawful entry and un- lawful work-seeking into a new term altogether: "labor infiltrators" {mistanenei avoda). The state's reluctance to proclaim Israel a destination for legitimate asylum seeking stems from two facets of the "demographic trepida- tion" noted earlier: first, an explicit desire to limit the number of non-Jews arriving in the country from the global South, and second, a concomitant desire to avoid acknowledging any debts - material or otherwise - to Palestin- ian refugees. As a result, Israel has avoided developing any national asylum legislation, any systematic procedure for reviewing asylum petitions, or any infrastructure to accommo- date or protect asylum seekers. Instead, it has studiously avoided precedent-setting moves, resulting in a "juridical void" (Akoka 2006, cited in Anteby-Yemini 2009) that severely impedes the translation of international legal statutes into national-level practice. One way the state has evaded these internationally defined legal obligations is by simply calling asylum seekers by another name. The strategic redefinition of new arrivals using a creative neologism, "labor infiltrators," is consistent with the state's habitual rejection of potential immigrants who do not arrive via the "Law of Return," the law that grants virtually auto- matic Israeli citizenship to anyone of Jewish heritage while denying it to almost all others. Despite the state's vigorous resistance to recognizing asylum or refugee claims, two forms of protection are nonetheless available in Israel: "temporary protected status" (TPS) and formal refugee status. Petitioners from a group facing danger in their country of origin can apply to UNHCR {not to the Israeli gov- ernment) for TPS as "humanitarian refugees." DARFUR THROUGH A SHOAH LENS 509 Bearers of this provisional form of status re- ceive a letter declaring their temporary immun- ity to deportation and, in some instances, granting them authorization to work. Import- antly, bearers of TPS are not entitled to any social rights or benefits. In contrast to TPS petitions, applications for permanent refugee status must be filed individually. Although Israel has made limited use of TPS provisions to grant temporary protection to small groups of asylum seekers - just over 500 people as of 2005, mostly from Congo, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Ivory Coast - it has been much more conservative in its allocation of recognized refugee status (Kritzman 2007}. For instance, Israel granted refugee status to 12 of 922 peti- tioners in 2004,11 of 909 in 2005, 3 of 832 in 2007, and just one of 1586 in 2008.2 Sudanese Asylum Seekers: A "Kinship of Genocide/' "Enemy Nationals," or a New Captive Labor Force? The recent influx of African refugees into Israel has proven particularly prone to ideologically motivated redefinition. The event that precipi- tated this wave of border-crossing was the vio- lent dispersal of a peaceful demonstration at a protest camp of about 2,500 Sudanese men, women, and children outside the offices of the United Nations High Commissioner on Refu- gees (UNHCR) in Cairo. Refugees had estab- lished the camp in September 2005 to demonstrate against their harsh living condi- tions in Egypt and UNHCR's failure to attend to their petitions for refugee status and resettle- ment. After three months of fruitless protest, the Egyptian police dispersed the camp in December 2005 using tear gas, water cannons, and live ammunition. Twenty-seven Sudanese demonstrators were killed, and hundreds of others were arrested, interrogated, and in some cases tortured by the Egyptian police (Azzam 2006). In the wake of these events, the numbers of Sudanese men, women, and children fleeing Cairo and heading toward the Israeli border increased - among them Muslims from Darfur and Christians from South Sudan - as did the numbers of non-Sudanese refugees from Eri- trea and several other African countries. Unlike asylum seekers from other troubled African countries, those from Sudan were ini- tially denied the opportunity to apply for TPS in Israel. Instead, Sudanese asylum seekers were classified by the Israeli state as "enemy nationals" - i.e., as citizens of a state with which Israel has no diplomatic relations - and detained without judicial review {Ben-Dor and Kagan 2007). Importantly, many Sudanese asylum seekers had fled because of violence inflicted upon them by Sudan itself - as had Jews fleeing Nazi persecution in the 1940s. In effect, Israel's policy of detaining refugees from Darfur as "enemy nationals" is tantamount to World War II-era British {and, in some cases, American) policies of detaining German Jews who fled the Nazi regime on the basis of their German citizenship (see Ilan 2006). (As an his- torical note, the fledgling Israeli state worked with the International Refugee Organization, predecessor of UNHCR, to sponsor an article in the Fourth Geneva Convention exempting refugees from classification as "enemy nation- als" (Ben-Dor and Kagan 2007}.) In a savvy rhetorical move, attorneys at Tel Aviv University's Refugee Rights Legal Clinic called attention to this Nazi-era analogy in an effort to bolster their legal argument that de- tention of Sudanese asylum seekers as "enemy nationals" violates international law. On sev- eral key occasions, their arguments proved per- suasive in court. For instance, in an August 2006 decision to release four Sudanese from Darfur who had been imprisoned without judi- cial review, the deciding judge determined that their situation is not qualitatively different from the fate of tens of thousands of German Jews who felt their very souls were threatened when they fled from the Nazi regime and arrived in England seeking refuge. These refugees were first treated as en- emies and were put in custody, but the British authorities realized pretty soon the ... moral injustice and changed their attitude in favour of the refugees of the Nazi regime. (Ibid.) Rather than relying only upon codified law, the judge's decision tapped into deep wells of pol- itical emotion that lie beneath, and on occasion 510 SARAH S. WILLEN substantively influence, the Israeli legal system. Building upon court decisions like this one, and working in close collaboration with local human rights NGOs, lawyers at the Refugee Rights Clinic succeeded in convincing the courts to release first dozens and later hun- dreds of Sudanese (and eventually other Afri- can) refugees from detention through what are described as "alternative to imprisonment" arrangements. These "alternative" arrangements typically involved the release of a small number of de- tainees from prison into the hands of an em- ployer - at either an agricultural settlement (kibbutz or moshav) or a hotel - who has agreed to provide them, and sometimes their families, with housing, food, and other basic needs in exchange for their labor. Significantly, these employment conditions, in which detainee/employees are bound to a single em- ployer and place of residence, were strikingly similar to the "binding arrangement" {hesder ha'kvila) that governed the employment of "legal" migrant workers until it was struck down by Israel's High Court in 2006 as a form of "modern slavery" following a lengthy battle waged by local human rights groups. Indeed, these "alternative" arrangements were riddled with legal, political, and moral problems. First, they were coordinated neither by the state nor the courts, but rather on an ad hoc basis - ironically, by the very human rights groups that spent years fighting for the abolition of the "binding arrangement." Second, it is particularly striking that these human rights groups' efforts to "free" refugees from detention put them in cahoots with pri- vate commercial interests that benefited finan- cially from the state's willingness to transform detained asylum seekers into a new captive labor force. Third, the release of detainees to such work arrangements has created a "revolv- ing door" in jails, which have now become spaces of circulation; as more detainees are released, space becomes available to arrest and detain others. Fourth, reports quickly emerged about the exploitation and abuse of newly released refugee workers, espe- cially in agricultural settings. Overall, these "alternative to imprisonment" arrangements - fragile, haphazardly organized, sporadically implemented, and imbued with practical and moral dilemmas - further exemplify the grow- ing unruliness characterizing Israel's response to this new refugee influx. Inter-agency Bickering and Growing Governmental Unruliness Another facet of this unruliness involves the inter-agency tensions that erupted as the number of asylum seekers arriving daily began to climb in spring 2007. At first, the army threw up its hands and declared asylum seekers the responsibility of the Immigration Police, which originally was created in 2002 to deport unauthorized migrant workers. The military reserve units stationed on the border initiated an informal policy of bringing asylum seekers - sometimes one or two, sometimes entire bus- loads - to the southern city of Beersheva with the intention of handing them over to the Im- migration Police. The police, however, refused responsibility as well, declaring their "deten- tion centers" full to capacity with unauthorized migrant workers slated for deportation. As a result, hundreds of asylum seekers were left - effectively dumped - on the streets of Beershe- va: on one occasion near the central bus sta- tion, on another near the train station, and on another outside of City Hall {Bereshovsky 2007; Grinberg 2007b, 2007d). These jurisdictional disputes became both lighting rods for public attention and clear illustrations of growing governmental unruli- ness. On one occasion in June 2007, for in- stance, a busload of refugees was dropped off by the army at a local police station - and then promptly transported back to the regional mili- tary command center by the police. The mili- tary spokesperson issued an indignant response: Does the army know how to provide formula and diapers to children of refugees? Does the army deal with registration and giving medical examinations? Someone forgot what the role of the IDF [Israel Defense Forces] is along the Israel-Egypt border. ... This is an absurd situ- ation. Where is the Immigration Administration [i.e., the Immigration Police]? {Azoulay 2007) DARFUR THROUGH A SHOAH LENS 511 A representative of that administration turned the blame around, declaring that, The IDF should close down the border with Egypt hermetically so refugees will not be able to enter Israel. 3f the Immigration Administra- tion would have to deal with these refugees, in a week all the holding areas would be full and they will stay that way for more than a decade - because it will not be possible to send them back to their countries, (ibid.) Sometimes these disputes became emotion- ally charged public spectacles involving a long and varied cast of characters. On a separate occasion in May 2007, for instance, more than three dozen refugees from Darfur who had been detained on a military base were dropped off by the army at district police headquarters in Beersheva. An article in Ha'aretz newspaper traced the inter-agency chaos that ensued: The police refused to take custody of the refu- gees and they were left in the street as welfare and military authorities scrambled to find a solution for them. Eventually they were trans- ferred to a military housing facility in the city. Media reports of the refugees prompted the prime minister's adviser for social and welfare affairs ... to intervene. It was decided that Be'er Sheva's welfare authority would take care of the Sudanese families in a few days. The remaining refugees will be held by the police as illegal aliens. The reserve soldiers who had brought the refugees to the police headquarters drove off, leaving the refugees - men, women and chil- dren - in the street, surrounded by the media. [...] A Southern District Police spokesman said that the bus transporting the refugees was sent back to IDF Southern Command because "police deal with criminals, and this isn't the case." (Grinberg 2007b, emphasis added) Jurisdictional disputes like this one are highly revealing. First, they highlight the profound and ongoing tension between two construc- tions of asylum seekers: either as criminal infil- trators to be detained and, if possible, expelled, or as vulnerable people who must be protected. While the military and the police have tended to espouse the former construction and leave the latter to civil society organizations (or municipal welfare departments), often the distinction is less clear-cut. Second, this dispute throws the arbitrary nature of governmental detention practices into stark relief. In the absence of systematic laws or policies, the decision to detain or not to detain often hinges not on the substance of a petitioner's case - a matter of little concern to either the military or the police - but rather on two separate factors: the availability of space within a detention facility, and inter-agency dynamics. If space is available when a group of asylum seekers is arrested, they will likely be detained. If not, they may find themselves "dumped" in a manner that forces another state agency - i.e. the police or a local munici- pality - to take responsibility for them. In this particular incident, perhaps because of the con- centrated media attention, the municipal wel- fare department was called in to provide a default option. But when space in their housing facilities ran out, it was no secret that, "The remaining refugees [would] be held by the police as illegal aliens." It would be difficult to find a clearer illustration of the arbitrary deployment of juridical categories than this. Strange Bedfellows: The Emerging Refugee Advocacy Movement This generalized atmosphere of non-policy and governmental chaos soon yielded a corollary effect; it catalyzed a new, highly energized branch of Israel's migrant and refugee advocacy movement3 under the impassioned but largely inexperienced leadership of a group of social work students in Beersheva. The students quickly forged ties with diverse organ- izations and individuals as they sought temporary accommodation for refugees who had been abandoned unceremoniously on the streets of their city. Within a few short months, a hodgepodge of initiatives, organiza- tions, and "strange bedfellows" coalitions had sprung up, including student groups; veteran human rights organizations; Zionist immigrant aid organizations; and religious groups includ- ing the movement for Reform Judaism, a Muslim organization in southern Israel, the International Christian Embassy (founded to 512 SARAH 5. WILLEN support Jews' return to the biblical Holy Land), and congregations of Messianic Jews, or "Jews for Jesus." Some groups collected food, clothing, and toiletries; others organized housing, medical care, or Hebrew language lessons; and still others helped asylum seekers navigate the UNHCR and Israeli legal systems. Although motivated by good intentions, this broad-based, patchwork movement has not only struggled with, but also contributed to the overall atmosphere of unruliness. Five events propelled this movement for- ward. First, then-Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's controversial policy of "hot return" provoked considerable public debate. According to Ol- mert, the arrangement had been coordinated with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, and individuals deported to Egypt would be safe from further deportation to Sudan {refoule- ment). Mubarak, however, publicly denied the existence of any such agreement. Second, in an effort to pressure the state to develop a coherent policy response, the munici- pality of Beersheva transported several busloads of asylum seekers to Jerusalem for a staged dem- onstration in the Rose Garden outside the Knes- set (Parliament). Although the Prime Minister's office paid little attention, the demonstration at- tracted a great deal of local media attention and captured the interest of still more local organiza- tions and Israeli citizens. A third key development involved reports of Egyptian police brutality at the border. In late July, Egyptian police officers shot and killed a Sudanese woman from Darfur (Grinberg 2007a). A few weeks later, in a TV news inter- view, several Israeli military reservists described a scuffle at the border in which three asylum seekers trying to cross into Israel were shot dead by Egyptian police and a fourth, who jumped onto the wire fence in an attempt to cross, was dragged back and bludgeoned to death by the Egyptians in view of the Israeli soldiers on the other side. These and other reports of Egyptian police violence weakened Olmert's argument that immediate deportation to Egypt - which Israeli human rights organizations insist is a clear violation of international law - could take place without endangering lives. These brutal events precipitated a strong case of what Erica James (2004) has called "do something syndrome." Within a day or so of this final incident, a majority of Israeli par- liament members - 63 of a total 120 - had, indeed, done something; they signed a petition asking the government not to deport any more Sudanese asylum seekers to Egypt. The MPs signing the petition represented a stunning cross-section of the Israeli political spectrum including not just the left-center Labor party and the center-right Likud, but also the Na- tional Religious Party, which represents right- wing Jewish settlers in the Occupied Territor- ies, and the mixed Jewish-Arab Communist party. According to the petition's "kinship of genocide" logic, "The refugees need protection and sanctuary, and the Jewish people's history as well as the values of democracy and human- ity pose a moral imperative for us to give them that shelter" (Grinberg 2007c). Despite this lofty rhetoric, a group of more than 50 refu- gees, most of them from Darfur, were deported to Egypt just a few weeks later. Fifth, in late summer, the government an- nounced a decision to grant Israeli citizenship to 498 refugees from Darfur already residing in the country. A newspaper article reporting on the decision employed the same reasoning as the petition; Israel cannot ignore the refugees' fate because of the history of the Jewish people. The same article reiterated Olmert's earlier declaration that anyone attempting to cross the southern border would be deported imme- diately to Egypt (Mualem 2007). As this chaotic situation unfolded, I inter- viewed representatives of ten organizations in- volved in responding to the refugee influx; attended several key public meetings and policy conferences; interviewed several refugees; and visited two impromptu shelters. Two themes dominated these meetings and encounters: first, generalized state of governmental unruliness, and second, the Shoah/Darfur analogy and "kinship of genocide" logic. "Founding Trauma," "Political Emotion," and Grassroots Activism To begin making sense of the privileged pos- ition of Sudanese from Darfur within Israel's emerging local hierarchy of suffering, we drome." Within a day or so it, a majority of Israeli par- - 63 of a total 120 - had, thing; they signed a petition lent not to deport any more ieekers to Egypt, The MPs in represented a stunning e Israeli political spectrum the left-center Labor party it Likud, but also the Na- rty, which represents right- 's in the Occupied Territor- i Jewish-Arab Communist o the petition's "kinship of 'he refugees need protection the Jewish people's history s of democracy and human- perative for us to give them iberg 2007c). Despite this oup of more than 50 refu- from Darfur, were deported weeks later. mmer, the government an- to grant Israeli citizenship n Darfur already residing in rspaper article reporting on yed the same reasoning as cannot ignore the refugees' listory of the Jewish people, reiterated Olmert's earlier ayone attempting to cross r would be deported imme- Lualem 2007). situation unfolded, I inter- ves of ten organizations in- ing to the refugee influx; f public meetings and policy iewed several refugees; and nptu shelters. Two themes etings and encounters: first, f governmental unruliness, ihoah/Darfur analogy and e" logic. rauma," "Political Grassroots Activism ense of the privileged pos- rom Darfur within Israel's erarchy of suffering, we DARFUR THROUGH A SHOAH LENS 513 must consider the particular forms of "polit- ical emotion" evoked by the Shoah/Darfur analogy. This historical analogy clearly acti- vates what Dominick LaCapra (2001) calls a "founding trauma" for Jewish Israel: a col- lective memory of mass trauma that can be reactivated when a group feels threatened. In some instances, the reactivation of a "founding trauma" might catalyze violence and destruction; indeed, some would argue that this process explains (or partly explains) the tone and tenor of Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. Yet a founding trauma might offer the seeds of not only violence and destruction, but also their inverse. In the present case, for instance, numerous Israeli leaders and groups quickly began to invoke the "never again" analogy as an ethical injunction, first, to remember an episode of violence, destruction, and trauma in Jewish-Israeli history, and second, to trans- late that collective memory into a beneficent ethical imperative. Sharp-tongued Israeli polit- ician and Holocaust survivor Yosef (Tommy) Lapid, for instance, said, "I don't think that the Jewish people can look the other way when such a horrible genocide is being conducted. It is our obligation to be of as much help as we can" {in Kraft 2007). In a similar vein, Chair- man of the Yad Vashem National Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem said that, As Jews who have the memory of the Holocaust embedded in us, we cannot stand by as refugees from the genocide in Darfur knock on our doors. The memory of the past, and the Jewish values that underpin our existence, require us to show humanitarian solidarity with the perse- cuted, (quoted in Uchitelle-Pierce 2007) Even some religious leaders, like the politically conservative Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv-Jaffa Yisrael Lau, joined in this chorus of sentiment. In a letter to the Prime Minister, Lau described aid to the Sudanese refugees as "our moral ob- ligation as a Jewish state" (Ma'ariv 2007). Emotionally laden comments like these were remarkably common in spring and summer 2007. Indeed, when a student petition protest- ing the deportation of Sudanese refugees began to circulate in May 2007, an article in the con- servative Jerusalem Post accurately observed that, "the growing number of signatories exem- plifies a unity rare in Israel's heterogeneous society" (Gerver and Klass 2007). Yet this ostensible unity masks a much deeper matter: the degree to which Darfuri refugees in Israel, like refugees the world over, quickly become a kind of discursive blank canvas upon which diverse actors begin to project their own moral values and political emotions. Clearly the trope of "never again" has become hyper-politicized in ways that beg ethnographic investigation. One might be tempted to write off such invocations as hollow rhetoric, political correctness, or cynical ex- ploitation of a searing historical analogy, and it would be easy enough to find support for any of these arguments. And yet, I contend, invoca- tions of "never again" must be taken quite seriously as both an appeal to and an expres- sion of what Ghassan Hage (2009) describes as "political emotion." For some Israelis who wit- ness the arrival of refugees from Darfur and hear politicians or rabbis saying "never again," the analogy is a form of banal, hollow, or cyn- ical rhetoric. For others, like Dov Lior, chief rabbi of the radical right-wing Jewish settle- ment in the West Bank city of Hebron, the parallel must be wholly rejected as a kind of mis-remembering. According to Lior and other militant Zionists, the "refugees" who matter are the Jewish settlers who were forcibly removed from Gaza by the Israeli military during its withdrawal in 2005 (Wagner 2007). But for many mainstream and left-leaning Is- raelis, the Shoah/Darfur analogy holds power- ful resonance. For some newly minted refugee advocates, it represents a deeply felt political emotion that demands immediate translation into social practice. For savvier, more seasoned activists, it is a political emotion to be stra- tegically mobilized - one might say manipu- lated - in support of certain forms of action and practice (including fundraising). Not surprisingly, such appeals to political emotion bore, substantial and immediate con- sequences. Existing organizations grew quickly in strength; organizations that emerged virtu- ally overnight quickly ballooned in size, staff, and stature; and the groups listed earlier were literally overwhelmed with offers of food, clothing, volunteer energy, and money. Yet 514 SARAH S. WILLEN these grassroots efforts - well-intentioned but completely uncoordinated, unsupervised, and even on occasion working at cross-purposes - also contributed to the overall atmosphere of unruliness. 'The Genocide Issue" and Heart of Israelis" 'the According to liana Weisman,4 a seasoned public health nurse in her early 50s whose small, upper-middle class community in the Jerusalem hills provided temporary shelter to 21 Sudanese refugees for nearly a month in the summer of 2007, the "kinship of genocide" logic is the primary cause of this upwelling of public energy and concern. At the July demonstration outside the Knes- set, some refugee advocates began to suspect a government plan to arrest and detain Sudanese demonstrators en masse. In response, they quickly began searching for temporary housing arrangements for refugees. A member of liana's community agreed to take in several families and house them in the community's kindergar- ten, which was vacant for the summer. When a local human rights organization placed 21 refugees in their community, among them 14 adults and 7 children ranging in age from 10 months to 6 years, it had virtually no concrete assistance to offer. As a result, liana, one of only two community members who spoke any Arabic, along with another neighbor, Micba], took on the formidable task of attending to all 21 of their guests' basic needs, including food, shelter, and health care. "The organization that brought them here didn't organize anything," she told me. Nothing. Not food, not health care, not shel- ter, nothing. I called the organization when I realized there would be babies and asked them to send diapers and formula ... and they did, but that was it. That's what we received from them in two weeks time. - Initially the refugees' presence generated objec- tions from community members but, as liana explained, their efforts gradually came together and sentiments shifted. Everything else the community organized on its own and, I musr say, the community really warmed even though initially there was a lot of objection to them being here. ... [RJeally I can't tell you the extent to which people came forward to help them and - I'm really proud of this community. Despite the initial objections, liana and Michal were quickly overwhelmed with offers fromneigh- bors who wanted to help, including some who later called to apologize for their earlier reluc- tance. "In the end it turned out that I had to rack my brain every day to think of things for people to do to help because they so wanted to help." When I asked liana about her motivations, and her neighbors', for providing asylum seekers with temporary shelter, she turned im- mediately to the Shoah/Darfur analogy. "Did it matter that these people were Sudanese?" I asked. "Would it have mattered if they were from another African country?" "I am abso- lutely convinced it does make a difference," she responded unequivocally. People are more likely here to come forward to help people from Darfur because of the whole Holocaust issue ... people identify with their plight. I myself am a child of [Holocaust] survivors, and I'm sure that has something to do with why I was basically willing to do another shift every day in addition to my regular job. ... I think that the genocide issue particularly speaks to the heart of Israelis. Alongside her sharp criticisms of both the gov- ernment's chaotic actions and the refugee advocacy groups' lack of coordination, liana spoke proudly of her small community's achievements. She was especially glad that in welcoming these 21 asylum seekers into their community "under the radar" of the author- ities, she and her neighbors had succeeded in preventing their arrest and detention. Indeed, the very morning after these families moved into their vacant kindergarten, the authorities had descended upon the Rose Garden, arrested the remaining Sudanese demonstrators - men, women, and children - and bussed them to the detention camp in the southern Negev desert. The "kinship of genocide" logic that moved liana and many other Israeli refugee advocates hinged on a choice to recognize, and identify with, a very specific kit and, in effect, to ignore this issue obliquely in t willing to turn her life i month, to aid the Suds arrived on her doorstej [W]hile I completely hunger and the other are plaguing Africa ar I think that the rest oi something about those1 it's very very importai based on our history tc cide. It's even more issues of hunger or ... Speaking from her pr public health nurse, lis vidua!, community, or the world's humanitari is necessary to priori priorities should be ini first, a realistic unders sources and capacities] reasoned moral calcu stance, she proposec should take into accou lective experience -! "founding trauma" anj On one hand, a "ki has emerged as an im verse forms of ethical tice, including the ei neighbors. On the ot Shoah/Darfur analogy selective compassion negative, even viole recent deployment of in Israel offers a cl< exceptionalist forms 6 though motivated by can conceal not-so-hk The Violence of What forms can such form is the productk (2003) calls hierarchie pologist Kelly McKini acknowledge the sui DARFUR THROUGH A SHOAH LENS 515 with, a very specific kind of pain and suffering and, in effect, to ignore others. liana addressed this issue obliquely in explaining why she was willing to turn her life upside down, even for a month, to aid the Sudanese refugees who had arrived on her doorstep. [W]hile I completely recognize the fact that hunger and the other issues and AIDS that are plaguing Africa are incredibly important, I think that the rest of the world can also do something about those issues, but 1 think that it's very very important for Israel as a nation based on our history to address issues of geno- cide. It's even more important for us than issues of hunger or ... other sorts of issues. Speaking from her practical experience as a public health nurse, liana argued that no indi- vidual, community, or country can solve all of the world's humanitarian problems; instead, it is necessary to prioritize. In her view, such priorities should be influenced by two factors: first, a realistic understanding of available re- sources and capacities, and second, a carefully reasoned moral calculus. In the present in- stance, she proposed, this moral calculus should take into account both history and col- lective experience - or, put differently, "founding trauma" and "political emotion."5 On one hand, a "kinship of genocide" logic has emerged as an important impetus for di- verse forms of ethically informed social prac- tice, including the efforts of liana and her neighbors. On the other hand, however, the Shoah/Darfur analogy and its implicit logic of selective compassion also can have powerful negative, even violent, consequences. The recent deployment of "never again" discourse in Israel offers a clear illustration of how exceptionalist forms of humanitarian logic, al- though motivated by compassion or empathy, can conceal not-so-hidden forms of violence. The Violence of Humanitarianism What forms can such violence take? One such form is the production of what Paul Farmer (2003) calls hierarchies of suffering. As anthro- pologist Kelly McKinney observes, choosing to acknowledge the suffering of some asylum seekers but not others involves squeezing social reality into a "grid of victimization" in which "psychological, moral, and political ambiguity and complexity are eliminated" {2007: 285). The "never again" paradigm, I contend, in- volves precisely such a grid of victimization. Implicitly, it creates the possibility of express- ing a certain kind of political emotion - we might call it empathy - toward a group whose suffering is deemed analogous to collective memories of Jewish suffering. Those whose suffering fails to map onto the grid, however, are ignored or, in the extreme case, abandoned. Veena Das has suggested that, "we need to think of pain as asking for acknowledgment and recognition; denial of the other's pain is not about the failings of the intellect but the failings of the spirit" (Das 1997: 88). In his response to Das, Stanley Cavell writes that in facing another's pain, You are ... not at liberty to believe or disbe- lieve ... at your leisure. You are forced to respond, either to acknowledge it in return or to avoid it; the future between us is at stake. ... Not to respond to such a claim, when it is you to whom it is addressed, is to deny its existence, and hence is an act of violence (however momentary, mostly unnoticeable); as it were, the lack of response is a silence that perpetuates the violence of pain itself. (Cavell 1997: 94, emphasis added) In choosing to respond to or avoid another's pain, Cavell writes, "the future between us is at stake"; to acknowledge or not to acknowledge another's pain in the first instance will inevit- ably shape how any subsequent relationship unfolds. I take Cavell's comment to mean that mobilizing political emotions through the rallying cry of "never again" offers both the possibility of recognition, of intersubjective engagement, and of justice and, at the same time, the possibility of doing further violence to others whose pain continues to go unrecog- nized. In the present context, choosing to rec- ognize the pain of Sudanese survivors from Darfur by refracting their experiences through this political-emotional lens involves avoiding or denying the pain of other refugees, including South Sudanese, Eritreans, and other African asylum seekers - not to mention the Palestinian 516 SARAH S. WILLEN refugees living under Israeli occupation and military gridlock. This avoidance and this denial constitute what we might call, following Miriam Ticktin (2006), "the violence of hu- manitarianism" (see also Nyers 2000). "A Very Arbitrary Distinction" The privileged place of Sudanese from Darfur within Israel's local hierarchy of suffering emerged with stark clarity in an interview I conducted with Boaz Friedman,6 spokesman for the most publicity-sawy organizational co- alition working on behalf of Darfuri refugees in Israel. The coalition was, by all measures, a "strange bedfellows" endeavor involving human rights NGOs, liberal religious leaders, and two rather different celebrity members: a renowned senior Holocaust scholar, and Boaz. A slick public relations agent and local celeb- rity, Boaz became famous after winning an Israeli "reality TV" competition that garnered him the opportunity to spend a year touring United States college campuses and commu- nities promoting Israel's public image. Staff members at several coalition organizations - all sharp-tongued human rights activists I knew through my earlier fieldwork with "illegal" mi- grant workers - strongly encouraged me to interview him even as their measured words revealed varying degrees of disagreement with his personal agenda. I began to understand these reservations the moment Boaz began articulating his goals for the coalition, which diverged markedly from those of the human rights activists I knew well. The coali- tion's primary objective, he explained in the un- apologetic language of a public relations strategist, is "to distance the refugee issue from the issue of migrant workers at the level of [public] consciousness. It's to call it by a different name so people will like it more." As our conver- sation continued, the chasm between Boaz's own goals and those of his coalition partners came into sharp focus. "Personally," he said, I am not here to help migrant workers. I'm here to help refugees fleeing genocide. I'm working on behalf of [refugees] from Sudan. I'm not working on behalf of [refugees] from Eritrea ... In objective terms, it's a very arbi- trary distinction. Someone who came here from Congo hasn't suffered less than someone who's come here from Sudan, maybe more. Particularly given his partners' history of insist- ently human rights-based advocacy for both migrant workers and refugees, Boaz' explicitly humanitarian commitment to Sudanese refu- gees alone - not to refugees from Eritrea or Congo, not to migrant workers - was a major bone of contention within the coalition. For the human rights advocates, all asylum seekers possess legal rights and moral entitle- ments that the state is legally and politically obligated to ensure. For humanitarian advocates like Boaz, history and collective memory ~ experiences of "founding trauma" and "political emotion" - produce a moral obligation that both individual citizens and the state ought, but are not obligated, to fulfill. As Ticktin observes, "Humanitarianism is about the exception rather than the rule, [and] about generosity rather than entitlement", whereas, "Rights entail a concept of justice, which includes standards of obliga- tion and implies equality between individuals" (2006: 45). A humanitarian logic hinges not on intrinsic properties of asylum seekers as rights- bearing human beings, but on the cultivation of an adequately compelling rhetorical or symbolic relationship between provider and recipient of compassion or aid (cf. Nussbaum 2003). It is the arbitrary and contingent nature of this relationship-building process that inflicts vio- lence upon those who, although equally "deserv- ing," are abandoned by those whose primary intention is to "do good" (Fisher 1997). Within the refugee rights coalition, such differences of opinion were of great consequence, not least because the line Boaz drew profoundly affected the sort of public statements he was prepared to make, the forms of aid he would coordinate or support, and the messages he would bring to the Knesset and to the Israeli public. Conclusion: Political Emotions, Governmental Unruliness, and the Politics of Humanitarian Compassion Israeli responses to this unanticipated influx of asylum seekers reveal much about the contem- porary politics of humanitarian compassion, DARFUR THROUGH A SHOAH LENS 517 which often functions not only as a salve for a wide array of postcolonial disorders (Good et al. 2008), but also as a catalyst for new forms of dis-order. First, Israel's haphazard use of classificatory labels highlights the arbi- trary and fluid nature of terms now used to characterize people who move, generally with complicated motives and personal stories, across political borders. When three dozen Su- danese asylum seekers were abandoned on the streets of Beersheva by the Israeli military, for example, some eventually were granted protec- tion by the municipal welfare authority, who consented to view them as vulnerable persons whom the state is obligated to protect and assist.7 And yet, as Ha'aretz newspaper reported, "The remaining refugees" were to be "held by the police as illegal aliens." Depending upon who is doing the labeling, the same border-crossers may be cast as "asylum seekers," "refugees," "illegal migrant workers," or even, in the Israeli government's accusatory neologism, "labor infiltrators." Clearly these "new categories in which human beings are pigeonholed" (Pandolfi 2003: 381} are only marginally grounded in the circum- stances of individual lives. They strip away individuality, subjectivity, and dignity, leaving only faceless, often defenseless masses of people whose last shred of hope for eliciting humanitarian compassion or reestablishing a meaningful political identity may hinge on their ability to successfully market their suffering. Moreover, as a growing body of scholarship reveals, one must have endured the "right" kind of suffering in order to make a successful claim within prevailing economies of humani- tarian sentiment. Suffering with the strongest currency is that which is traumatic, verifiable, and/or significant - for reasons supported by ideology or political emotion - in the eyes of those empowered to grant, refuse, or revoke the "gift" of compassion. How are such deter- minations made? In order to achieve humani- tarian subjecthood, one's suffering must map onto the locally salient "grid of victimization." In the present instance, and within the emerging hierarchy of suffering based on the Shoah/Darfur analogy and the arresting rhet- orical power of the slogan, "never again," there are clear winners and losers. Sudanese from Darfur, in a perverse, provisional sense, have "won," and other refugees - South Sudanese, Eritreans, and African refugees already living in the country, among others - have "lost." As Boaz put forth unapologetically, success or failure is a function of rhetorical power and discursive prowess - not of asylum seekers themselves, but of self-appointed "trauma brokers" (James 2004) like Boaz himself, along with diverse others including liana Weisman, the Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv, the judge in the "enemy nationals" case, and even Boaz's skeptical (but complicit) human rights partners. These trauma brokers' analogical mode of reasoning through history is clearly double- edged. Although it does create possibilities for the expansive cultivation of empathy and eth- ically motivated intervention, these political emotions do not necessarily translate into hu- manitarian gestures of practical, legal, or moral consequence. Asylum seekers from Darfur have come to inhabit a privileged pos- ition within Israel's local hierarchy of suffering on the basis of their trauma brokers' - and, at times, their own - skillful and strategic repre- sentation of their experiences of suffering and trauma. Yet this infelicitous status offers no real guarantee of protection. Even as a small number of Darfuris have been promised the state's greatest gift - the gift of full political and social recognition in the form of Israeli citizenship - many others have been detained and expelled, and those who persist in attempting to enter Israeli territory are imme- diately deported (Ravid et al. 2007). Humani- tarian gestures, divorced from any standard of law or justice, clearly can be strategically enacted, discursively manipulated - and refused, revoked, or terminated at will. This local hierarchy of suffering has also played another, more hidden role in framing public and political conversations about the recent refugee influx in Israel. Throughout this unruly biopolitical drama, there has been vir- tually no discussion of Israel's obligations to another refugee population: Palestinians living under Israeli occupation. This is no coinci- dence; the logic of humanitarian exception has made it possible for the state to respond with calculated beneficence toward a small, hyper-politicized group of refugees in response SARAH 5. WILLEN 518 to pressing popular demand while continuing to ignore its responsibilities toward Palestin- ians whose lives it regulates, constrains, and controls. Only a tiny handful of Israeli refugee advocates have commented upon this link. Groups that that have, most of them estab- lished human rights organizations with multi- pronged agendas, take pains to keep their struggles separate, largely because it is so much easier to mobilize political emotion in support of the former struggle than the latter. Thus the logic of humanitarian exception - charity- based, discretionary, and subject to ideological manipulation - has proven particularly expedi- ent, especially from the state's point of view. Overall, the key features of the Israeli state's response to this refugee influx - dubious and ideologically motivated modes of classifica- tion, including the failure to operations lize the distinction between economic migrants and political refugees; bureaucratic and admin- istrative disorder; the mixing of policymaking and political emotion - are in no way unique to Israel. Rather, they are all features of a much broader, global pattern of classificatory and moral "unruliness" regarding the status, rights, and entitlements of asylum seekers and other border-crossing populations. In the absence of systematic or enforceable rules or laws, states, including those that proudly proclaim their commitment to human rights, effectively are free to respond however they wish. In some cases, irregular migrants' presence is simply ignored. In other instances, irregular entrants are systematically arrested and deported, and those who try to enter are banished to liminal spaces of exception like "detention centers" at airports (in France, Israel, and other countries); on remote islands {like the Italian island of Lampedusa or the independent island of Nauru near Australia); or in desolate desert regions (in Australia and now in southern Israel). This unruliness can have deeply repressive, and even violent, consequences. Yet even repressive and violent governmental techniques like mass de- tention and expulsion are proving ineffectual as means of containing or preventing "irregu- lar" migration flows. Cavell observes that the choice to either acknowledge or avoid the pain of another has weighty and far-reaching consequences; in making that choice, he contends, "the future between us is at stake." As the events analyzed here would suggest, such futures are always, perhaps inevitably imprinted with lingering, potent, often hyper-politicized traces of emo- tion, of elsewhere, and of the past. NOTES 1 For an incisive critique of the contemporary Jewish preoccupation with the Shoah, see Burg 2008. 2 Data from the Knesset Research and Informa- tion Center, and UNHCR-Israel, provided by the TAU Refugee Rights Clinic {personal com- munication). 3 For more on this movement, see Kemp and Raijman 2004; Willen 2005, 2007a. 4 Pseudonym. 5 liana's comments echo those of Martha Nuss- baum, quoted in the epigraph above. 6 Pseudonym. 7 On July 1, 2009, the Israeli government reorganized the Immigration Police and initiated a new expulsion campaign with a declared target of 200,000 deportees. Asylum seekers and refugees, as well as Israeli-born children of unauthorized migrants, were among the explicit targets of the campaign. At the same time, the Knesset passed the first reading of a legislative bill that would allow not only for the immediate expulsion of newly arrived asylum seekers and refugees, but also the imprisonment of individuals who assist them. REFERENCES Adout, R. 2007 Trafficked Women and Political Asylum Seekers, in Transnational Migration to Israel in Global Comparative Context. Edited by S. S. Willen. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. Agamben, G. 1998 Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Akoka, K. 2006 La demande d'asile en Israel: Vers la "nationalization" de la procedure de prise en charge. Anteby-Yemini, L. 2009 Les "refugies st discours, representati< Maghreb-Machrek, Sprir Arendt, H. 1973 The Decline of th< End of the Rights of M Totalitarianism. New Jovanovich. Azoulay, Y. 2007 Refugees spur police, immigration offici paper. June 25. Azzam, F. ed. 2006 A Tragedy of Fail ations: Report on the E Three-month Sit-in and Sudanese Refugees in C cember 2005 Cairo: F< Refugee Studies Program in Cairo. Ben-Dor, A., and M. Kagan 2007 The Refugee froJ Enemy: The Detention an ese Refugees in Israel, at f Human Rights Bianni Human Rights in Israel. Bereshovsky, A. 2007 Sudanese refugee sheba city hall. July 3, in Burg, A. 2008 The Holocaust Is From Its Ashes. New Yorl Burston, B. 2008 A kinship of gi newspaper. November 2; Cavell, S. 1997 Comments on Ve guage and Body: Transac tion of Pain," in Social A. Kleinman, V. Das, an University of California. Das, V. 1997 Language and Bot Construction of Pain, Edited by A. Kleinman,' Berkeley: University of C Farmer, P. 2003 Pathologies of Po sity of California Press. Fassin, D. 2005 Compassion an Moral Economy of Im France. Cultural Anthro] DARFUR THROUGH A SHOAH LENS 519 e contends, "the future " As the events analyzed nch futures are always, printed with lingering, diticized traces of emo- of the past. que of the contemporary jn with the Shoah, see ;et Research and Informa- IHCR-Israel, provided by »hts Clinic (personal com- lovement, see Kemp and ai 2005, 2007a. bo those of Martha Nuss- epigraph above. the Israeli government mmigration Police and ralsion campaign with a )0,000 deportees. Asylum s, as well as Israeli-born horized migrants, were targets of the campaign. ie Knesset passed the first ive bill that would allow immediate expulsion of im seekers and refugees, isonment of individuals -men and Political Asylum >nal Migration to Israel in Context. Edited by S. S. Lexington Books. Sovereign Power and Bare ird University Press. d'asile en Israel: Vers la la procedure de prise en Anteby-Yemini, L. 2009 Les "refugies soudanais" en Israel: discours, representations, mobilizations. Maghreb-Machrek, Spring 199: 71-84. Arendt, H. 1973 The Decline of the Nation-State and the End of the Rights of Man, in The Origins of Totalitarianism. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Azoulay, Y. 2007 Refugees spur tension between IDF, police, immigration officials, in Ha'aretz news- paper. June 25. Azzam, F. ed. 2006 A Tragedy of Failures and False Expect- ations: Report on the Events Surrounding the Three-month Sit-in and Forced Removal of Sudanese Refugees in Cairo, September-De- cember 2005 Cairo: Forced Migration and Refugee Studies Program, American University in Cairo. Ben-Dor, A., and M. Kagan 2007 The Refugee from My Enemy is My Enemy: The Detention and Exclusion of Sudan- ese Refugees in Israel, at the Minerva Center for Human Rights Biannual Conference for Human Rights in Israel. Bereshovsky, A. 2007 Sudanese refugees left outside Beer- sheba city hall. July 3, in Ynet.com. Burg, A. 2008 The Holocaust Is Over; We Must Rise From Its Ashes. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Burston, B. 2008 A kinship of genocide, in Ha'aretz newspaper. November 23. Cavell, S. 1997 Comments on Veena Das's Essay "Lan- guage and Body: Transactions in the Construc- tion of Pain," in Social Suffering. Edited by A. Kleinman, V. Das, and M. Lock. Berkeley: University of California. Das, V. 1997 Language and Body: Transactions in the Construction of Pain, in Social Suffering. Edited by A. Kleinman, V. Das, and M. Lock. Berkeley: University of California. Farmer, P. 2003 Pathologies of Power. Berkeley: Univer- sity of California Press. Fassin, D. 2005 Compassion and Repression: The Moral Economy of Immigration Policies in France. Cultural Anthropology 20:362-87. Fassin, D. 2007 Humanitarianism as a Politics of Life. Public Culture 19:499-520. Fassin, D., and E. D'Halluin 2007 Critical Evidence: The Politics of Trauma in French Asylum Policies. Ethos 35:300-29. Fisher, W. F. 1997 Doing Good? The Politics and Antipo- litics of NGO Practices. Annual Review of Anthropology 26:439-64. Gerver, M. and O. Klass 2007 "Never again" means what?, in Jerusa- lem Post. May 16. Giordano, C. 2008 Practices of Translation and the Making of Migrant Subjectivities in Contemporary Italy. American Ethnologist 35:588. Good, B., M.-J. D. Good S. T., Hyde, and S. Pinto 2008 Postcolonial Disorders: Reflections on Subjectivity in the Contemporary World, in Postcolonial Disorders. Edited by M. J. D. Good S. T Hyde, S. Pinto, and B. Good. Berkeley: University of California Press. Grinberg, M. 2007a Egyptian police kill Darfur woman en route to Israel, in Ha'aretz newspaper. July 22. Grinberg, M. 2007b IDF leaves 37 refugees stranded in down- town Be'er Sheva, in Ha'aretz newspaper. May 9. Grinberg, M. 2007c MKs oppose deporting Darfur refugees to Egypt, in Ha'aretz newspaper. August 3. Grinberg, M. 2007d Prisons Service: No more space to absorb Sudanese refugees, in Ha'aretz news- paper. December 1. Hage, G. 2009 Hating Israel in the Field: On Ethnog- raphy and Political Emotions. Anthropological Theory 9:59-79. Ilan, S. 2006 A Genocide is Not Much Less than a Holocaust, in Ha'aretz newspaper. May 13. James, E. 2004 The Political Economy of "Trauma" in Haiti in the Democratic Era of Insecurity. Cul- ture, Medicine and Psychiatry 28:127-49. Kemp, A., and R. Raijman 2004 "Tel Aviv Is Not Foreign to You": Urban Incorporation Policy on Labor Migrants in Israel. International Migration Review 38:26-51. SARAH S. WILLEN 520 Kemp, A., and R. Raijman 2008 Migrants and Workers: The Political Economy of Labor Migration in Israel. Tel Aviv: Van Leer Jerusalem Institute and Hakib- butz Hameuchad [Hebrew]. Kraft, D. 2007 Sudanese in Israel Hope They Have Found a Home, in New York Times. March 18. Kritzman, T. 2007 Israel as a State of Temporary Asylum, presented at the Association for Israel Studies Annual Meeting. Ra'anana, Israel. LaCapra, D. 2001 Writing History, Writing Trauma. Balti- more: Johns Hopkins University Press. Ma'ariv 2007 Lau to Olmert: Free the Sudanese. Maariv - NRG. May 22. Malkki, L. 1995 Refugees and Exile: From "Refugee Studies" to the National Order of Things. Annual Review of Anthropology 24:495-523. McKinney, K. 2007 "Breaking the Conspiracy of Silence": Testimony, Traumatic Memory, and Psycho- therapy with Survivors of Political Violence. Ethos 35:265-99. Mualem, M. 2007 Israel to grant citizenship to hundreds of Darfur refugees, in Ha'aretz newspaper. September 5. Nussbaum, M. C. 2003 Compassion and Terror. Daedalus 132:10-26. Nyers, P. 2000 On Humanitarian Violence: "Human- ity" and the Logic of Sovereignty, in (Dis) Placing Security: Critical Re-evaluations of the Boundaries of Security Studies. Edited by S. Arnold and J. M. Beier. Toronto: Centre for International and Security Studies. Pandolfi, M. 2003 Contract of Mutual (In)Difference: Governance and the Humanitarian Apparatus in Contemporary Albania and Kosovo. Indiana Journal of Global and Legal Studies 10:369-380. Ravid, B., M. Grinberg, Y. Hai, Ha'aretz corres- pondents, and Associated Press 2007 Government: Darfur refugees will be refused entry into Israel. Ha'aretz newspaper. August 20. Ticktin, M. 2006 Where Ethics and Politics Meet: The Violence of Humanitarianism in France. American Ethnologist 33:33-49. Uchitelle-Pierce, B. 2007 Darfur refugees establish bond of suffering in Yad Vashem visit, in Jerusalem Post. March 12. UNHCR 2009 2008 Global Trends. Accessed July 1, 2009, at http://www.unhcr.org/pages/49c3646c 4d6.html. Wagner, M. 2007 "Israel is not obligated to aid refugees," in Jerusalem Post. June 6. Willen, S. S. 2005 Birthing "Invisible" Children: State Power, NGO Activism, and Reproductive Health among Undocumented Migrant Workers in Tel Aviv, Israel. Journal of Middle East Women's Studies 1:55-88. Willen, S. S. 2007a "Flesh of our Flesh"? Undocumented Migrants' Search for Meaning in the Wake of a Suicide Bombing, in Transnational Migration to Israel in Global Comparative Context. Edited by S. S. Willen. Lanham, MD: Lexington. Willen, S. S. 2007b "Illegality," Mass Deportation and the Threat of Violent Arrest: Structural Violence and Social Suffering in the Lives of Undocu- mented Migrant Workers in Israel, in Trauma and Memory: Reading, Healing, and Making Law. Edited by A. Sarat, M. Alberstein, and N. Davidovitch, pp. 168-203. Stanford: Stan- ford University Press. Willen, S. S. 2007c Introduction, in Transnational Migra- tion to Israel in Global Comparative Perspec- tive. Edited by S. S. Willen. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. Willen, S. S. 2007d Toward a Critical Phenomenology of "Illegality": State Power, Criminalization, and Abjectivity among Undocumented Migrant Workers in Tel Aviv, Israel. International Migration 45:8-36. Willen, S. S. ed. 2007e Transnational Migration to Israel in Global Comparative Context. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. Willen, S. S. 2010 Citizens, "Real Others: The Biopolitics Deportation of Undocun from Tel Aviv, Israel Regime: Sovereignty, Sp J. DARFUR THROUGH A 5HOAH LENS 521 Willen, S. S. 2010 Citizens, "Real" Others, and "Other" Others: The Biopolitics of Otherness and the Deportation of Undocumented Migrant Workers from Tel Aviv, Israel, in The Deportation Regime: Sovereignty, Space, and the Freedom of Movement. Edited by N. De Genova and N. Peutz. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Willen, S. S. (under review) Do "Illegal" Migrants have a "Right to Health"? Engaging Ethical Theory as Social Practice at a Tel Aviv Open Clinic.