The trench is dug within our hearts. If you do a Google search for the words "Israel" and "Darfur," you will find a plethora of links all leading to this article detailing how evil Israel turned away 50 Darfur refugees who illegally entered the country from Egypt. "Israel turns away Darfur refugees" the headline screams. That evil, despicable Israel. What a den of compassionless sin! Apparently, genocide is bad, but Israel is worse.

What these headlines don't tell you is that Israel already has accepted 1,500 refugees with 1,500 more waiting entry (in prison, unfortunately). I've actually seen some of them as they spent shabbat with us in my boyfriend's village. These headlines also don't tell you that the refugees are fleeing Egypt because they are being harassed and, in some cases, murdered.

Let me get this straight. The fact that Israel turns away 50 refugees warrants a CNN News Alert, but the fact that the same people are being murdered in Egypt doesn't warrant coverage? And how come other countries such as the United States aren't volunteering to take in refugees or working with the surrounding nations to iron out a solution if they are all so concerned?

I'm not saying it's a good thing for Israel to turn away refugees. Clearly there needs to be new government policy designed to deal with this situation (and as someone who has spent the last several months working closely with the Israeli legislative process, I will say that you might be waiting a long time for this to get sorted out). Let's put the blame where the blame is due. Israel's refusal to accept 50 illegal immigrants (remember how much we love those in America?) does not a genocide make. And besides, Israel is a tiny country that's trying to work out its own rather hefty problems. Let's see a country with some global muscle do something, and stop blaming the underdog!