Refugees from Darfur find a place in Israel...

Wow...a positive article from the Guardian....

"Even though we're Muslim, the Islamic world has done nothing to protect us", said Yassin, a refugee whose tortured flight from Darfur finally brought him to Israel three years ago. He was one of the first Darfurians to make it into Israel across the border from Egypt, and has dedicated his life to helping hundreds of his fellow countrymen who have made the same perilous journey.

It doesn't help that the Darfurians are accusing fellow Muslims of genocide, said Yassin, noting that the Muslim states who support the Sudanese government in turn claim that the refugees are collaborating with enemy states in the West. "All of the Arab countries support the government of Sudan - our problem is with the Arab League," Yassin stated with a shake of his head at his people's plight. Having watched most of his family slaughtered in a militia attack on his village, he fled the region hoping to find shelter in Egypt, but was soon forced to move on.

After the cold and often violent reception the refugees received at the hands of the Egyptians, Yassin decided that things couldn't be worse on the Israeli side of the border - despite the anti-Israeli indoctrination he'd been spoon-fed when growing up in Sudan. "The government controlled all of the media back home," he said. "The television stations, the radio, the newspapers... and all of them were very hostile towards Israel. They described it as an enemy state full of killers, and the cause of all of the world's problems."

Of course, the Guardian does try to draw Yassin in on the so-called Palestinian refugees...

But the unresolved issue of the Palestinian right of return is not something Yassin wished to be drawn on. As far as he's concerned, Israel has provided for his people in a way that no Arab country would - and for that he's eternally grateful. And in terms of Israel's image in the eyes of the refugees as well as the outside world, accepting the unwanted Darfurians was both an astute and an admirable move to make.