Herzog Calls on Government to Allow Syrian Refugees Into Israel

The opposition leader says that ‘Jews cannot be indifferent while hundreds of thousands of refugees are looking for safe haven.’

Ha’aretz

Opposition leader Isaac Herzog on Saturday called on the government to allow Syrian refugees into Israel.

During a panel discussion in Tel Aviv, Herzog said that on Friday night he spoke with Kamal Al-Labwani, a senior leader in the exiled Syrian opposition government in Europe.

“The Syrian opposition has grave complaints against the nations of the world,” Herzog said.

“I call on the government of Israel to act toward receiving refugees from the war in Syria, in addition to the humanitarian efforts it is already making,” Herzog said. “Jews cannot be indifferent while hundreds of thousands of refugees are looking for safe haven.”

Calls for efforts to aid Syrians fleeing the civil war have intensified after the publicaion of a photo showing the body of Syrian toddler who drowned as his family tried to cross from Turkey to the Greek island of Kos this week. The body of the boy, Aylan Kurdi, washed up on the beach near the Turkish resort town of Bodrum after the boat carrying him and his family capsized. His brother, 5, his mother and nine others also died in the incident.

Herzog posted the photo on his Facebook page on Thursday. “For years I have been warning about the terrible massacre that is taking place in Syria, and the grave situation faced by the refugees. But the world is silent,” Herzog wrote. “…Our nation knows the lessons of history well. We cannot remain indifferent to this great suffering.”

In his own response to the photo on Wednesday, Knesset Member Elazar Stern (Yesh Atid) also called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to grant asylum to “a limited number of Syrian refugees.”