Dec. 25, 2020
During the course of 2017, a series of explosive letters landed in the Defense Ministry. They were sent by Amnon Zichroni, one of Israel’s top lawyers, who has since died. The texts were polite, matter-of-fact. But from beneath the legal jargon emerged unsubtle hints about a gloomy chapter in Israel’s history, previously untold.
Zichroni revealed the tip of the iceberg of the following story: Israel tried to send the asylum seekers from Eritrea and Sudan to countries whose unstable regimes were not likely to guarantee their wellbeing. The contacts were conducted clandestinely, via unofficial channels. The boundaries of the mandate placed in the hands of the state’s envoys were demarcated with a wink and a nod, in some cases literally without words. From there it was but a short step to the payment of bribes to officials in Africa, in order to start ball rolling.