Chief Rabbi: Britain is 'besieged'
By Elizabeth Day
Telegraph
Sunday, July 6, 2003
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The Chief Rabbi has warned that Britain is being "besieged" by asylum seekers and has advocated regional refugee camps outside Britain in an attempt to deal with the problem.

In an interview with The Telegraph Dr Jonathan Sacks, the spiritual leader of 280,000 British Jews, said that new policies were needed.

Dr Sacks himself admitted that were it not for Britain's willingness to accept Jewish refugees in the past, "almost no Jew in Britain would be alive today". Nonetheless, the Chief Rabbi said that the changing face of Britain and the growing number of worldwide refugees needed a new approach.

"Asylum cannot be granted to all those who seek it," he said. "As the philosopher Michael Walzer puts it, affluent and free countries are, like elite universities, besieged by applicants and cannot admit them all.

"The pressure of sheer numbers of asylum seekers in the 21st century will force the West to develop new policies - possibly by establishing regional protection zones under the auspices of the United Nations."

The introduction of regional protection zones for people seeking asylum in the UK was proposed by David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, in February. Under the initiative, asylum seekers arriving in Dover would be screened and fingerprinted before removal to a UN-run protection area close to their home country, where their application would be processed.

The Chief Rabbi's comments were met with concern by leading members of the Jewish community, many of whom are children or grandchildren of refugees from Nazi Germany.

Rabbi Tony Bayfield, the chief executive of the Reform Synagogues of Great Britain, said that turning away asylum seekers went against the Jewish principle of taking "the homeless into your home", as commanded by the prophet Isaiah.

Jan Shaw, Amnesty International's UK refugee affairs programme director, added that regional protection zones "are likely to involve arbitrary detention and so may be in breach of international law".

But Sir Sigmund Sternberg, a member of the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the president of the Reform Synagogues of Great Britain, said: "I applaud the Chief Rabbi for speaking out. You cannot separate politics from religion."

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