Head of Israeli company says he can help around 200 families resettle and work in Negev: ‘I refuse to stand by and observe this human tragedy unfold’
An announcement release by SodaStream and the mayor of Rahat, Talal al-Krenawi, said they can absorb up to 200 families.
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Some 30 percent of the 1, 100 workers at the factory live in the Bedouin city Rahat, which is near the beverage maker’s factory.
“As the son of a Holocaust survivor, I refuse to stand by and observe this human tragedy unfold right across the border in Syria, ” SodaStream CEO Daniel Birnbaum said in a statement.
“Just as we have always done our best to help our Palestinian brothers and sisters in the West Bank, the time has come for local business and municipal leaders to address the Syrian humanitarian crisis and take the initiative to help those in need. We cannot expect our politicians to bear the entire burden of providing aid for the refugees.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu already rejected the possibility of Israel taking in refugees Syria.He said that while the Jewish state was not unsympathetic to the suffering of citizens across its border, it simply did not have the capacity to absorb masses of people.
“Israel is not indifferent to human tragedy” Netanyahu said, “we conscientiously handled a thousand who were wounded in the fighting in Syria and we have helped them rebuild their lives. However, Israel is a very small country. It has no demographic depth and has no geographic breadth.”
