On Sunday, Israel’s immigration authorities announced it had started issuing migrants letters advising them they had 60 days in which to “voluntarily” leave the country. Since many of them — Sudanese and Eritreans especially — can’t return to their countries of origin for fear of being tortured or death, it is unclear where they’ll go. One place that keeps coming up as a destination is the central African country of Rwanda.

The bilateral relationship between Rwanda and Israel has long been framed in terms of their shared experiences of genocide. At a ceremony in Rwanda’s capital, Kigali, to mark the International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust at the beginning of this month, a representative for the Rwandan government expressed that Rwanda and Israel are “united by a common vision to fight anti-Semitism, genocide ideologies and all forms of genocide denial, as we know the terrible consequences of these issues if they are not addressed.”

In the light of this profound common perspective, recent initiatives undertaken jointly by the governments of Rwanda and Israel seem particularly awkward — including reports that Rwanda would take African immigrants and refugees the Israelis refer to as “infiltrators” — if not disturbing.

Late last month, Israel supported a contentious Rwanda-led initiative “rewriting the historical narrative” of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda to declare it a genocide of the Tutsi only, sparking accusations of genocide revisionism. Thousands of Hutus and others were also murdered by Hutu fanatics. Making things worse, Israel’s support for the resolution was reportedly motivated by its desire to deport tens of thousands of African asylum seekers to Rwanda — a cruel and racist program that is opposed by a growing number of mainstream Jewish organizations around the world.