Buckling under criticism, PM says he hears 'residents of south Tel Aviv,' will reexamine agreement only after consultations with them and interior minister
Tuesday April 3, 2018
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced an agreement with the UN on African asylum seekers in Israel at a press conference at his office in Jerusalem on April 2, 2018. (Hadas Parush/Flash90)
In a dramatic about-face, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced Monday evening that he was freezing a new agreement with the UN refugee agency that would have seen thousands of African migrants given temporary status in Israel — mere hours after announcing the plan.
“I hear you, and especially the residents of south Tel Aviv,” Netanyahu said in a (Hebrew) Facebook post amid mounting right-wing criticism of the deal. “For the time being, I am suspending the agreement,” he added, noting that he would meet with Interior Minister Aryeh Deri and residents of south Tel Aviv, where many of the migrants reside, before reconsidering it.
In the afternoon, at a press conference alongside Deri, Netanyahu had praised the plan, saying that it would see some 16,250 African migrants in Israel resettled in “developed” Western countries, while a similar number would be given temporary residency.
“This agreement will allow for the departure from Israel of 16,250 migrants to developed countries like Canada or Germany or Italy,” Netanyahu declared, without elaborating. Other reports said the United States and Sweden would take in some of the number.
Netanyahu’s televised address followed a government announcement that it had scrapped an earlier controversial plan to deport the migrants and replaced it with the new one, quietly negotiated with the UN, that would see thousands sent to Western countries.
Netanyahu said the earlier plan to deport migrants to Rwanda and Uganda was no longer feasible. He stressed that “legal constraints as well as political difficulties on the part of [Uganda and Rwanda]” led to the cancellation of previous deportation policies.
Under the agreement, which Netanyahu called “the best possible,” the asylum seekers who remain in Israel would be dispersed in areas across the country outside of south Tel Aviv, he said. Netanyahu vowed to prioritize rehabilitating the neighborhoods of south Tel Aviv, alongside implementing the international agreement.
In a Facebook video following up on his press statement, Netanyahu said that the migrants who would be allowed to stay in the country would be removed from Tel Aviv and sent to kibbutzim, agricultural villages, and other communities.