Some 60,000 migrants, mainly from Eritrea and Sudan, have entered Israel across the border with Egypt since 2006. Israel says they are illegal job-seekers and not refugees nor political asylum seekers. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that what he called 'infiltrators' were threatening Israel's Jewish social fabric. The dominant ideology in the country says that if the Jewish people ever drop below a certain percentage in the population of the country, then they are going to be victims of persecution,based on the legitimate fear from previous persecution, but it's taken to a paranoia extent where they prevent any population by non-Jews.
The border with Egypt, has now been sealed by a high-tech fence, running for 240km from of the edge of the Gaza Strip to Israel's southernmost city of Eilat. The barrier is five metres high, topped with surveillance equipment. And under a newly amended law, those still in the country may be sent to a night-time detention facility in the Negev desert for up to one year without trial, described by the government as an open prison and designed to serve as a halfway house.
The United Nations' high commissioner for refugees says Israel's policy causes "hardship and suffering" and flouts the 1951 world treaty on the treatment of refugees. Israeli writer, David Grossman, told protesters in Tel Aviv he was "embarrassed and ashamed" of Israel's treatment of migrants, and the problem should be dealt with in the "most humane way".
The situation is further complicated by the Israeli attempt to decrease its reliance on Palestinian labour by the mass use of ‘guest’ workers from Asia, estimated to be 300,000 who are denied the opportunity of citizenship. In 1987, the year the Intifada began, Palestinians comprised nearly 8 percent of the Israeli labour- force. The uprising prevented Palestinians from traveling back and forth to jobs inside Israel, and threw the economy into crisis. In response, the Israeli government began to import workers from abroad. By 2000, foreign workers comprised 12 percent of the Israeli workforce. Unlike the Palestinians who went home to Gaza or the West Bank at the end of the work-day, many of those foreign workers have chosen to settle.
The anti-immigration stance should, however, not be used to justify anti-semitism. After all Saudi Arabia has recently deported, often forcibly, tens of thousands of Africans migrants, and the EU continues its blockade of African migrants.
Video of the African protests in Israel here
The border with Egypt, has now been sealed by a high-tech fence, running for 240km from of the edge of the Gaza Strip to Israel's southernmost city of Eilat. The barrier is five metres high, topped with surveillance equipment. And under a newly amended law, those still in the country may be sent to a night-time detention facility in the Negev desert for up to one year without trial, described by the government as an open prison and designed to serve as a halfway house.
The United Nations' high commissioner for refugees says Israel's policy causes "hardship and suffering" and flouts the 1951 world treaty on the treatment of refugees. Israeli writer, David Grossman, told protesters in Tel Aviv he was "embarrassed and ashamed" of Israel's treatment of migrants, and the problem should be dealt with in the "most humane way".
The situation is further complicated by the Israeli attempt to decrease its reliance on Palestinian labour by the mass use of ‘guest’ workers from Asia, estimated to be 300,000 who are denied the opportunity of citizenship. In 1987, the year the Intifada began, Palestinians comprised nearly 8 percent of the Israeli labour- force. The uprising prevented Palestinians from traveling back and forth to jobs inside Israel, and threw the economy into crisis. In response, the Israeli government began to import workers from abroad. By 2000, foreign workers comprised 12 percent of the Israeli workforce. Unlike the Palestinians who went home to Gaza or the West Bank at the end of the work-day, many of those foreign workers have chosen to settle.
The anti-immigration stance should, however, not be used to justify anti-semitism. After all Saudi Arabia has recently deported, often forcibly, tens of thousands of Africans migrants, and the EU continues its blockade of African migrants.
Video of the African protests in Israel here
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