Israel built a fence to keep out Africans. Now it plans to evict those who won’t leave

• Israel is rich and Africa is hungry, says Benjamin Netanyahu, so Israel must find ways to keep Africans out.
• If it were to offer citizenship to refugees already in the country, it faces being stormed by millions of people from Africa, he maintains.
• So, having built a wall, it now needs to find ways to get rid of those Africans who made it into Israel.
• Rival groups of Eritrean migrants clashed violently in the streets of Tel Aviv on Saturday.

Israel must find a way to remove, “voluntarily or by other means”, all African migrants, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said over the weekend, after clashes between Eritreans crossed a “red line”.

Authorities reported well over 100 people injured, and damage to property, after large groups opposed to and in support of Eritrea’s government clashed in the streets of Tel Aviv. One police officer had a piece of a camping stove removed from his head, and dozens more were injured.

The incident pointed to the urgent need to rid Israel of African migrants entirely, said Netanyahu on Sunday, according to his office’s translation of remarks in Hebrew. 

The “massive infiltration of illegal workers from Africa” is a “tangible threat to the character and future of the State of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state”, said Netanyahu. While Israel was rich, “in Africa there is hunger and a lack of economic progress which could lead to another wave of infiltrators”.

Israel largely completed a wall on its border with Egypt in 2013, under a previous stint with Netanyahu as prime minister. Since taking office again late last year, he has ordered additional barriers to stop illegal border crossings.

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Eritreans who took to Tel Aviv streets to support their home country’s government must immediately be deported, Netanyahu argues, as they can not claim refugee status on the basis that they fear the ruling regime.

For other Africans, mostly from Sudan, Netanyahu envisages a carrot-and-stick approach: incentives to return home – or those as-yet undefined “other means”.

Allowing Africans to remain in Israel in any form is not an option, he has implied, as this could create an incentive for “millions” of Africans to try and enter Israel, potentially overwhelming its physical defences. 

Netanyahu has acknowledged that his previous efforts to expelling migrants have faced legal trouble. His government has sought to limit the powers of the courts to overrule decisions by the legislature, through measures such as removing the ability of a court to override legislation on the basis that it is unreasonable.