MK Danny Danon vowed on Tuesday to pass a bill that would expel half of Israel’s
70,000 African migrants within a year and all within three
years.
Speaking at a meeting of the anti-migrant lobby at the Knesset
attended by residents of south Tel Aviv, Danon said he would propose the bill
soon unless the cabinet began to seriously expel the migrants soon en
masse.
According to the proposal, Israel would pay African countries to
absorb the migrants. Until their expulsion, they would be kept in camps outside
Israeli population centers where they would be fed, clothed and given medical
treatment, but not permitted to work in the country. Renting apartments to the
migrants would be forbidden by law.
“We cannot let them bring Africa to
Israel,” Danon said. “I’ve been to South Sudan. It’s a country you can live
in.”
Speaking as immigration authorities have been rounding up and
arresting South Sudanese in preparation of their impending deportation, the
Likud MK complained about what he called “crybaby reports” about the migrants
who are being forced to leave the country.
Danon said Eritrean ambassador
to Israel Tesfamariam Tekeste told him there was a neighborhood in his country
that has been nicknamed Tel Aviv because it was built with money sent home by
workers in Israel.
MK Miri Regev (Likud), who last month called Africans
in Israel “a cancer,” was greeted like royalty by Jewish south Tel Aviv
residents at the Knesset.
She called the situation there – where many
migrants have settled – a national emergency.
“The country has been
captured by migrants on foot,” she complained.
“Anyone who crosses border
must be put in jail for three years. Then they will stop coming.”
Regev
came to the event accompanied by Ya’acov, an Ethiopian Jew who works at a
factory in Kiryat Malachi. Yaakov said 170 Eritrean migrants were hired in place
of Israelis, because the migrants were willing to work 21 hours a
day.
Doron Ezra, the head of the state police union, said only 130
inspectors were employed nationwide to arrest illegal migrants during the day
and only a few at night. Danon called for the staff of inspectors to be
increased five-fold.
The ambassadors from Ghana and the Ivory Coast were
present at the discussion but declined to address the room in any language other
than French.
Because no French-speaking interpreters were found, they did
not end up speaking.