Following the dispute caused by the Oshrenko murder case, whose alleged perpetrator immigrated to Israel in 2004 to avoid arrest for armed robbery in Russia, Interior Minister Eli Yishai suggested on Tuesday that Israel's "open door" policy was perhaps too lenient.

Speaking on Army Radio, Yishai said that many "murderers and anti-Semites who murder Jews in the state of Israel" had arrived in the country in search of asylum.

The interior minister explained that hundreds of non-Jews had become Israeli citizens "deceptively" by exploiting the law according to which "Israel is an immigrant country for Jews."