Desperate to deport

Former Mossad operator Hagai Hadas has traveled to several countries in Africa to convince them to accept the tens of thousands of African infiltrators into Israel

By YOSSI MELMAN
Migrants dance with South Sudanese flag 370 (photo credit: Ben Hartman)
Migrants dance with South Sudanese flag 370
(photo credit: Ben Hartman)
Hagai Hadas loves his new job. It reminds him of his old days at the Mossad.
He disappears for clandestine rendezvous in exotic, remote places; his budget is unlimited; he operates behind the back of the Foreign Ministry; and he reports only to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Hadas serves as Israel’s special envoy responsible for arranging the deportation – he and state officials prefer to use words such as “transfer,” “rehabilitation” or “resettlement” – of Africans who, over the years, have infiltrated into Israel.
During his time in the 1990s in the Mossad intelligence agency, Hadas served as head of the super-secretive Kidon unit, responsible for special operations, including assassinations and sabotage. Thereafter, he was promoted to the post of head of Caesarea, the department that handles operations in Iran and hostile Arab countries. He left the intelligence agency in 2004 after realizing he was not in line for the position of deputy to then-Mossad chief Meir Dagan.
Hadas tried his hand at private business, but failed, only to be rescued by his friend, Netanyahu. Initially, he served as the prime minister’s envoy tasked with securing the release of kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit, but failed again to reap success. He resigned and Netanyahu rushed to help him for the second time – tasking him this time with the repatriation of infiltrators to Africa.
According to official data from the Interior Ministry’s Population and Immigration Authority, Israel hosts some 70,000 legal foreign workers with valid working permits.
Some were brought in from Thailand to work in agriculture; others are from China, Turkey and Romania and work in industry and construction. Workers from the Philippines are mainly employed in institutions and private homes taking care of the elderly and the infirm. To a certain degree, these legal foreign workers are supervised and regulated by the state.
But the country is also home to another 14,000 illegal workers whose permits have expired but who chose to remain in the country and go underground. Additionally, some 60,000 tourists whose visas have expired remain illegally in the country.
Over above these figures, around 55,000 individuals have infiltrated illegally. Some 36,000 are from Eritrea, 14,000 come from North Sudan and Darfur, and the remaining 5,000 or so arrived from various other African nations such as Ivory Coast, Nigeria and Ghana. Most of the Africans infiltrated via Egypt and Sinai, assisted by Bedouin smugglers, who reportedly often extorted high rates and sexually abused the women.
The African migrants claim that they fled their homelands because of political persecution and human-rights violations.
They insist that if they are returned to their countries of origin, they would face torture and be sent to prison. Israeli authorities, on the other hand, argue that most of the infiltrators are simply illegal migrant workers and are not eligible for UN-recognized refugee status.
Plans to deport the 55,000 African migrants became a central issue for the previous Netanyahu government. The concentration of the African community in the poor neighborhoods in South Tel Aviv played into the hands of right-wing politicians and journalists. Local residents complained about the foreigners and accused them of drunkenness, violence and the sexual abuse of “our daughters.” And the politicians rushed to exploit the misery and anger of the residents.
Former interior minister Eli Yishai of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party described them as “carriers of diseases” and brought into memory dark days in history when Jews were referred to in similar terms. Likud Knesset Members such as Miri Regev and Danny Danon (now Deputy Defense Minister) incited against them using racist and sexist innuendos. Other politicians talked about the “threat to the Jewish character” of Israel.
Only a handful of liberal voices, mainly those of human-rights organizations and small left-wing parties, tried to remind the public that Israel is also a democratic state committed to universal humanitarian values and UN conventions. But they were outnumbered and outflanked by the vociferous public outcry that turned into something of a national obsession and paranoia.
The reasons behind Israel’s fervent desire to deport the African refugees varied. Aside from the political pressure, there are religious reasons. Israel perceives itself as a Jewish state and is reluctant to accept and absorb other ethnic or religious groups. There is also the classic argument that the refugees are cheap labor and are “stealing” jobs from Israelis.
And racism, too, plays a part. Though no one will admit it, beneath the surface also lies prejudice, hatred of the other based on the color of their skin.
The Netanyahu government declared war on infiltrators and promised to put an end to their influx. And it succeeded. By allocating nearly $1 billion, the Defense Ministry built a fence that stretches from the Red Sea port city of Eilat to the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah on the Mediterranean shore, spanning the entire 200-kilometer long border between Israel and Egypt.
The fence has a twofold purpose. It is designed to stop the illegal infiltration but also to prevent efforts by al-Qaeda-inspired terror groups as well Gaza-based Hamas and Islamic Jihad cells to strike at Israel from Sinai.
Almost completed, the fence is an effective barrier preventing African refugees and jobseekers from reaching Israel. Official statistics published by the Interior Ministry clearly illustrate how the fence has stemmed the influx. In 2010, nearly 15,000 individuals infiltrated Israel from Sinai. In 2011, the number increased by 15 percent to more than 17,000. But in 2012, when construction of the fence began, the number dropped 40 percent to 10,000. Since the beginning of 2013, only 28 people have made it across the same border.
Yet Israel continues to perceive the existence of the infiltrators as a threat – or so it claims. Thus, it is trying to “purify” the country of their existence by all means – legal, diplomatic and economic.
Since 2012 Israel has sent nearly 1,500 South Sudanese back to their homeland on flights via Jordan. Because Israel and South Sudan have diplomatic relations, and because Israel provides South Sudan with security and military training (which began already 40 years ago when the South fought for independence from united Sudan), there were no legal or international limitations to the deportations. Israeli officials claimed that all of the South Sudanese illegal immigrants agreed to return to their native country. They were paid an allowance and some of them were trained before their departure in various vocations such as agriculture.
But testimonies collected by human rights groups portray a difference narrative, one in which Israeli officials and the police coerced the refugees into signing their “voluntary releases.”
With the South Sudanese “problem” solved, the new Netanyahu coalition, including the centrist Yesh Atid party led by Finance Minister Yair Lapid, is now targeting the Eritrean and the North Sudanese refugees.
But this is a far more complicated matter.
Israel is a signatory member of various international conventions dealing with the status of refugees. And according to these conventions and the UN Commission for Refugees, recognized refugees benefit from a special status that grants them free movement and protection from arrest.
To circumvent international commitments, Israel passed in 2012 an amendment to the Law for the Prevention of Infiltrators that essentially allows for detaining migrants who do not have refugee status for up to three years. The amendment was passed by the Knesset despite opposition from the Foreign Ministry and human-rights organizations, which argue that it contradicts international law and the state’s commitment to the international conventions on refugees.
Some human-rights groups representing five refugees from Eritrea appealed to the Supreme Court demanding the cancelation of the new law and defining it as “unconstitutional.” The Supreme Court has been deliberating and is due to issue its verdict in the near future.
During the deliberations, details about Hadas’s secret dealings in Africa were partially unveiled. Since Israel cannot return the refugees to their home countries, where they can face political persecution, the prime minister, interior minister and their advisors decided to try to persuade friendly countries in Africa to accept at least some of the deportees.
Over the past year, Hadas has traveled to several countries in Africa in an effort to convince them to accept the refugees. He traveled to or was in touch with Kenya, Uganda, Burundi, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Malawi and probably a few more.
In order to persuade them to reach a deal, he has been offering the respective countries Israeli military assistance or agricultural support, or some financial rewards per capita. Human-rights groups argue that such a deal is morally wrong and internationally unlawful. Human trafficking, the groups argue, is forbidden, and refugees cannot be “sold” in return for goods or money.
So far, no African state has shown any enthusiasm or readiness to take up such an offer. When Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga visited Israel in November 2011, he rejected an Israeli proposal on providing a home for African refugees. He told Netanyahu that Kenya was already home to some 3,000,000 refugees, among them hundreds of thousands from Eritrea.
One idea floated by Hadas is that Ethiopia would absorb the Eritreans. Until the early 1990s, Eritrea was part of Ethiopia. Eritrea declared its independence in 1991, and the two countries found themselves a few years ago in a war over a narrow strip of land a few kilometers long. Despite the animosity, Ethiopia sees the Eritreans as its “lost brothers” and the Ethiopian Consul General in Tel Aviv told Israeli officials that his government would grant an entry visa to any Eritrean who wished to go there, provided that Israel covered the cost of his travel and provide him with an initial allowance. There has been no progress on the matter since.
Nevertheless, despite this lack of progress, state lawyer Yochi Gnesin informed the Supreme Court in June that Israel had reached an agreement with one country in Africa and was in serious negotiations with two others that may be willing to absorb the refugees. The countries were not named.
The Foreign Ministry has said it has no knowledge of any agreement or serious talks on the matter. “Hadas might have been a good intelligence operative,” said a source in the ministry, “but he is not suitable for the sensitive mission he took upon himself.
Besides that, the chance that an African country would agree to accept Israel’s African refugees is very slim. Why should it?” It emerged subsequently that Attorney Gnesin had misinformed the Supreme Court. A week later, she corrected her statement. She submitted to the court an affidavit from Hadas in which he had only held “negotiations” with African nations but no agreement had been reached.
Some human-rights groups believe that instead of futile efforts to deport the refugees, they should be fully absorbed and integrated into society. The refugees, the human-rights groups say, should be encouraged to settle in various parts of Israel and not only in the small area of south Tel Aviv, and they should be granted permission to work and also pay taxes, health insurance and social security. “Israel can allow itself to absorb 55,000 or so people,” they say. 