Netanyahu: 'Infiltrators are conquering Tel Aviv'

PM warns too many refugees will threaten Israel as a Jewish, democratic state, says he won't allow Peretz outpost home to be razed.

By JPOST.COM STAFF
netanyahu stinkeye 311 (photo credit: Haim Tzach)
netanyahu stinkeye 311
(photo credit: Haim Tzach)
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu warned that too many infiltrators are flooding Israel, in a speech to the Manufacturers Association Conference in Tel Aviv on Thursday.
"The infiltrators conquered Eilat and Arad, and they are conquering Tel Aviv from north to south," he said. "Only a small amount are actually refugees."
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Netanyahu added that Israel is building a fence at the gate with Egypt "to stop this flood, so Israel will remain Jewish and democratic."
He explained that thousands of infiltrators enter Israel every year, because Israel has "turned into almost the only first-world country that refugees can walk to from the third world."
"A stream of refugees threaten to wash away our achievements and harm our existence as a Jewish and democratic state," Netanyahu said.
The prime minister also said that he will not allow the homes of Maj. Eliraz Peretz and Maj. Roei Klein, both killed in the line of duty, to be destroyed.
"I wouldn't do something like that to the families of these heroes," Netanyahu explained.
The state had been expected to present to the courts its findings on the status of homes in the outposts of Hayovel and Haresha, near Eli, as early as Thursday, but Netanyahu delayed the state's response on Wednesday night.
Netanyahu also mentioned haredim serving in the IDF. "The haredi willingness to contribute and serve is on the rise," he said. "Recently, I visited Nachal Haredi soldiers and they told me that two years ago, they would hide their uniforms, and not hang them outside to dry. Today, they hang them outside openly and proudly."
The prime minister said that he told the haredi soldiers "a story about my grandfather, who was a yeshiva student, like them, in Lithuania, and came from a family of rabbis. He said that once he was at a train station with his brother, and rioters yelled 'Yid' at them and beat them with clubs. They threw his brother into the mud, and he jumped in the mud to save him. Then, my grandfather said to himself - what an embarrassment that the descendants of King David and the Maccabees are stuck in the mud. If I live, I will move to the Land of Israel."