African migrants in limbo after leader’s reversal
TEL AVIV — Halofom Sultan went from being jailed in his native Eritrea for opposing the oppressive government to detention in Israel, where he is seeking asylum after fleeing for his life.
So when Israel’s prime minister announced a deal with the United Nations on Monday to resettle tens of thousands of African migrants, Sultan was hopeful.
“There was a little light,” he said. But hours later, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu backtracked, canceling the deal and casting Sultan’s future, and those of thousands of others, once again into uncertainty.
Netanyahu’s stunning reversal was just the latest twist in a policy that has careened from detentions to deportations as Israel struggles with how to deal with the migrants. The country’s 35,000 African migrants have been at the receiving end of those decisions, and the scrapping of the U.N. deal means they must now wait for the next decree by Israel’s government to know their fate.
“It feels like a balloon thrown to the ocean that goes to any direction when the wind blows,” 38-year-old Sultan said. “All the time a new law, a new amendment, changes every time. So I have no clear option or plan or clear vision of what will happen next.”
The migrants, along with much of Israel, watched in disbelief as Netanyahu went from proudly announcing the U.N. deal live on national TV to shelving it hours later.
In laying out what he described as “a good agreement” that “enables us to solve this problem,” Netanyahu said Israel agreed to cancel the planned expulsion of tens of thousands of African migrants. Instead, he said the deal called for sending half of the migrants to Western nations and allowing the rest to remain in Israel.
After an outcry from hardline members of his coalition and residents of the poor neighborhoods in southern Tel Aviv where many of the Africans live, Netanyahu suspended the agreement. Then, following a meeting Tuesday with Tel Aviv residents, he nixed the deal entirely.
“After I weighed the pros and cons, I decided to cancel the agreement,” Netanyahu said.
The Africans, mainly from war-torn Sudan and dictatorial Eritrea, began arriving in Israel in 2005 through its porous border with Egypt after Egyptian forces violently quashed a refugee demonstration and word spread of safety and job opportunities in Israel. Tens of thousands crossed the desert border, often after enduring dangerous journeys, before Israel completed a barrier in 2012 that stopped the influx.
Since then, Israel has wrestled with how to cope with those already in the country. Many took up menial jobs in hotels and restaurants, and thousands settled in southern Tel Aviv, where Israeli residents began complaining of rising crime.