Netanyahu scraps deal for asylum seekers

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu scrapped a U.N.-crafted deal on Tuesday to resettle thousands of African asylum-seekers in the West, caving to pressure from immigration hard-liners who saw it as rewarding illegal migrants.

After speaking to residents in south Tel Aviv, a traditionally working-class area where many African migrants settled in recent years, Netanyahu said that he “decided to cancel the agreement.”

Around 38,000 Sudanese and Eritrean migrants live in Israel. Most of them entered the country illegally via the land border with Egypt before a border fence was completed in 2012. Many say they would face persecution if they are returned back home.

Without the U.N. deal, many will be left in legal limbo within Israel.

On Monday, Netanyahu announced the “unprecedented understanding” with the U.N. refugee agency that would move more than 16,000 migrants to Western nations. The same number would be given temporary residency status within Israel and trained in sectors such as solar energy and agriculture.

The agreement with the United Nations had taken many in Israel by surprise. Under a deportation plan being implemented since February, male African migrants had been given notices warning them they had two months to leave the country.

The migrants were offered $3,500 to relocate to an unnamed “third country” — widely reported to be Uganda or Rwanda — or return to their home country.

But legal and political problems had slowed the deportation plan dramatically. Advocacy groups working on behalf of the migrants had challenged the policy in Israel’s high court, securing a temporary freeze on the plan on March 15.

The U.N. agreement was greeted with praise from many human rights groups, but the large number of African migrants allowed to stay in the country was bound to be a problem with Netanyahu’s rightwing base.

In a late night Facebook post, Netanyahu said he was listening to critics of the plan and that he would suspend its implementation until he had a chance to speak to delegates from neighborhoods in south Tel Aviv.

For critics, the suspension wasn’t enough. Naftali Bennett, leader of the nationalist Jewish Home party, tweeted that Netanyahu should “cancel it altogether.”

Within hours, Netanyahu called off the plan.