Israel cancels UN deal to resettle African migrants

Embattled Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu caves to pressure from right wing parties over UN offer to rehome 16,000 Africans in Western countries and allow 16,000 to remain in Israel

A protest in Tel Aviv last month against embattled prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plans for mass deportations of asylum seekers (Reuters)

Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he is cancelling yesterday’s agreement with the UN to relocate thousands of African asylum seekers to Western countries.

“I have listened carefully to the many comments on the agreement. As a result, and after I again weighed the advantages and disadvantages, I decided to cancel the deal,” Mr Netanyahu said in a statement issued by his office on Tuesday.

Israel has faced intense criticism over new plans to make 37,000 African migrants and asylum seekers choose between deportation to either Rwanda or Uganda, or face an unspecified amount of jail time.

The United Nations refugee agency UNHCR stepped in on Monday with an offer to resettle around half of the adult male immigrants, who are mostly Sudanese and Eritrean. The other half were to be allowed to stay in Israel.

Women, children and the elderly are supposed to be exempt from all deportation plans.

While no states were named, the prime minister suggested Germany, Canada and Italy were destinations.

Right-wing factions in Mr Netanyahu’s ruling coalition, including from his own Likud party, immediately called on the prime minister to overturn the agreement, arguing he had sidelined the views of residents in southern Tel Aviv – an area which has attracted the majority of the African newcomers.

Despite initially praising the deal at a news conference in Jerusalem, the prime minister announced he was suspending its implementation a few hours later.

“Despite the growing legal and international limitation, we will continue to act work with determination to exhaust all possibilities at our disposal to remove the infiltrators,” Mr Netanyahu told southern Tel Avivi residents at a meeting on Tuesday shortly before scrapping the UN deal.

The UN itself has urged the Israeli government to reconsider the U-turn.

The fate of Israel’s African asylum seekers has created a moral dilemma in a state founded as a safe haven for Jewish people persecuted during the Second World War. The previous deportation plans were met with protests and legal challenges from the Israeli left and international rights groups.

Benjamin Netanyahu, now in his fourth term, is under investigation in three separate corruption cases and linked to a fourth. He needs the support of right wing blocs in Israel’s Knesset to remain in office. He denies all allegations of wrongdoing.