Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is blaming left-wing group the New Israel Fund for the crisis surrounding Tuesday's reversal of an agreement that would have prevented thousands of illegal African migrants in Israel from being deported back to Africa.
Initially, the migrants, who came mainly from Sudan and Eritrea, were slated to be deported to a third-party African country believed to be Rwanda. The provisions for deportation were met with widespread criticism, prompting the prime minister to strike a compromise agreement with the U.N. that would have resulted in 16,250 of the roughly 37,000 migrants being deported to Western countries and the rest remaining in Israel.
However, facing pressure from his cabinet, Netanyahu rescinded the agreement, leaving the migrants in limbo.
Explaining why he rescinded the agreement, Netanyahu excoriated the New Israel Fund on Facebook, writing that "the main player that exerted European pressure on the government of Rwanda to back out of the deal to remove the infiltrators from Israel is the New Israel Fund.
"The New Israel Fund is a foreign organization that receives funding from foreign governments and entities hostile to Israel, like the George Soros foundations. The organization's ultimate goal is to eradicate the Jewish character of Israel and turn it into a state of all its citizens, alongside a Palestinian state along the 1967 borders that is free of Jews, whose capital is Jerusalem."
The prime minister revealed that he intended to take "significant" steps against the New Israel Fund.
"I have asked coalition chairman MK David Amsalem to lead the process of setting up a parliamentary investigative committee into the activity of the New Israel Fund, which is putting the security and the future of Israel as the national home of the Jewish people at risk," Netanyahu wrote.
Chairman of the right-wing organization Im Tirzu Matan Peleg also spoke out against the New Israel Fund.
"It's time to outlaw this foreign, subversive political organization," Peleg said.
Representatives of the New Israel Fund issued a strong response to Netanyahu's words, saying, "This evening, Netanyahu crossed every possible line in inciting against us. We had no contact with the government of Rwanda. All of our activity is open, transparent and reported."
The NIF added that "this is a battle for Israeli democracy. We are Israel."
The crisis took another turn later Tuesday, when Netanyahu announced he intended to promote a bill that would reopen the Holot detention facility in southern Israel, which the High Court ordered shut last year.
The High Court ruled that detention in Holot, where migrants were kept indefinitely, constituted "disproportionate" punishment.
For now, the majority of the migrants are concentrated in the poor neighborhoods of south Tel Aviv. The locals have protested against the migrants' presence, with some arguing that the migrants contribute to soaring crime rates.
Kulanu party chairman Moshe Kahlon reportedly does not oppose the move to reopen Holot. Kahlon associates said Tuesday that any proposal from Netanyahu to remove the migrants from south Tel Aviv would receive Kahlon's backing, including legislation that would be worded in a way that would not allow it to be overruled by the High Court.
Habayit Hayehudi Chairman Naftali Bennett echoed the sentiment, saying, "We support a new bill to prevent illegal migration that would include a clause that would block the High Court from revoking it. This will create an incentive for the infiltrators to leave Israel [of their own volition]. We fully support the prime minister on the matter of the clause and expect that the legislative process will be completed shortly."
According to one political official, "Netanyahu tried to embarrass Kahlon, who previously announced that he would not allow any attack on the Supreme Court. But in this instance, Kahlon burst his balloon before it could happen."
Israel Hayom has also learned that several ideas were proposed during a meeting the prime minister held with representatives from south Tel Aviv neighborhoods on Tuesday after announcing that the compromise deal had been canceled.
One option was to increase financial pressure on the migrants to leave the country. The original plan to incentivize a voluntary exodus was to offer grants of $3,500 to migrants who left of their own volition. Now a proposal is on the table to increase that sum by hundreds of dollars – but that additional sum will decrease incrementally from the time the plan is implemented, meaning that the longer migrants wait, the less money they will receive.
At the same time, conditions for the infiltrators detained for unspecified lengths of time at the Saharonim facility in the Negev would be toughened to the extent permitted by the High Court.
One woman who took part in the meeting with Netanyahu told Israel Hayom that "the prime minister said as soon as he arrived that the agreement was canceled and explained that the 'third country' [that was supposed to take in the migrants] was off the table after pulling out of the deal. The conversation with the prime minister was important, professional and serious, and a number of ideas for a solution to our situation were raised.
"These things require work, and cannot be discussed. The main thing is that we talked about the need to open our minds to other solutions," she said.
Another woman who was part of the meeting with Netanyahu, Suzy Cohen Tzemach, said, "The deal would have buried us. It was a disaster for south Tel Aviv, and it's good that the prime minister cancelled it."
May Golan, who also took part in the meeting, said, "What came out of the meeting was the message that the news that had frightened the hearts of the residents of south Tel Aviv and the entire country was canceled. It's a huge relief."
