Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu focused much of his opening remarks at Sunday’s cabinet meeting on the issue of how the high population of African infiltrators has impacted the lives of the residents of south Tel Aviv.
Netanyahu expressed his outrage at the abysmal conditions under which the residents are living after paying a visit to the area last Thursday. He was deeply moved by the dangers to which one older woman, ‘Sophia,’ is exposed due to her current living conditions there, he said.
“Last Thursday I visited south Tel Aviv together with Ministers Gilad Erdan and Miri Regev, and MK Amir Ohana, and we met with residents. I accompanied 72-year-old Sophia to the sixth floor of the building in which she lives — all of which is now, except for her, and if I am not mistaken, perhaps another tenant, inhabited by illegal infiltrators.
“The filth of the street is one thing — but the fact that she can get down from her little apartment near the roof after she barely climbs up, and can go down once a day, escorted, she cannot go unescorted, and she goes back up at the end of the day, with great difficulty — this is intolerable.
“The things I heard from her and other residents, is tremendous distress in the face of this serious problem of illegal infiltrators.
“I underscore, this is the problem, not refugees – few are refugees – they are illegal migrant labor infiltrators in the State of Israel. And we have the right, as in every country, to supervise our borders and remove from our borders anyone who is illegally here,” he added.
Netanyahu said he is creating a ministerial team that will meet this week with representatives of the residents from Tel Aviv and other areas to advance solutions to the problem. Some 20,000 infiltrators, he said, have already been removed.
He noted that Israel was the first country in the world to physically block the entry of infiltrators and at the time, there were 20,000 entering the country per year.
“Without building the fence we would easily have reached at least 100,000 a year in view of what is happening in Africa. Meaning that within a decade, and we are soon approaching the end of that decade, the state would stop being the Jewish state. There was a real threat to the future of the State of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state,” he said, but added that the fence blocked it.
At present, Netanyahu said the threat is somewhat mitigated due to the diplomatic foundation created during his visits to Africa, and conversations with African leaders.
“We have created a base of countries willing to absorb these infiltrators, and now we may have to improve not only the legislation, but also the agreements… We have created a base of countries willing to absorb these infiltrators, and now we may have to improve not only the legislation, but also the agreements,” he said.