https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/03/world/middleeast/netanyahu-africa-migrants-rwanda.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fmiddleeast&action=click&contentCollection=middleeast®ion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=2&pgtype=sectionfront
JERUSALEM — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has backed down under
pressure before, but rarely in such a spectacular fashion as he did on Tuesday when
he reneged on a deal with the United Nations to resettle thousands of African asylum
seekers in Western countries.
Mr. Netanyahu announced the deal to great fanfare on Monday, only to suspend
it a few hours later. On Tuesday, he canceled it completely and defended his abrupt
reversal, saying he was responding to an outcry from members of his conservative
Likud party as well as partners in his governing coalition who routinely refer to the
migrants as “infiltrators” and want all of them expelled.
But the capitulation dented Mr. Netanyahu’s image as a master political player.
“This sort of zigzagging is not at all unusual,” said Gadi Wolfsfeld, a professor of
political communications at the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya near Tel Aviv. “But
for someone considered such a political genius to make such a miscalculation, that’s
the surprising part of the story.”
The episode was a reminder of how beholden Mr. Netanyahu is to hard-liners in
his party and his government, constraining him domestically and diplomatically,
whether in making concessions to the Palestinians or in fulfilling an agreement to
create an egalitarian prayer space at the Western Wall in Jerusalem.
“To sign an agreement and the next day to renege on it, that’s awful,” Mr.
Wolfsfeld said. “I guess that means you can’t sign anything with Israel.”
The deal with the United Nations refugee agency might have given Israel a bit of
relief from international criticism of the latest violence along the border with Gaza,
where Israeli forces killed at least 16 Palestinians on Friday during a mass protest
against Israel’s longstanding blockade of the territory and in support of Palestinian
claims to return to homes in what is now Israel.
Instead, it proved to be an international embarrassment.
Mr. Netanyahu’s latest troubles come at a time when he is already embroiled in
multiple corruption scandals that could end up bringing down him and his
government. But he still consistently ranks in polls as the most suitable candidate, by
far, for the country’s top job and is already Israel’s second-longest-serving prime
minister, after the state’s founder, David Ben-Gurion.
Mr. Netanyahu’s Likud party and his coalition partners have so far stuck by him
despite the growing list of corruption allegations against him. But the migrant deal
— which took most of his partners in the government by surprise — riled some of his
closest allies.
As has often happened in the past, Mr. Netanyahu changed direction in the
wake of harsh criticism from Naftali Bennett, the education minister and leader the
Jewish Home party. While the far-right Jewish Home is in Mr. Netanyahu’s
coalition, it also competes with his Likud party for votes.
Bezalel Smotrich, a Jewish Home legislator, said in a radio interview on Tuesday
that he would be willing to topple the government over the migrant issue.
“We want the state of Israel to remain a Jewish state,” he said. “And this means
sticking to the right migration policy.”
Tal Schneider, the political correspondent for Globes, an Israeli financial
newspaper, said of Mr. Netanyahu’s reversal: “It shows weakness.”
Mr. Netanyahu said he had made the deal with the United Nations high
commissioner for refugees because it seemed the only way to reduce the population
of African migrants in Israel, who number at least 35,000. The migrants, mostly
Eritreans and Sudanese who surreptitiously crossed the border from Egypt before it
was sealed in 2012, cannot be returned to their own countries under international
conventions for fear of persecution.
The deal with the United Nations refugee agency was meant to replace a
contentious Israeli plan to forcibly deport the migrants to Rwanda. That plan fell
through because of legal obstacles and after Rwanda said it would accept only
asylum seekers who left Israel voluntarily. Given the lack of options, Mr. Netanyahu
apparently thought he would be able to sell the new plan to his supporters.
Mr. Netanyahu first trumpeted the deal on Monday in a live television
broadcast, saying it was an extraordinary plan to resettle nearly half of Israel’s
African asylum seekers in Western countries. A n equal number would have been
granted legal status to stay in Israel. Several hours later, he suspended the deal,
crumpling under the pressure from its opponents. By midday Tuesday, he had
canceled it.
“Each year, I make thousands of decisions for the benefit of the state of Israel
and its citizens. From time to time, a decision is taken that must be reconsidered,”
Mr. Netanyahu said on Tuesday.
“Despite the growing legal obstacles and international difficulties, we will
continue to act with determination to exhaust all the possibilities available to us to
remove the infiltrators,” Mr. Netanyahu said, quickly falling back on the rhetoric of
his base.
The United Nations refugee agency said it regretted Israel’s decision.
“U.N.H.C.R. continues to believe that a win-win agreement that would both
benefit Israel and people needing asylum is in everyone’s best interests. And we
encourage the government of Israel to consider the matter further,” the agency said.
William Spindler, a spokesman for the United Nations refugee agency in
Geneva, said it found out about Mr. Netanyahu’s retreat only through a late-night
post on his Facebook page.
Mr. Netanyahu appears to have burned bridges with Rwanda. Until this week,
the Israeli government had not named Rwanda as the main African destination for
migrants deported from Israel, only referring obliquely to a secret agreement with a
“third country.”
But in his Facebook post on Monday night, Mr. Netanyahu identified the
country as Rwanda, saying it had agreed to take in migrants who had been deported
from Israel without their consent, but then capitulated under outside pressure. In
response, Rwanda’s minister of state for foreign affairs, Olivier Nduhungirehe, told
Israel’s public broadcaster, Kan Radio, on Tuesday that Rwanda had never agreed to
take in the asylum seekers, either in writing or orally, adding that Mr. Netanyahu’s
Facebook post “changes the way we should respond.”
To many in Israel, opposition to the United Nations plan makes little sense
because all the migrants will remain in Israel, and in limbo, for the foreseeable
future.
Daniel B. Shapiro, a former United States ambassador to Israel, commended
Mr. Netanyahu on Twitter for the migrant deal soon after it was announced. But he
then wrote in a subsequent post: “I guess I have to eat my words. Advocates for
Israel like me will have a hard time explaining reneging on a signed international
agreement. And the crisis facing Israel and its asylum seekers remains unaddressed,
helping no one.”