ISRAEL
Let My People Stay
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu suspended a decision to send thousands of African migrants to foreign shores on Monday, just hours after he’d announced the plan.
Under the plan, made with the United Nations Refugee Agency, Israel was to send at least 16,250 African migrants to Canada, Italy and Germany, CNN reported. But the scheme had come under heavy criticism from members of Netanyahu’s coalition.
CNN cited the Population and Immigration Authority as saying there are approximately 37,000 illegal immigrants in Israel, the majority from Eritrea or Sudan. Earlier, Netanyahu had faced flak for a plan to offer such residents $3,500 and an airplane ticket to leave for a sub-Saharan African country.
Human rights groups successfully challenged that plan in court.
While accepting refugees is controversial around the world, Israel has accepted only 33 asylum requests out of some 54,600 over the past decade, compared with an acceptance rate of nearly 90% in the European Union through the first three quarters of 2017.
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