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Netanyahu accuses Soros of meddling in Israel’s migrant policy

Prime Minister Netanyahu accused billionaire George Soros of funding a wave of protests against the imminent deportation of unlawful migrants.

By: Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

During a meeting of Likud ministers on Sunday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu complained that Jewish billionaire George Soros was behind an extensive campaign to stop the Israeli authorities from deporting illegal migrants from the country.

“George Soros is also funding the protests,” Netanyahu said, according to leaks from the meeting carried by Channel 10 and Haaretz. He reportedly added that former US president Barack Obama “deported two million infiltrators and they didn’t say anything.”

Soros, an 87-year-old Hungarian-American Holocaust survivor, who supports left-wing organizations, is averse to the current government in Israel. He has supported a number of organizations with far-left agendas, such as Breaking the Silence, B’Tselem, and Yesh Din. These organizations bash the establishment of Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria, paint the IDF as racist and wholeheartedly support the Palestinian viewpoint in its fight against Israel.

Netanyahu’s comments coincided with the first deportation notices sent by the Immigration and Population Authority to single, male infiltrators from Eritrea and Sudan. They have 60 days to leave willingly to an unnamed country – widely believed to be Rwanda – with their flight paid for and $3,500 in hand to help them in their new lives.

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There are reportedly some 20,000 such “illegal labor migrants,” as they have been dubbed by the government, and as has been stated many times by the authorities, no country is obligated to keep those who have jumped their borders instead of trying to come in legally.

However, due to the Jewish state’s sensitivity to persecution, not every unlawful entrant will be thrown out. “Genuine refugees and their families will remain in Israel,” Netanyahu said last week.

In general, women, children and their fathers, anyone recognized as a victim of slavery or human trafficking, and those who had requested asylum by the end of 2017 without response are not going to be forcibly expelled. About 5,000 children have been born in Israel to those who crossed into the country unlawfully before the government built a fence that sealed the border with Egypt.

After April 1, the immigration authority plans to begin imprisoning or forcibly expelling the infiltrators. However, it is unclear whether this policy can be carried out, as there is no room for thousands of people in current jail facilities, and no third country has said that it would take in refugees who do not come of their own free will.