Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Israel Launches Campaign To Deter Immigrants

The border fence with Egypt, which was primarily intended to prevent the infiltration of unlawful labor migrants into Israel, is not scheduled to be completed before early 2013. Until then, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is interested in trying to deter African migrants through other means, namely a negative public relations campaign about the practicability of making the visit to Israel.

On Sunday, Netanyahu convened a large-scale forum attended by representatives from all of the relevant government ministries that deal with issues related to the unlawful labor migrants from Africa. The forum gathers every two weeks, at Netanyahu’s behest, in order to receive updates on the pace of construction of the fence and the residential facilities for the unlawful migrants, as well as diplomatic contacts with African states for their return.

In the course of the most recent session, Netanyahu directed representatives of the national information directorate, which operates under the aegis of the Prime Minister’s Office, to present him by the next session with a proposal for a media campaign in those African states from which the unlawful migrants are arriving, in order to deter them from crossing the border into Israel.

Netanyahu wishes to appraise the viability of a media campaign to be launched in those states, in which it would be made clear that Israel is not an attractive target for labor migrants from Africa. One high-ranking Israeli official states that Netanyahu wants to publicize in these African states the fact that every individual who is caught infiltrating through the Egyptian border will not be permitted to work in Israel, and will be summarily transferred to a detention facility where he or she would be incarcerated for a period of up to three years.

For more, go to Haaretz.com

A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.