Fence won’t be enough

Op-ed: Limited effort to curb wave of illegal migration to State of Israel doomed for failure

Alex Fishman|Published: 12.31.10 , 00:47

According to a rough estimate, more than 300,000 illegal aliens live in Israel at this time. Some 35,000 of them are migrants who arrived via Sinai – mostly from Sudan and Eritrea - and the flow continues. Yet this is just the beginning.

In January 2011, a much larger wave of Sudanese immigrants will be arriving in Israel, because next week Sudan will be holding a referendum that will split the country into two states: A northern one and a southern one. Sudan’s northern, Muslim section is expected to experience instability to the point of civil war. The implication of this is a large refugee wave that will move north.

European states, which had been flooded by waves of illegal immigrants for years now, have given up. They no longer try to nab and expel the migrants who already integrated into the population. These states can’t even estimate how many such migrants live in their midst. Some five and a half million people live in Madrid today, for example, half of them non-Spaniards, including an unknown number of illegal aliens. The State of Israel is on the way there as well.

A few months ago, the Israeli government got scared by the extent of the problem and rashly undertook the most obvious solutions: Building a fence along parts of the Egypt border and constructing a permanent structure where some 10,000 immigrants can be held. If these solutions are the only thing Israel can do in the face of the immigration wave, we are dealing with an unsophisticated, expensive mode of defense with slim chances of success.

Should there be no bureaucratic, political or budgetary delays, the solution will start bearing fruit within a year to two years. The main idea is to make the State of Israel less attractive in the eyes of the migrants. Israel is supposed to be portrayed as a state that is hard to infiltrate, with the long-term stay in a detention camp preventing migrants from joining the work force.

Use Mossad, Shin Bet

As noted, the Europeans reached the conclusion that the battle against the migrants who already entered their territories is a lost cause, and therefore they focus their struggle against the states the migrants hail from or the countries they cross on the way.

The Italians, for example, secured agreements with Egypt whereby thousands of Egyptians would receive work visas to Italy for a limited number of years, and in return Cairo will fight the phenomenon of illegal aliens who reach Italy through Egyptian ports. The Italians secured similar agreements with the Libyan government. Indeed, the number of African immigrants to Italy dramatically decreased in the past two years.

Other European states also signed agreements with some African states. Here we are seeing economic deals: Money in exchange for stopping the immigrants. Some of these agreements allow for returning the migrants to their homelands.

The State of Israel does not have this luxury, because most states in question are hostile, yet it can utilize the Foreign Ministry vis-à-vis certain states, as well as Mossad and Shin Bet in fighting the smugglers and curbing the smuggling routes. This isn’t a fantasy; it is possible.

Sinai is home to well-known companies that deal with smuggling refugees and make huge sums of money. We need a concerted national effort, and we have enough free ministers in this government who possess vast defense experience and can manage such multidisciplinary national project. It would start with the countries of origin and smugglers, continues with the fence and refugee camp, and end with the police and Interior Ministry that handle the migrants who made it to Israel.

This is the right way to engage in war. Pouring large amounts of money only on a fenced and a camp, without addressing the other components of the problem, is a recipe for failure.