Netanyahu: Israel will not be ‘submerged’ by Syrian refugees

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday rejected opposition calls to receive Syrian refugees, the Anadolu Agency reported.

At the opening of the weekly cabinet meeting, he said: “Israel is a small country that lacks demographic and geographic depth to accept refugees.”

Commenting on the issue of the Syrian refugees, Isaac Herzog, the leader of the main Israeli opposition Labor Party, said: “Jews cannot remain indifferent when hundreds of thousands of refugees are seeking safe harbour.”

“Our people … cannot be indifferent in the face of the rampant murders and massacres taking place in Syria.”

“I call on the government of Israel to act towards receiving refugees from the war in Syria, in addition to the humanitarian efforts it is already making,” Herzog said.

Netanyahu said: “Israel is not indifferent to the human tragedy of the refugees from Syria and Africa. We have already devotedly cared for approximately 1,000 wounded people from the fighting in Syria, and we have helped them to rehabilitate their lives.”

But he added: “We will not allow Israel to be submerged by a wave of illegal migrants and terrorist activists.”

It should be noted that among those receiving medical aid from Israel were hundreds of Al-Qaeda fighters, who were treated and sent back to Syria to continue fighting, as admitted by the Israeli army.

On a related note, work on the fence along the Israeli-Jordanian border began yesterday – about a month earlier than planned – and is expected to take a year to complete.

The speed with which the military formulated the plan and with which the government approved it indicates that Israel is eager to completely surround its land borders with physical barriers. The Jordanian border was Israel’s only land border not reinforced by a fence. The new fence will cost an estimated $75 million.