Over a hundred people were injured, including some critically, after a violent riot broke out in Tel Aviv, Israel, on Saturday between warring factions of African illegal immigrants.
The two groups of Eritreans, some of which support and some of which oppose the small nation's ruling dictator, clashed in the streets, throwing rocks and beating people with sticks. Several police officers were caught up in the fighting and suffered injuries as well.
The street fights erupted between supporters and critics of the Eritrean regime, with video footage showing them pelting each other and the police with stones and beating opponents with sticks. Several cars and shop fronts were vandalized, windows were smashed, and the event hall for the independence celebration was wrecked.
Reading that paragraph leaves me dumbfounded. Why are there asylum seekers in Israel who support the African dictatorship they supposedly fled from? The world's asylum systems have become so abused that almost nothing makes sense at this point. How many people are actually fleeing from political persecution compared to how many are just taking advantage of other nations in search of economic opportunity? Certainly, when a large group of illegal immigrants start a riot in support of the very thing they claimed to be fleeing from when they arrived, that calls into question their claims of asylum.
That contradiction wasn't lost on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and he's now moving to mass deport those who seem to love the leadership of their home country so much.
“What happened yesterday in Tel Aviv crossed a red line. First of all, I send my wishes for a full recovery to the police officers who were injured. Today, at the special ministerial team that I established, we sought several quick measures, including the deportation of 1,000 supporters of the regime who participated in these disturbances. Of course, they have no claim to refugee status. They support this regime. If they support the regime so much, they would do well to return to their country of origin.”
Netanyahu is now facing claims of racism, but clearly, his plan to remove those who violently rioted is based on concerns of safety and order, not skin color. Nations can not survive lawlessness, no matter what the source is. Asylum seekers who choose to get violent for any reason should have no right to claim asylum, much less those who get violent in support of oppressive dictatorships in their home countries.
If Israel succeeds in deporting the so-called asylum seekers, it would stand as a watershed moment in how first-world countries deal with such situations, drawing a stark contrast with the United States and European nations. And while activists are already claiming it would be illegal under international asylum law, a nation has a superseding right to uphold its laws. Most people would likely agree that these illegal immigrants have forfeited whatever protections they may have garnered.