Netanyahu Planned to Hire 'Special Manager' to Deport African Migrants

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had planned to hire journalist and former diplomat Boaz Bismuth as a “special project manager for the expulsion of migrants,” Israeli financial daily Globes reported on Sunday.

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Bismuth is foreign news editor and a senior analyst at the Israeli Hebrew daily Israel Hayom.

According to Globes, Netanyahu planned to hire Bismuth without a tender, paying him 30,000 shekels a month plus foreign-travel expenses as well as bonuses for arranging for the deportation of migrants — 100,000 shekels for the deportation of 500 migrants and 200,000 shekels for 2,500 migrants.

Globes said it had obtained a classified document that described the position as identifying, and negotiating with, states that agreed to accept the deportees. The Accountant-General’s Office and the treasury’s budget department approved these terms.

According to the report, Bismuth had been prepared to accept the job, which in the end did not go through.

After a stint as Yedioth Ahronoth’s Paris correspondent, from 1990-2004, Bismuth served four years as Israeli ambassador to Mauritania. He has been at Israel Hayom since 2008.

Last week the Knesset passed an amendment to the Anti-Infiltration Law that will permit new unauthorized migrants from Africa to be jailed for up to a year without trial.

Two months ago Haaretz reported a plan to offer $5,000 to any African migrant who agreed to leave Israel and promised never to return. Previously, under a “voluntary return” policy the state had offered any migrant who agreed to leave $1,500 and a return flight home.

Hundreds of Africans, mainly from Eritrea and Sudan, accepted the offer and left the country.