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ABSTRACT
This article analyzes the discursive process of criminalization of African asylum seekers in Israel. The Israeli case illuminates the way that marginalized social groups are constructed as a criminal threat, thus becoming a focal point of moral panic. Using content analysis, in-depth interviews and observations, we assert that the criminalization of asylum seekers is facilitated by their portrayal as ‘infiltrators’ who are beyond state control. State authorities’ ostensible inability to keep asylum seekers under surveillance is dialectically constructed along two main axes: the private space axis and the public space axis. On the private space axis, the asylum seekers are portrayed as unidentified people living beyond the authorities’ field of vision whose largely unreported criminality is directed against vulnerable asylum seeker women and children in the private sphere. At the same time, asylum seekers are portrayed as a prominent, faceless and animalistic presence in public space, a presence that breaches physical-spatial borders as well as social-cultural boundaries, thereby undermining the social order. Thus, asylum seekers are viewed as conspicuously invisible. This rhetoric connects border violation with criminal activity; emphasizes the pent-up potential for violence by asylum seekers; and blurs the lines between criminal threat and security threat.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes on contributors
Dr. Zvika Orr is a Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Life and Health Sciences at the Jerusalem College of Technology, where he also directs the Flagship Community Engagement Program. In 2019–2020 he is also an invited visiting scholar at Cermes3 research institute in Paris, France. He has published on the human rights movement in Israel, civil society organizations, sociology of health and medicine, professions and professionalism, community-engaged research, and university-community partnerships. Currently, he conducts research on the social and structural determinants of emergency department use and experiences of care. In addition, he studies vernacular conceptions of human rights of people with disabilities in Israel and France. His professional experience includes public policy planning, analysis and evaluation.
Prof. Mimi Ajzenstadt is the President of the Open University of Israel. Her research interests lie in the areas of sociology of law, qualitative research methods and in the areas of social policy and the welfare state. She has examined the establishment and operation of social policy towards women in the Israeli welfare state, and has analyzed the history of the social construction of attitudes towards juvenile delinquency in the Jewish community in pre-State Palestine and in the State of Israel. She studies the experience of incarcerated mothers in the only female prison in Israel and studies the socio-legal construction of foreign workers in various state and NGOs in Israel. Her articles were published in journals such as: British Journal of Criminology, Social Problems, Social Policy, Symbolic Interaction and Qualitative Sociology.
Notes
1 The Prevention of Infiltration Law (Offenses and Judgement) (Amendment Number 3 and Temporary Order), 2012.
2 Ibid., Article 1 (2).
3 According to the non-refoulement principle that has first been laid out in the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees (1951).
4 However, in recent years approximately 800 asylum seekers from Darfur, the Nuba Mountains and the Blue Nile in Sudan have received temporary residency status which allows them to work and have access to health and welfare services. They have received this status on a group basis rather than individual basis so that their asylum applications have not been examined (Berman, Citation2018).
5 High Court of Justice 7146/12, Najat Saraj Adam and Others vs. the Knesset and Others. 16.9.2013.
6 High Court of Justice 8665/14, Teshome Nega Desta and Others vs. the Knesset and Others, 11.8.2015.
7 For in-depth analyses of the legislative process and the judicial decisions see Cohn, Citation2017; Rosenberg Rubins, Citation2019.
8 Cf. the literature regarding the attitudes of Israelis towards migrant workers (e.g., Amit, Achdut, & Achdut, Citation2015; Raijman, Citation2010).
9 Not including Palestinians from the Occupied Territories, international students and tourists with valid visa.
10 Prevention of Infiltration Bill, 2008, Government Bills- 381, 1.4.2008, pp. 548-570. This is a previous version of the law passed in 2012. Though this is the state’s official explanation accompanying this Bill, there may be other reasons for this distinction, such as blatant discrimination based on ethnicity. Given that those who cross the border are overwhelmingly from Africa, it may be difficult to pull apart of the variable of ‘crossing the border’ and ‘from Africa.’
11 Interview, 23.3.2010.
12 Interview, 12.1.2010.
13 Meeting minutes from the Special Committee for Examining the Problem of Foreign Workers in the Knesset (Hereinafter: ‘The Special Committee’), 21.6.2010, 22.11.2010, 5.1.2011; Minutes of a joint tour of Arad by the Internal Affairs and Environment Committee in the Knesset and The Special Committee, 18.2.2010.
14 The Special Committee, 5.1.2011.
15 The Special Committee, 26.1.2010.
16 The Special Committee, 23.5.2011.
17 Ibid.
18 The Special Committee, 19.3.2012.
19 Perhaps as a result of the widespread criticism, a report published by the Knesset Research and Information Center (Moshe & Soffer, Citation2014) presents data regarding offenses committed by asylum seekers in absolute numbers only, without presenting the crime rate per capita and without a comparison to the general crime rate in Israel. The explanation given for this is ‘the absence of an official, continuous database on the foreign population in Israel and its geographic dispersal’ (Moshe & Soffer, Citation2014, p. 4), an explanation similar to the one given by the State Comptroller (Citation2014). The report even goes so far as to explicitly mention that the data should not be used to calculate crime rates.
20 Interview with a UNHCR staff member, 7.3.2010.
21 The Special Committee, 23.5.2011.
22 Ibid.
23 Notably, from the residents’ perspective, the increase in asylum seekers likely leads to an increase in absolute crime (even if not in crime-per-capita) because the neighborhoods become more populated. For Israeli residents, then, the crime-per-capita is not all that matters. However, nuanced statistics are completely hidden from the public (if gathered at all), and that seems to contribute to the moral panic described above.
24 Criminal Case 37941-01-12 (Tel Aviv-Yafo District Court), The State of Israel vs. Cabri Angsum, 30.5.2012.
25 Criminal Case 26657-03-12 (Tel Aviv-Yafo District Court), The State of Israel vs. Yosef (Fadel) Bashir, 19.6.2012. For verdict regarding appeal: Criminal Appeal 5535/12, Angsum Cabri and Yosef (Fadel) Bashir vs. the State of Israel, 1.5.2013.
26 The Special Committee, 19.3.2012.
27 The Special Committee, 26.1.2010.
28 Ibid.
29 Ibid.
30 Ibid.
31 Commander Eran Kamin, The Special Committee, 7.5.2013.
32 Interview, 10.3.2010.
33 Interview, 28.3.2010.
34 The Special Committee, 26.1.2010.
35 Minutes from a Tel Aviv-Yafo municipal administration meeting, 10.7.2011.
36 Minutes from a Knesset plenum, 30.11.2010.
37 The Special Committee, 23.5.2011.
38 Ibid.
39 The Special Committee, 7.5.2013.
40 Minutes of a joint tour of Arad by the Internal Affairs and Environment Committee in the Knesset and the Special Committee, 18.2.2010.
41 Minutes of a Tel Aviv-Yafo municipal administration meeting, 26.12.2010.
42 The Hotline for Refugees and Migrants, http://hotline.org.il/refugees-and-asylum-seekers/
43 Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel who live in a geographical area called ‘the Triangle’, adjacent to the Green Line, a few dozen kilometers from Tel Aviv.