The Union of Securitisation and Demography: Immigration Detention in Israel

Abstract

This chapter sets its analysis of the historical and contemporary detention of asylum seekers in Israel against a wider context of that country's national immigration policy. The chapter demonstrates that Israel perceives asylum seekers as a threat to its self-defined Jewish character. Its twofold conclusion argues that the government therefore subjects asylum seekers to harsh detention practices that afford detainees limited procedural guarantees, and that these procedures cut against the justification for detention as a measure to facilitate deportation.

Keywords: Immigration detention, Israel, Asylum-Seekers, Infiltrators, 1951 Convention