AH, THE RACIAL HYGIENE TROPE...:

Israel faces a demographic threat to the Jewish state from its fast-growing Arab population, even without a deluge of African refugees with no religious ties or political loyalties to the country. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has warned that "60,000 infiltrators are liable to become 600,000 and lead to the eradication of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state."

Infiltrators is an unsettling word but mild compared to others' rhetoric. Knesset member Miri Regev of Netanyahu's Likud Party termed the Africans a "cancer in our body" -- and, although she later apologized, a poll found 52 percent of Jewish Israelis agreeing with that ugly sentiment.

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