Conflicting Imaginaries of the Border: The Construction of African Asylum Seekers in the Israeli Political Discourse

Between 2005 and 2013, around 50,000 migrants from Sudan and Eritrea crossed the Egyptian border to seek refuge in Israel. While some of them were originally perceived as survivors of genocide entitled to claim asylum, border crossing has quickly become an object of concern and technologies obstructing it have been deployed (including a 250 kilometer-long fence, detention centers, and criminalization of unauthorized border crossing). Against this backdrop, this article analyzes the competing political narratives that have underpinned these policies of containment and bordering towards African migrants and asylum seekers. Based on the study of political debates, political speeches, and several months of fieldwork, it investigates the discursive construction of these newcomers’ entry into the territory, focusing on the role of the border in this construction. The article shows that the dominant political narrative has resorted to securitizing discursive strategies involving the notions of threat, flood, and crime which have enabled the formulation of exclusionary policies framed as tools of border and boundaries control and protection. The analysis further reveals that a more marginal counter-narrative has attempted to challenge the dominant securitizing strategies but has failed to articulate an effective alternative discourse.