A. In a word, international pressure. Netanyahu is famous for bending his most cherished principles under pressure. In this case, he made a praiseworthy decision.

The diplomatic pressure on the prime minister was primarily American and European, including the threat of an international investigation of the recent flotilla fiasco that would dwarf the highly constrained investigating committee Netanyahu appointed last week. The material pressure was Turkish: last week, the Turkish government announced plans to cancel billions of dollars worth of arms deals with Israel, yet held back from actually committing to cancellation.

And then there was the international pressure, in the form of additional aid flotillas heading toward Gaza and challenging Israel's continued resolve to intercept them. The ship likely to sail soonest is expected to carry women activists from Lebanon. It could be followed by ships en route from Iran that are expected to traverse the Suez Canal. By opening the Gaza land passages to free entry of goods, the Netanyahu government's efforts to intercept the flotillas will be seen as far more legitimate--if, indeed, the ending of its economic warfare against 1.5 million Gazans doesn't simply lead to their cancellation.  

Netanyahu's decision follows on several modest and badly needed international public diplomacy achievements for Israel during the past week: a dramatic op-ed of support from former Spanish prime minister Ansar, new video-clips portraying the extremist nature of the Turkish flotilla organizers, reports of Ankara's own fighting against Kurds in Iraq, even attacks on the Erdogan government from within Turkey. 

There is also evidence that Netanyahu himself realized the counterproductive nature of the Israeli economic blockade even before the flotilla event: it portrayed Israel as a massive violator of human rights; it was totally ineffectual in pressuring Hamas into giving up Gilad Shalit; and it punished and impoverished all Gazans, including many moderates, while empowering Hamas. Had he cancelled it a month ago, the Israeli prime minister could have reaped diplomatic benefits for Israel and grasped the initiative in Israeli-Palestinian relations. Now he--and we--can only suffer the negative ramifications.

A. Both Hamas and Turkey's PM Erdogan can, in effect, declare victory. Hamas gave up nothing in return for Israel lifting the boycott. Erdogan can credit the flotilla, and in general his aggressive leadership within the Arab and Muslim worlds on this issue.

Because Hamas gains, the moderate West Bank-based PLO and Palestinian Authority are liable to lose prestige in the eyes of the Palestinian public. After all, the use of force and pressure has triumphed over Israel. It is Hamas that advocates force, whereas the PLO and PA advocate negotiation.

Here we cannot dismiss the possibility that Netanyahu, recognizing that his hawkish demands render very unlikely an American-brokered final status agreement with the PLO, deliberately took a step that strengthens Hamas, weakens the Palestinian moderate position, and solidifies the division of Palestinian territory between two separate entities and ideological movements. The test of this thesis will be: whom does Netanyahu now feel obliged to compensate? Does he compensate his right-wing supporters by offering concessions to their demands, such as--as of September when the freeze ends--renewing settlement construction? Or does he compensate the PLO and PA with, say, territorial or security gestures, in order to restore their prestige in the face of a Hamas challenge?

One additional test of Netanyahu's intentions will be his readiness to renew exports from Gaza via Israel to the West Bank and the rest of the world. In the past, Israel even marketed Gazan strawberries and flowers in Europe, and Israeli industrialists outsourced textile work to factories in Gaza. The announcement from the Prime Minister's Office on Sunday said nothing about exports; only imports. Renewal of exports would benefit the Gazan middle class and farmers, both of whom tended toward political moderation in the past.

A. Let's leave aside the Palestinian refugee issue, nearly five million strong, whose solution is a function of a successful peace process. At least for now, it is not on the agenda. Nor are there currently any pressing Jewish refugee issues. 

Nevertheless, Israel does confront a serious refugee problem. About 1,000 Africans, mostly from Sudan (mainly Darfur) and Eritrea, cross into the Negev from Egyptian Sinai every month. UNHCR officials assert that some 80 percent are refugees who by international law cannot be deported. And the numbers are growing. 

As Israel's African refugee problem has worsened over the past three years, controversy has increased regarding both the numbers and the solutions. The IDF, which intercepts illegal entrants as they cross the Egyptian border, argues that far fewer than 80 percent are legitimate refugees and that most are simply migrants looking for work. It has also estimated that there are as many as another million African migrants and refugees in Sinai trying to enter Israel, whereas UN sources assert the number of potential entrants does not exceed 20,000. 

Egypt, saddled with hundreds of thousands of African migrants and refugees, mainly in Cairo, has in recent months begun shooting at those who try to cross from Sinai to the Negev. Egypt also forcibly repatriates some African migrants to their countries of origin, often endangering their lives. For its part, Israel has reached agreement with Egypt that it can send illegal entrants back to that country within the first 24 hours of their stay in Israel; the UN argues that this endangers their lives.

Alongside the Law of Return regulating Jewish migration to Israel, the state in fact has no official immigration policy regarding non-Jews. Until recently, no one in Israel thought of the country, with all its security problems, as a potential haven for those fleeing oppression or even as a magnet for migrating labor in the classic European or American "north-south" sense. Yet that is precisely what has emerged.

Lately, High Court decisions, ad hoc Knesset legislation and Interior Ministry regulations have sought to determine the fate of migrant workers and their children who have been in the country for years. The children, often from countries in Africa and South and Central America, in many cases speak Hebrew as a native language, call Israel home and look forward to IDF service. Their status has been a source of tension between ultra orthodox political parties that control the Interior Ministry and at times display openly racist attitudes, and secular human rights advocates and the liberal courts. 

Then there are those many veteran Israelis who were themselves refugees and insist the country adopt an enlightened approach to anyone claiming a safe haven in Israel. On the other hand, security officials legitimately fear that illegal migration will be exploited by terrorist organizations to infiltrate the country, and economists and the police point out that the country is already overflowing with unemployed illegals. 

The government and the IDF have set up reception camps for the newcomers; in recent months these have become seriously overcrowded. And Israel's procedures for processing those claiming to be refugees are woefully inadequate. By late 2009, Israel had officially recognized the refugee status of only 170 illegal entrants; about 100 had, with UN help, moved on to Canada. In parallel, a controversial Immigration Police has been charged with apprehending and expelling tens of thousands of illegal workers, most of whom have no claim whatsoever to refugee status.

The determination of whether someone is a legitimate refugee or not is sometimes indeed not simple. A few years ago, I talked with a number of Sudanese who had recently entered Israel. Each told the exact same story of marauding Janjaweed militia that overran his village in Darfur, murdered his mother and raped his sister while he fled to the hills, then to Khartoum, Egypt and finally Israel. The repetition of identical details was disconcerting; the stories are impossible to verify. Yet we know that such atrocities did indeed take place. . . . 

In January, PM Binyamin Netanyahu approved the phased construction of a proper security fence along the Negev-Sinai border. The current fence is mainly a knee-high marker. But so far, in view of the country's many conflicting security priorities, little progress has been made toward building a real one. Perhaps most strikingly, Netanyahu rationalized his fence plan not on the basis of security against terrorism; rather, "the objective is to ensure the state of Israel's Jewish and democratic character. . . we'll remain open to genuine refugees, but we won't permit tens of thousands of illegal workers to flood the country. . . . This is both a social problem and another aspect of Israel as a Jewish country."

A noble sentiment. Pity Netanyahu doesn't invoke the need to preserve Israel as a Jewish state when it comes to maintaining and expanding settlements in areas of the West Bank that are heavily populated by Palestinian Arabs.