The High Court of Justice has dealt Israeli democracy a grievous blow this week when for the second time in a year it nixed the notion of detaining illegal infiltrators and struck down Knesset legislation on the matter.

The operative upshot is that 2000 detainees will soon be back on the crime-ridden streets of south Tel Aviv – which has been turned into a festering lawless African enclave – exacerbating the already dreadful plight of its Israeli residents.

Worse yet, it means that all Africans have now been told that if they only manage to sneak into the Jewish state, they’d become legally invulnerable despite having willfully broken Israeli law by their illegal entry. This is a potent message.