Shades of Birmingham– Independence Day attacks on African refugees in South Tel Aviv

by on April 27, 2012 7
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Mya Guarnieri reports at +972:

South Tel Aviv’s African community was hit by five Molotov cocktails last night, as Israelis wrapped up their Yom Haatzmaut (Independence Day) celebrations. Four of the Molotov cocktails were thrown into apartments that are home to Africans; one was lobbed into a kindergarten. No injuries were reported.

Police are investigating the incidents that activists call a “coordinated” attack. The African community in Israel has been the target of numerous acts of violence in the past. In January of 2011, for example, a burning tire was thrown into the apartment five Sudanese refugees shared in Ashdod. The men suffered from smoke inhalation and two were hospitalized.

Also in January of 2011, three teenage girls – the Israeli-born, Hebrew-speaking daughters of African migrant workers – were beaten by a group of Jewish teenagers. The attackers, one of whom was armed with a knife, allegedly called them “dirty niggers.” One of the girls needed medical treatment for her injuries.

Again I would insist that Americans have struggled through issues like this, and so who are we as Americans to suspend our values for the sake of an ethnocracy? Well, when religion enters the picture, all bets are off. Peter Beinart's book ends with a line about God: "I am too small for the greatness of the mercy which God has shown us." And Leonard Fein's Huffington Post stable teems with ethnocentrism. Rabbi Eric Yoffie: "is important to emphasize that Zionism does not see the Jewish state as "'a state of all its citizens.'" Yes, that sort of policy breeds racism. Been there, done that.

About Philip Weiss

Philip Weiss is Founder and Co-Editor of Mondoweiss.net.
Posted in American Jewish Community, Israel Lobby, Israel/Palestine, US Policy in the Middle East, US Politics

{ 7 comments... read them below or add one }

  1. seafoid says:
    April 27, 2012 at 10:07 am

    I noticed that in ha’aretz. Israel is turning really nasty. The rot starts at the top with the oligarchs.

    Imagine what Israel will be like by 2022 on current trends.

  2. seafoid says:
    April 27, 2012 at 10:21 am

    Another disturbing news item from Tel Aviv

    link to haaretz.com

  3. marc b. says:
    April 27, 2012 at 10:54 am

    one [molotov cocktail] was lobbed into a kindergarten.

    shades of birmingham? how about shades of toulouse?

  4. Shmuel says:
    April 27, 2012 at 11:50 am

    As long as the police protected “the public” from those dangerous Zochrot people and their nefarious reading.

  5. kma says:
    April 27, 2012 at 11:55 am

    worse than Toulouse because Israel’s very mission statement is to rid the country of Arabs to save its identity as a single ethnicity. Anders Breivik’s goals for Norway are the same, and Israel’s marketing machine in the US is teaching our kids to hate with identical islamophobic language.

  6. DICKERSON3870 says:
    April 27, 2012 at 3:40 pm

    RE: “Shades of Birmingham– Independence Day attacks on African refugees in South Tel Aviv” ~ Weiss

    MY COMMENT: You’re not just whistling Dixie, Phil!

    FOR INSTANCE – WATCH: Israeli teens brandish racism after Palestinian children die, by Ami Kaufman, +972 Magazine, 4/02/12
    Israeli youth today has no fear of saying what it really thinks about Arabs. The youth featured in the video below are not only are they happy when children die, but one girl said she has no problem with taking a weapon and killing innocent Arabs

    February 16, 2012. A bus full of kids north of Jerusalem hits a truck and turns over. Kids are burned to death in the fiery crash.
    As the reports start to surface, so does the ugly Israeli. On Facebook, on the news sites. In the street. You can’t miss it. First it starts with an exhale of relief that they aren’t Jewish. Next comes the sorrow that more of
    them weren’t killed.
    “Sure,” you say, “but these don’t represent Israeli society.”
    Well, I beg to differ. I think the teenagers shown in the Channel 10 magazine item below (my translation) are actually quite representative of your average Israeli teenager. Nothing scientific on my part. Not backing it up with data, so you can go ahead and take a jab at me for that. Just backing it up with the daily doses of racism I see every day when I enter my social media, my news sites, my streets, my supermarkets, my clinics, my kids’ ballet classes, my work place. So many places. Those are my sources.
    Sources of disgust.

    VIDEO (14:49) - link to 972mag.com