A Tel Aviv rally demanding the expulsion of all non-Jewish African people verbally and physically attacks an Ethiopian Jewish Israeli man after he asks the protestors to clarify who it is they are calling for to be expelled from the country. (Video: Shot and edited by David Sheen)
Isabel Kershner has filed the first New York Times report on the wave of anti-African protests and violence that has continued in Israel over the past few weeks. She doesn’t seem to capture what is shown above:
The issue has become an explosive one in Israel. Many African migrants have settled in poor areas of south Tel Aviv and in the southern border town of Eilat, and have met increasing resentment.
Residents of south Tel Aviv complain of rising crime in migrant areas, and have staged noisy demonstrations, egged on by right-wing politicians and activists. At a demonstration in the Shapira Quarter last week, rightists handed out leaflets offering self-defense courses, and protesters chanted, “The people want the Sudanese deported,” holding placards with slogans like, “This is not racism, this is survival.”
Some stores run by African migrants were damaged and looted last month.
“It was better in Sudan,” said Ibrahim Abdullah, 25, an asylum seeker who was idling on the grass in a south Tel Aviv park last week. Mr. Abdullah said that he worked now and again in building, but that he had no money and relied on handouts for food.
Israel’s interior minister, Eli Yishai of the ultra-Orthodox Shas Party, was quoted on Friday as saying that “the infiltrators, along with the Palestinians, will quickly bring us to the end of the Zionist dream.” Noting that Israel had its own health and welfare issues, he said, “We don’t need to import more problems from Africa.”
“Most of those people arriving here are Muslims who think the country doesn’t belong to us, the white man,” Mr. Yishai said in an interview with the newspaper Maariv.
Even so, there has been emotional debate here about the obligations of a country like Israel, largely founded by refugees. While opponents of the African influx say they worry about Israel’s future as a state with a Jewish majority, other Israelis have volunteered to help the asylum seekers and say that Israel, of all places, should show compassion toward those fleeing hardship.
Friends who have spent a great deal of time in Israel have said racism is rampant in Israel. They have witnessed settlers spitting on Palestinian children many times, Israeli soldiers treating Palestinian people with such disrespect that they could barely believe their eyes and ears. This is another example of that “rampant racism”
I wonder if those would be shops run by Falasha Jews from Ethiopia, quite legally in Israel.
Well Isabel, by including the whole ‘us, the white man’ comment did at least cover to some extent the hyperracist language spewing out of the mouths of the Israeli political establishment.
But the last line is simply a pie in the sky comment. The support for indefiniate detention and outright ethnic cleansing of these war refugees is massive. Even the ‘left'(yes I know, it’s a joke) agrees.
The people who have expressed worries are the isolated ‘peace camp’ who comprise… 5 % of the electorate? If even that.
But I guess maybe Isabel can’t quite bring herself to acknowledge even that, because it would shatter her delusions.
This article in today’s Guardian sets out the racist violence more explicitly:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jun/06/israel-rightwing-europeans-migration-toxic
As an aside, it’s interesting to note the flood of pro-Israeli comments within the first thirty minutes of its publication – GIYUS or “the son of GIYUS” is still well-oiled and functioning.
“South African Jewish or not?” I was thinking the same thing but then they are “white” and European , so the “right color”.