Friday, May 25, 2012

Israel, land of Jewish refugees, riled by influx of Africans

Violent riots broke out in Tel Aviv last night as a growing tide of African migrants strains Israel's ideal as a land for refugees.

By Joshua Mitnick,?Correspondent / May 24, 2012

An African migrant drives his car with a shattered window after protesters saw him on their way back from a rally against the flow of African migrants into Israel, in Tel Aviv, Israel, Wednesday, May 23. Hundreds of people gathered in south Tel Aviv Wednesday to protest against the government's handling of the flow of African migrants into Israel.

Ariel Schalit/AP

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In an ironic twist, Israel's most tolerant city erupted in violent riots against African migrants last night, eliciting comparisons with "pogrom" attacks on European Jewish communities in the 19th and 20th centuries.

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Over the past five years, tens of thousands of African refugees have poured into Israel, particularly into Tel Aviv's more conservative working-class southern neighborhoods. Their presence has fueled a growing moral and policy dilemma that pits the Jewish collective memory of refugeedom against present day fears for the state?s economy and Jewish majority.

"Here is Israel, a country of refugees who gathered here from all over the world after having suffered for hundreds of years from racist persecution, discrimination, blind hatred, pogroms and death camps," wrote Shai Golden, a columnist in the Maariv newspaper, today. "Along come the members of the third generation after the restoration of this nation and they are amassing now against other refugees because of their difference, because of the color of their skin, because of their own economic and social distress, and they are behaving exactly the way the members of the host countries that hosted their parents and grandparents behaved."

In the working-class Hatikvah district of Tel Aviv last night, some 1,000 Israeli right-wing protesters carried placards calling for the expulsion of the Africans ? a handful of parliamentarians even called them a "cancer" ? and demonstrators smashed the windows of cars with Africans inside, looted stores, and beat others. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today condemned the violence and the remarks of the Knesset members, saying that Israel needs to deal with the problem "responsibly."

The African migrants crossing illegally into Israel from Egypt are seeking refuge from oppression back home but have been left in a legal limbo by Israeli authorities who refrain from deporting them but won?t grant work permits or residency status.

"It's hard for the Israeli government because of our Jewish guilty DNA and considerations of public diplomacy to put illegal Africans on planes," says Mitchell Barak, an Israeli public opinion expert. "There is a debate raging here like ones raging elsewhere, like Mexicans in the US. We want to have compassion, but at a certain point our compassion is detrimental to our own well being due to the high numbers" of African migrants, he says.

The municipality estimates there are 60,000 Africans residing in a city with a population of about 400,000. That statistic, plus the growing calls of south Tel Aviv residents for solutions, has added a new dimension to the debate. Residents of these neighborhoods complain that the government has left them on their own to grapple with a lack of security and a rising crime rate.

In recent weeks, an attack in which two Africans were accused of raping an Israeli minor, as well a pair of vigilante attacks on African residences in south Tel Aviv, has kicked up concern about rising tensions.

The frustration of south Tel Aviv residents is compounded by decades of ethnic bitterness among the working-class Middle Eastern Jews toward the liberal and more elite European Jews, who are seen as sympathizing with the Africans and ignoring the distress of local Israelis. ?

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