Steven Gaal Posted May 27, 2012 Share Posted May 27, 2012 (edited) Agence France-Presse May 25, 2012 =========================== JERUSALEM // Violent race riots that shook southern Tel Aviv overnight prompted top-level calls yesterday for the immediate arrest and expulsion of tens of thousands of African migrants. "Shock, violence and hatred of foreigners in Tel Aviv" was the headline in the Maariv daily, which described scenes of chaos as demonstrators went on a rampage with sticks and stones, attacking African-run shops and smashing a car driven by two African men. "Blacks out!" shouted demonstrators. Some yelled "Send the Sudanese back to Sudan," several media reports said, as other protesters derided the "bleeding-heart leftists" working to help them. Most reports said the rally turned nasty after the crowd was whipped up by several racist speeches by right-wing MPs, several of them from the ruling Likud party of prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. "The infiltrators are a cancer in our body," Likud MP Miri Regev told the crowd, as fellow MP Danny Danon shouted: "The infiltrators must be expelled from Israel! Expulsion now!" Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said 20 people had been arrested on suspicion of vandalising shops and attacking cars driven by Africans. The police have extended the remand of seven Israeli minors accused of attacking African immigrants earlier this week, he said. Interior ministry statistics show there are more than 60,000 African immigrants living illegally in Israel. Some are asylum seekers fleeing persecution, while others are economic migrants. Almost all of them sneak across the border from the Egyptian Sinai and end up living in the rundown neighbourhoods around Tel Aviv's bus station. The issue of illegal immigration from Africa has thrown into relief sharp divisions within Israel, with many top officials, including Mr Netanyahu, warning that their growing numbers pose a major threat to the security and identity of the country. Interior Minister Eli Yishai demanded yesterday that all illegal African immigrants be put "behind bars" before kicking them all out. "We must put all these infiltrators behind bars in detention and holding centres, then send them home because they come and take work from Israelis," he told army radio. Unless the government took urgent action, there would "soon be half a million to a million, and we cannot lose our country to this," said the minister, who has frequently called for the expulsion of non-Jewish immigrants, sparking cries of racism. Wednesday's nights violence made headlines in all the main Hebrew-language newspapers, as well as on the TV and radio stations, with army radio denouncing it as a "pogrom." In a bid to halt the influx of immigrants from Africa, Israel has been building a 250-kilometre fence along the Egyptian border. It has also built a vast detention centre near the border to house anyone caught crossing the frontier. At the start of the year, Mr Netanyahu said he was planning to visit several African capitals to discuss the issue of immigration, but so far no such plans have been made public. ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo Aliyana Traison is Deputy Editor of Haaretz.com. May 25 /12 (BELOW) =========================================== Israelis must shun racism, not African migrants I am as afraid to live in the Israel of 2012 as any right-minded German should have been in 1938, or as any right-minded American should have been in the 1960s. ========oooooooo=========================== I live in south Tel Aviv. I live in Little Africa. I wouldn't want to live anywhere else in this city. It is an oasis of multi-ethnicity in an otherwise insular and homogenous society, where one is just as likely to hear Tigrinya as Hebrew, where African lilts accent English rather than American or British twangs. In my part of Tel Aviv, some of the veteran residents, themselves long-ostracized by the so-called Israeli elite, have begun to take the law into their own hands to rid the country of African "infiltrators." What began this year as a series of ugly protests that would have made any proponent of human tolerance cringe in discomfort if not outright disgust, has grown increasingly violent over the last few months, culminating this week in a full blown lynch reminiscent of the early days of Nazism and the Civil Rights movements, complete with burning cars and looted stores. It was a pogrom in every sense of the word that we as Jews would understand. The racism that has engulfed Israeli society cannot be ignored, lest we wish to destroy ourselves. History has taught us what becomes of society that dismisses such actions as the work of a marginal handful; what becomes of a society that refuses to recognize hate by its name. Nobody was killed in the May 23 riots in south Tel Aviv. No innocent African refugee or migrant has yet been killed in Tel Aviv by an Israeli civilian, but how are we to prevent that nightmare from becoming a reality? The fabric of Israeli society is woven of vast and diverse ethnic groups, descendants of all corners of the world. The language of Israeli society is accented by dozens of dialects, accents, historical memory. Israeli society is by nature the ingathering of the exiles, a microcosm of multiculturalism within a single people. But to Israeli society, a wider sense of multiculturalism - outside of Jewish culture - is a foreign concept. Non-Jews in Israel have suffered from discrimination since the founding of the country. And while it may seem obvious by now that Jews comes in all shapes and colors, in practice, many citizens of the Jewish state have yet to accept that. When the first Jews from Arab nations began trickling into Israel, they were momentarily embraced as long-lost Jewish brothers, and then promptly disregarded as primitive low-class refugees. When the first Ethiopians began arriving in Israel, they were momentarily embraced as long-lost Jewish brothers, and then promptly shunted into the fringes of society, the new target of racism. When the Soviet "refuseniks" were trapped behind the Iron Curtain, they were momentarily embraced as long-lost Jewish brothers, but once they arrived found themselves fighting to belong. I am not afraid to live alone in my neighborhood. When I came to Tel Aviv seven years ago, well before the migrants and refugees began moving en masse in to this neighborhood, I was afraid to walk these streets. It was a street filled with drunks and addicts, with dodgy characters, where just because of my size and gender, I was an immediate and natural target. Seven years later, the real-estate inflation in the north of the city has given legitimacy to the street where I now live. Now there are cafes, art galleries, sushi bars and a music school, alongside Eritrean restaurants and stores. Now my street it is livable. Now there are young people, families – and yes, many of them are black. My street feels safe. It is home. I am not afraid to walk alone down the street at night. I am afraid, however, to live alone in a hateful society. I am afraid to live alone in a country where my government supports discrimination and racism. I am afraid to live in a state founded precisely as a refuge for the survivors of extermination, which now condones the "distancing" of anyone who is not the same: anyone who is not Jewish; anyone whose skin is darker; anyone who has no other home, no other refuge, no other place to have an income and a comfortable life. I am as afraid to live in the Israel of 2012 as any right-minded German should have been in 1938, or as any right-minded American should have been in the 1960s. I am afraid that the hate of a marginal handful, encouraged by lawmakers and policy, will be accepted as the norm in this society so fearful of the other. I am afraid what will happen if more people do not speak out against this racism. I am afraid that it may be too late. ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo RELATED =========== http://www.haaretz.c...n-teen-1.432248 Edited May 27, 2012 by Steven Gaal Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steven Gaal Posted June 3, 2012 Author Share Posted June 3, 2012 /////////// RELATED STORY ////////// UNITED NATION FUNDS IMMIGRATION INTO ISRAEL ------------------------------------------------------------------- In a highly disturbing piece of news over at Kr8 Israeli Patriot, the online magazine reports that the Obama administration is providing funds to Israel (via the UN) for every illegal African immigrant that enters the Jewish state -------------------------------- FROM Jewish Defence League UK http://www.jdl-uk.org/2012/05/obamas-pet-project-illegal-immigration.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steven Gaal Posted June 6, 2012 Author Share Posted June 6, 2012 ///// UPDATE WITH PHOTOS ///// Israel govt calls for mass deportation of African immigrants (PHOTOS) http://www.rt.com/news/israel-immigrants-deport-mass-907/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steven Gaal Posted June 17, 2012 Author Share Posted June 17, 2012 RELATED update /// http://uk.news.yahoo.com/israel-send-first-plane-sudanese-back-home-161003654.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Len Colby Posted June 20, 2012 Share Posted June 20, 2012 RELATED update /// http://uk.news.yahoo...-161003654.html Israel is deporting illegal immigrants how fascist! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steven Gaal Posted June 20, 2012 Author Share Posted June 20, 2012 (edited) Please direct your coments to,Aliyana Traison who is Deputy Editor of Haaretz.com.. ================ related // http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/06/23/israeli-protesters-fight-cops-over-alleged-police-brutality/ Edited June 24, 2012 by Steven Gaal Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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