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Israeli politicians are fanning the flames of anti-migrant tension
Seth Freedman
The Guardian
24.5.12

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/may/24/israeli-politicians-anti-migrant

Israeli politicians are fanning the flames of anti-migrant tension
The interior minister`s rabble-rousing rhetoric about African migrants killing the `Zionist dream` must be challenged

`In 1936 my grandfather stood against the fascists in Cable Street. Today I did the same in Tel Aviv.` After five years on frontlines, Nic Schlagman is used to untrammelled hostility towards the African refugees and migrants with whom he works, but he says the situation has never been as critical as it is at present.


On Tuesday afternoon, he walked the few metres from the office of his NGO in downtown Tel Aviv to observe the latest hundreds-strong anti-migrant rally, organised by National Union Knesset member Michael Ben-Ari and supported by a throng of hard-right activists including notorious settler leader Baruch Marzel.

`The climate of fear amongst the African community is at fever pitch,` Schlagman said. `Mothers pulled their kids off the streets in anticipation of the marchers arriving, and everyone`s saying it`s only a matter of time until someone gets killed.` The spectre of such violence is hardly unfounded – a recent spate of arson attacks against a nursery and apartments housing refugees has revealed the level of hate coursing through the veins of Israelis furious at the influx of non-Jewish Africans into their country.


By Wednesday night, `race riots` had engulfed the area, with dozens of migrants reported beaten and shops and homes attacked.


Over recent days, reports of sexual assaults by African youths against Israeli girls has stoked the tension even higher, with interior minister Eli Yishai and prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu going on record with hyper-incendiary statements against the African community. Asserting that the flow of African migrants and asylum seekers `threatens Israel`s social fabric and national security`, Netanyahu promised to `physically remove the infiltrators … crack down and mete out tougher punishments`.


Yishai pulled no punches either with his rabble-rousing rhetoric, branding the vast majority of African migrants as criminals and calling for members of the community to be arrested and deported `without exception`, accusing the migrants of killing the `Zionist dream`.


Schlagman sees a clear link between such top-level incitement and the street-level vitriol being dished out verbally and physically to the vulnerable refugees of south Tel Aviv. `Politicians say these things in the morning, and by the afternoon we get bomb threats made to our office.`


Tuesday`s rally saw Marzel – never one to shy away from stirring up racial tension – lead his acolytes through the refugees` neighbourhood, flying the flags of the banned extremist Kahane Chai group.


`Marzel [and Ben-Ari] are riding a wave of popular anger,` Schlagman commented. `They come to the area to stoke up anti-immigrant sentiment, using the classic narrative of the far right the world over.`


The police provided an armed escort for the marchers as they strode into the migrants` midst, seemingly happy to let the demonstration take place under their noses. `But when a refugee community library applied for a permit to hold a youth art event for this weekend, the police refused them a permit – saying they couldn`t guarantee the safety of the children given the current climate,` says Schlagman.


Every year sees an upsurge in the number of refugees fleeing war-torn Africa to seek asylum in Israel, and the resentment felt by local Israelis increases in lockstep. The reaction of the Israeli public is hardly unique – witness the hostility of Italian, French and Dutch communities to similar situations – but that does not make it any easier to stomach, let alone justify, as some Israeli commentators are trying to do.


Ever ready to scramble aboard a good hardline bandwagon, the Jerusalem Post ran an absurd article claiming `the migrants have worn out their welcome`, as though the Jewish state had originally bent over backwards to accommodate their arrival in previous years.


When I first wrote about the situation four years ago, the Israeli foreign affairs department listed my Comment is free piece on their website as a way of twisting what I wrote to show how `kind` Israel was by comparison to other countries where Sudanese refugees were brutally persecuted. Even though the reality then was nothing like the pro-Israel propagandists claimed, the gloves are truly off now, with plans afoot to build `prison` cities to house all the non-Jewish Africans, and even tighter border fences being erected in the south of the country to keep out new groups seeking refuge in Israel.


Israel, as a signatory to the Geneva conventions, is massively failing in its duties to these refugees, and its politicians are giving succour to the lowest common denominator in Israeli society by promoting such a harsh and uncaring response.


Even sensible plans, such as calls by senior figures in the Israeli police to give migrants work permits to help lower the petty crime rate, are met with barrages of hate from Yishai: `Why should we provide them with jobs? I`m sick of the bleeding hearts … Jobs would settle them here, they`ll make babies, and that offer will only result in hundreds of thousands more coming over here.`


Comments such as his and Netanyahu`s inevitably fan the flames (both metaphorical and physical) that lead to such hostility towards those who deserve the utmost care and kindness in their hour of distress. Israeli opponents of such base racism must act now because, as the savage events of Wednesday night proved, the south Tel Aviv cauldron is starting to bubble over with devastating and disastrous effect.

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